Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Georges Jeanty
Colourist: Dan Jackson
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99
Dark Horse Comics
In Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4, Buffy, Willow and Spike are now living in the Safe Zone (now there’s a misnomer if ever I heard one) after a supernatural attack devastated San Francisco and all supernatural beings are being rounded up as a result for the good of all. Now where have we heard that one before?
The Safe Zone in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4, is kind of like Ibiza on a Saturday night but with uglier inhabitants and more blood. Although come to think of it… Anyway. Spike is feeling peckish as the blood rations aren’t up to scratch and the only way to keep him on the straight and narrow is to snack on his best gal Buffy. No problem, until Buffy gets into a fight and is almost too weak to kick scaly butt. Willow is making friends (nudge, nudge) and on the outside, Xander is getting into fights for defending wiccans.
Just another day in the Buffyverse of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4. Misunderstood vampire tales have always been an allegory for our own troubled world and the need for more multi-cultural understanding and Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4 fits right into the same mould that birthed another publisher’s mutant mythology to such commercial and creative effect.
Moving away from its TV roots to embrace larger concepts is a bold move but one that Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4 handles with some aplomb as tempers in the Safe Zone fray beyond breaking point. Of course, Buffy wouldn’t be Buffy if she didn’t have an answer to the problem, apart from wholesale monster bashing that is, which she also accomplishes with her usual elan.
Exactly what that answer is in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #4, takes everyone by surprise but sets the scene for more Safe Zone mayhem in the issues to come. Enjoyable though this interlude is, we all know it’s only a matter of time before the Scooby Gang is reunited on the outside, but until then, enjoy the action with more monsters than you can shake a pentagram at.
Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker