Wednesday 12 June 2013

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 3: Guarded by Joss Whedon / Andrew Chambliss / Georges Jeanty etc

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 Volume 3: Guarded (2013) (Dark Horse)
Andrew Chambliss (script), Jane Espenson (script), Drew Z. Greenberg (script), Georges Jeanty (art), Joss Whedon (creator) etc
Grade: C+
Genre: Buffy / graphic novel
Source: NetGalley
Buffy Season 9: (1) Freefall, (2) On Your Own, (3) Guarded 

The destruction of the Seed destroyed all magic. Suddenly, hundreds of Slayers were left defunct as the world no longer needed their help. To add insult to injury, vampires are now everyone’s best friend, largely thanks to Harmony’s glamorous reality television show. As might be expected, slayers are finding it difficult to adapt to this new life, and none more so than Buffy, the woman responsible.

Kennedy and her team have taken their shared plight and found an innovative solution. She’s found a way for Slayers to continue to serve and protect: as private bodyguards. For those that can afford it, they’ve got themselves the ultimate protection – and paying through their nose for the privilege. Buffy’s first charge is a high-profile tech entrepreneur, who is hiding from an enemy that Buffy is all too familiar with …



Parts four and five take us to a small town who is not unaffected by the Zompire epidemic spreading its way across the country. These Zompires are – you guessed it – as powerful as zombies and vampires combined, and the disease doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. We watch as the young Billy, in his search for self-discovery, realises that he has the potential and strength to fight back where others dare not …


This was a bit meh. More than a bit meh, if I’m really honest, and that’s pretty upsetting. At the moment, all the arcs seem completely unconnected and while I know that that isn’t the case, I’m finding it annoying that the overarching theme/message/plot hasn’t been revealed yet and if it has, then I’m annoyed that I haven’t been able to see it.

Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, the Buffy/Billy stories complimented each other very well. They’re both exploring different options in their life after some major event/upheaval and their respective ways of dealing with their situations contrast nicely. Buffy tries to carry on business-as-usual, with terrible results. Billy, on the other hand, embraces this new direction and only flourishes. Unlike Buffy, he has the youth and inexperience that allows him to take chances and make mistakes for the overall learning experience.

The Billy story was cute. Where you’ve got the majority of the general public regarding Slayers with disdain, here there’s an outsider determined to make his mark and join in in the fight against evil, and not doing a bad job of it. With the way that those two episodes finished, I hope that we’ll be seeing Billy again.

So I read somewhere that Buffy: Season 9 will be finished at some point this year, but the prospect of spoilers freaked me out so much that I didn't carry on reading to find out when that will be and how many volumes I've got left. I've seen the cover and read the description for Volume 4: Welcome to the Team which sounds like the action will be picking up, but to be honest, I've gotten a little disillusioned. I'm having to read my old reviews to remember what has already happened in this series, and that depresses me. I'll carry on reading to the end, because I can't not finish, but it would be nice if the plot makes itself known soon. 

Images courtesy of Book Depository and Dark Horse

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