Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

With the popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer assured, there really should have no question that the equally admired series of graphic novels in collected form would continue.

Volume Three of the omnibus editions though would take the wise-cracking Vampire Slayer from the Californian setting of Sunnydale catch straight up with the television series and make the Slayer part of that recognisable group ‘The Scooby Gang’ and focus on the attention of the growing friendship between Buffy Summers, Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, the sometimes introverted, sometimes female geek fest but loyal and as brave Willow Rosenberg and her watcher Giles. It is this focus that makes Volume Three such an interesting read and makes the hard work that Dark House put in the previous two volumes even more enjoyable and darkly entertaining.

The success of this particular edition and collection of stories is not only down to the excellent art work by such luminaries as Guy Major, and Hector Gomez on inks and penciling but also some great scripts by Andi Watson (Wu Tang Fang, The Final Cut and New Kid on The Block) and Christopher Golden (Dance With Me, Food Chain and The Latest Craze) but the emergence of Willow as a character who could hold her own in the world of magic, weird Hellmouth disturbances and being against the grain of High School social peer pressure. It is the acting ability of Alyson Hannigan that propels her into the imagination of many who followed the television series and the script and loving artwork that continue this admiration into the world of the graphic novel.

There are some magical moments to be found within the text of the third omnibus, the relationship between Buffy and her friends, the growing comfortable feel of a series captured so well in art form and the very confident scripts by the two aforementioned writers is part of the equation but it could not have been possible without the backing of the people behind the television series, to have Joss Whedon’s personal stamp of approval at every step must have been one that thrilled everyone at Dark Horse, especially the Editor Scott Allie.

If the first two omnibus series were greeted with excitement and warmth, then the third collection of stories must have been the moment when they came of age.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Omnibus Volume Three is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street.

Ian D. Hall