Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

The final episode of the television spectacular Buffy the Vampire Slayer thankfully didn’t see the end of the adventures of the woman who had captivated an entire generation and set a standard that many have tried to emulate but few have actually attained.

The graphic novels, the comics, the sometimes endless merchandise that always follows in the wake of a successful series or phenomenon all continued even after the final credit had long since departed and viewers were left wondering what would follow in the same genre. The fact that nothing has ever touched the audience arguably in the same way since is a glowing testimony to the skill of Joss Whedon and his team of script writers and of course the superb actors, including Sarah Michelle Geller, the superb Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon and Anthony Stuart Head, that made the series unrestricted, a boon in the days of bland television that was awash, with just a couple of notable exceptions was as featureless as the dark side of the moon on the day when all the lights go out.

Occasionally though when the show comes to its natural end, the tie-ins continue and in the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the machine kept rolling, the vampires and demons kept turning up and the universe kept believing. Dark Horse, possibly the greatest comic book/graphic novel adaptors of television programmes, retained the unique position to produce the stories for Joss Whedon’s creation and with the art work by the combined efforts of Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens and Dave Stewart, Buffy continued to draw breath and keep being a great Feminist icon.

The only problem is that sometimes the change that occurs in between writers, those have established the comic or graphic novel will end up on other projects or not required and there is a noticeable difference to what has been before to the new generation that feels initially clumsy, slightly awkward ass if meeting an much loved Ex in the arms of their new partner who dated them long before you got together. Whilst it was right to continue with Buffy The Vampire Slayer into an eighth series, gone is the long format, the artists and writers who made all the previous works so enjoyable left behind and the only continuality being in the Editor Scott Alie and it does show in The Long Way Home.

This being Joss Whedon, the man who put air into the lungs of Buffy Summers, you know it will turn out great, you hope that will be the case, as the series continues. It was too important a graphic novel to millions to let it go the way of a vampire with a crush on daylight.    

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home is available to purchase from Worlds Apart, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall