Boom Studios! Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Jeremy Lambert and Jordie Bellaire
Art: Andrés Genolet
Colors: Raul Angulo
Letters: Ed Dukeshire
Reviewer: Tony Farina
Summary
Fan favorite character Wesley Wyndam-Pryce makes his first appearance in this stand-alone issue that will change everything you know about the Watchers! After the devastating effects of Hellmouth, the Watcher’s Council convenes to make sure it never happens again. But when recent Watcher initiate Wesley Wyndam-Pryce stumbles across a dark secret, he learns of a conspiracy decades in the making – one that binds Robin, Giles and the Slayer Before together, and shows just how far the Watchers will go to protect the earth.
Positives
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17 shows us all why Jordie Bellaire is so gifted. She takes adorkable fan favorite Wesley, and spins him on his head. Sure, he is still a dork. Sure, he is still unsure, but he is so much more. He is haunted. Literally. It is so smart. She has given him someone to speak to without it seeming forced or absurd. There is clearly so much between man and ghost that is yet to come, but at no point will readers feel put off or confused.
She does a bang up job showing us the World of the Watchers in a whole new way. The fact that they sit around a board room and have long, boring meetings is so funny. Of course that is what they do. The dialogue cracks. I can hear the characters just going back and forth. I flew right through this issue.
Of course, that is not to say that I didn’t take the time to admire the art by Andrés Genolet. Genolet takes us deep into Wesley’s fan fiction and internal fantasy and that works so well. Also, the way that Genolet makes the ghost seem both there and not there is cinematic. Raul Angelo’s colors are suburb as always. Letterer, Ed Dukeshire’s contribution to the ghost chatter is inspired as well. You can see the whole thing put together in the panel below. What an issue. I just loved it.
Negatives
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17 does not have one whiff of Buffy. That is normally a problem. This issue is an outlier, but if you want to see her, you’ll have to wait.
Verdict
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17 has done something that I thought impossible…It has made a book without Buffy be spectacular. This new, haunted version of Wesley is something special. Looks like we will get to see Faith in the next issue. I honestly can not wait!
