Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The 25th Anniversary #1

BOOM! Studios celebrates a quarter-century of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' by giving the slayer and her supporting cast of characters their due in a number of well-crafted, fun, emotional, and fulfilling stories. All the love these creators have for the world and characters is clear on the pages and bodes well for the continued future of this franchise in Boom's capable hands. Read Full Review

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The 25th Anniversary #1 serves as a celebration of all things Slayer, and lays the seeds for Buffy's future. With a new ongoing series incoming and a wealth of characters to dig into, readers can look forward to seeing more of Buffy and her friends down the road. Read Full Review

It's not a terrible package, but it hardly feels like the celebration it ought to be. Read Full Review

Psycamorean

Apr 02, 2022

This did not feel like a real celebration of the Buffy series. This felt like the sales for the main series were too low, and Jeremy Lambert needed another issue. The bulk of this celebration issue is just another over-sized issue's worth of the 2019 run. It is actually better than a lot of that run, especially its ending, but it's still marred by Lambert trying to do way too much while not having the ability to pull much of it off. I'm glad that his last word on the series ends on a slightly higher note, nonetheless. The three short stories afterwards work to various degrees. The Willow and Tara story is pretty cute, but nothing special. I really enjoyed the Xander story because as much as his character has aged poorly, there *is* a good p erson in there and this story gives us some of that. The Spike story is just bait for Spike/Buffy fans, of which I'm not one (reminder: the whole point of their relationship, but on screen and metatextually, was to show that they *don't* work together.), so the story didn't really resonate with me. The final story, which serves as a prologue for the next run, is unfortunately didn't hit with me. I really enjoyed Eat the Rich, so I was excited to see what Sarah Gailey could do. As much as I want to give the new run and its concept a fair shot, I can't help but feel tired of it already after all this multiversal nonsense Buffy has been thrown into the last few years. We'll see. more