Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
by Drew Goddard, Joss Whedon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Drew Goddard, Joss WhedonBrand: Dark Horse Comics
Illustrator: Georges Jeanty
Illustrator: Jo Chen
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-12
ISBN: 1595821651
Number of pages: 136
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Book Reviews of Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
Book Review: My favorite arc yet in Buffy Season 8
Summary: 5 Stars
Warning! Spoilers ahead! Major spoilers! Do not read if you wish to be spoiler free!
Please take note of the spoiler warning. I've been amazed at how often I start a review with spoiler warnings and then have people complain because the review then features -- get ready for this -- SPOILERS! There are major spoilers below, including THE spoiler. So please don't read this if you want to be spoiler free.
WOLVES AT THE GATE is the third story arc in the ongoing BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Season 8 series, which continues in comic form the adventures of the Scooby Gang, following THE LONG WAY HOME, authored by Joss Whedon himself, and NO FUTURE FOR YOU, the very good Faith arc written by comic legend Brian K. Vaughan. In my opinion WOLVES AT THE GATE is the best arc so far, which is surprising since this is Drew Goddard's first -- as far as I am aware -- at writing for comics. Goddard (who in the summer of 2008 gained very minor fame in the web musical DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG as Evil League of Evil member Fake Thomas Jefferson) has achieved fame as a TV writer, emerging first as the last of many gifted writers on BUFFY (writing or co-writing such great episodes as "Conversations with Dead People," "Lies My Parents Taught Me," and "Dirty Girls." He went on from there to write for ANGEL before joining the staff of ALIAS (where he wrote the series finale) and then on to a minor TV hit called LOST (where Brian K. Vaughan is also on the writing staff). He has also make some noise in film circles, first writing the script for his ALIAS and LOST boss J. J. Abrams's CLOVERFIELD and most recently co-writing with Joss Whedon the script for the upcoming CABIN IN THE WOODS, which Goddard will direct. So while Goddard is not a comics writer, he is very much a writer. And if he had any questions about how to write for the genre, I'm sure either Whedon or Vaughan was available for any questions.
OK, even if you haven't read these issues, most likely you've heard about the BIG EVENT. Buffy and an Asian female slayer in bed. Together. After a bout of passion. It is shocking, but more than that, it sets up one of the funniest sequences I've ever read in a comic. Buffy realizes she isn't gay and that this was, for want of a better word, probably just "experimentation" and an emotional release after a string of very stressful events. Buffy, of course, wants to keep everything quite, but in the next several pages just about everyone she knows discovers what has happened. So, what could have been mere titillation becomes comic farce.
Homoerotic themes continue in subsequent pages. After magically shape-shifting vampires assault Buffy's Scottish castle, she dispenses Xander on the important mission of contacting the one vampire they know who also possesses this ability: Dracula. What unfolds is a revelation of what happened after Anya's death and where Xander went to get over it. Anyone who has seen BUFFY knows that there are many, many jokes at Xander's expense concerning his heterosexuality. On one level, Xander is clearly a heterosocial male. Virtually all his friends are female. He is less comfortable with males and possesses some mild homophobia. But the hints in WOLVES AT THE GATE are that Xander has both bonded with Dracula and that the latter has something of a crush on his human servant. It could have been unfunny, but Goddard is exceptionally able in handling comedy, both on TV and here.
These issues are filled with a string of great moments, many of them comic. The arc also features an absolutely shocking death. BUFFY the TV show did more than any show in TV history to make the body count an essential element of action television shows. Previous shows killed off a few characters (THE X-FILES killed Deep Throat and X), but usually as a way of easing a character out of the show (cf. Denise Crosby's death on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION). But BUFFY made it a part of television. So having the comics continue this is not terribly surprising. But the comic elements dominate. One of the best comes with Dawn, who was still a giant at this stage in the comics (she has undergone a transformation since then), encounters a Mecha-Dawn, utterly the kinds of things that nonfans of Dawn accuse her of. They do battle in the middle of Tokyo, with Andrew -- who states that he was born for this moment -- explains to Dawn how to defeat her robotic copy. There are also some great and awkward moments between Buffy and Willow, the latter clearly bothered that Buffy never was tempted to experiment with her.
As a huge fan of the TV series, I've been delighted with the comics. There have been some major delays in issues on the subsequent story arc -- dealing with Buffy's time traveling to the future and meeting the future slayer Melaka Fray (the star of the Joss Whedon graphic novel FRAY) -- but based on published issues the first four arcs are all remarkably good. I look forward to seeing what happens next.
Summary of Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
Vampires that, at will, can transform into wolves, panthers, insects, or fog invade the Slayer base of operations in northern Scotland, and not only walk away unscathed, but in possession of Buffy's scythe, the symbol of Slayer power worldwide. Buffy and the Slayer-legion travel to Tokyo in order to learn more about their dangerous new foes, as Xander journeys to Transylvania to solicit the only person they've ever known to possess such power - Dracula!Horror Books
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