Review – Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 10 #16

Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Rebekah Isaacs
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: 17 June 2015

It’s Crossover time! Yep, you read it right, everyone’s favourite brooding, tall, dark, and handsome is back. Angel’s appearance in the book comes straight of the back of the last issue with the scooby gang needing help to fight Archaeus after getting their asses handed to them last time. There’s a few moments in the issue that didn’t sit right with me and maybe it’s because I’m out of touch, but Angel smiling just didn’t seem right. I mean I’m sure it’s happened, and I know David Boreanaz is a smiley person in real life, but seeing Angel do it? I felt dirty. Once again, the characterisation of the issue is spot on, between Spike snapping whenever dark and brood is mentioned, to the way that the demon is dispatched at the end (oh please, it’s not a spoiler, you all knew it was coming) even if it did seem a bit cheap. The overreaching story of the season seems to be coming together nicely though, with the big bad established and the team pulling together, so it’s only a matter of time before someone dies, right?

Rebekah Issacs continues to shine on the book, apart from aforementioned creepy smiling. With the action heating up it was a really well choreographed scene and a nice touch having the bad of the issue being literally all spikes and teeth. SQT might be my favourite onomatopoeic word now as well. It’s almost a squelch, but kind of a snikt at the same time?

The story itself seems to be going at a slower pace than i would have expected or maybe wanted, but the journey the characters are going on, and have been going on under Gage’s pen has been more rewarding than i could have hoped it to be. The gang is back together, even if some of them are missing bits, the wrong ones are dating and one of them is a child again, but it’s like getting back in touch with an old friend you haven’t seen for years and catching up every month. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?

4/5

Chris_Avatar The writer of this piece was: Chris Bennett
Article: And Now For Something Completely Different
You can also find Chris on Twitter.