Product Description: Buffy Summers is not like other girls. She's been chosen to save the world from the vampire plague. And balancing the occult with high school is no easy task -- especially when two evil sisters decide to hold a demonic brawl in your backyard and they want to use your boyfriend (a vampire himself) as one of the contestants. That can make worrying about what you're going to wear to the prom seem pretty unimportant.
There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between this volume and the "Origin" comic that the other reviews cover (namely: this one is terrible) What a combination.
Bad art plus bad dialog plus completely unnecessary characters. (Giles' niece comes to Sunnydale! She's cute and flirts with Xander but the writer seems to forget she's there sometimes, and other times makes her more important than Buffy.)
The art is pretty terrible- everyone always looks like they're smiling, even when saying things like "Oh god! There are vampires!" etc.
The plot is convoluted at best and this serves no purpose in any story line. This is actually embarassing to have associated with the generally good Buffy comics.
Graphic SF Reader This is Buffy's story in Los Angeles. A mostly vapid high school girl, she runs into Merrick, and he explains the whole vampire situation.
When Lothos the old flouncy vamp turns up, quite a few people start dying, or becoming not-living. This includes one of her friends.
It takes a fairly convincing act of arson to get rid of 'em.
Pass On This One, Buy the Omnibus Instead
This, it seems, is just what a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer would want to read. It's a faithful adaptation of Joss Whedon's original script for the "Buffy" movie that, to be kind, was ruined by the director and Donald Sutherland. One would think that this version of Buff's origin would be foolproof. It depicts Buffy as Sarah Michelle Gellar, Merrick as the show's version, not the movie's, AND it follows Whedon's script closely. However, not all is well with this trade paperback.
One, the most obvious problem is length. What should've been a six issue mini series was squeezed into three, which beat the pacing black and blue and hindered the amount of involvement we readers could get in the story. Lothos, instead of the looming threat he should've been, is nothing more than a run of the mill vamp to us, as he is never fleshed out to be more than that. Another problem is the depiction of the vampires here. The story is supposed to be updated here to be consistent with the Buffy-television universe, but many of the vampires are actually colored green. Yes, GREEN. As in blue mixed with yellow. Another species of vampires are these bat-like horned creatures that we never meet in the show who are also green. It would be great if they were distinguished to be DEMONS, not vamps, but within this short series, they're referred to as vampires and are also killed by stakes.
I can't say the comic didn't hold my interest though. The Buffy/Merrick relationship, as different as it was from Buffy/Giles, was one of the most captivating aspects of "The Origin." I do wish it had the chance to develop over a longer miniseries, but what was done here was executed nicely. The climax, Pike's allure, and Buffy's alienation from her friends also made for good reading, though the Buffy/Pike relationship developed way too quickly for me.
I'd recommend passing on "Buffy: The Origin" for now. If you just by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume One", you can find "The Origin" collected in there, with many other Buffy miniseries for a much cheaper price.
5/10
Buffy gets a makeover Once thought to be legends only, they walk among us still, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the light of day. They were once ordinary people, someone you might see on the street, but something ... changed. Yes, they are fans of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the movie, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the long-running television series. Rarer even than those who claim to like both versions of M*A*S*H, these dual-natured Buffyites have longed wrestled with the inconsistencies that exist between the two. Writers Christopher Golden and Daniel Brereton, with the aid of artist Joe Bennett, decided to solve that problem in the comics.
The popular Dark Horse series of Buffy books proved the perfect place to build a bridge between Los Angeles and Sunnydale. Working with creator Joss Whedon's original movie screenplay, Golden and Brereton wrote a version of the movie that takes the inconsistencies into account: there are now many Watchers, instead of just one; vampires put their evil faces on when attacking and go *poof* into dust when they are staked; and Buffy looks more like Sarah Michelle Gellar than Kristy Swanson. Oh, and she finally gets to burn down her high school gym.
Fans of the movie will recognize many of the memorable lines -- "Does Elvis talk to you? Tell you to do things? Do you see spots?" -- but may be disappointed at just how much of the story was cut out. At a mere 80 pages, "The Origin" doesn't have room for basketball games, "retro" jackets and little kittens to snack on. Maybe it should have been a little longer. Otherwise, it does a good job of carrying the tone of the movie; Buffy is not yet so serious or angst-ridden as she will become in the series, retaining her So-Cal attitude and humor.
There are downsides, certainly: the Watcher Merrick, unfortunately, loses the wonderful eccentricity that Donald Sutherland brought to the role; Luke Perry's reformed stoner Pike never gets fully developed; and vampire minion Amilyn lacks the brilliant comedic flair of Paul Reubens. But I guess those are sacrifices we must make so that Buffy has room for a complete retrofit.
by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor
Rushed While the idea for this comic is brilliant it lacks clarity. The story was rushed and glossed over. I feel that if I wasn't already familiar with the story of the film that I could not have followed it. I was much releived when I found that while based on Joss Whedon's original screen play this comic was not actually done by him. Whedon has shown a remarkable talent in the feild of comics so far. (see Fray and Astonishing X-Men) So I suggest buying this comic only if you are as die-hard a Buffy fan as I am, in order to compleate your collection.
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