Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 8

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 8 is a comic strip series that is the official sequel to the hit television series Buffy - The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) in the US from March 14, 2007 to January 19, 2011 under the title Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is published by Dark Horse Verlag . The series was originally designed for 25 issues, but was later expanded to 40 issues.

In addition, the individual issues Tales of the Vampires: The Thrill , Willow: Goddesses and Monsters and Riley were published. Since July 19, 2010, the animated version of the comic has been available for the first time via Amazon Video and iTunes.

In Germany, the series has been published by Panini- Verlag since February 13, 2008 in the form of anthologies, each with five to six issues . The eighth and final volume of this "season" was published in May 2011.

A 9th season has now appeared as a follow-up series, which Panini Comics is also bringing out in German. The series continues with a 10th season.

Authors and reception

Buffy producer and creator Joss Whedon is also executive producer on the comic strip sequel, overseeing his co-writers for the series' characters and concept. Whedon co-wrote issues 1 to 4, 10 and 11, 16 to 19, 31 and 36 to 40 himself. The additional booklets also come from his pen. Whedon's team includes guest writers Brian K. Vaughan , Drew Goddard , Jane Espenson , Steven S. DeKnight, as well as best-selling author Brad Meltzer and illustrators Georges Jeanty, Paul Lee and Karl Moline.

content

A year after Sunnydale was destroyed in the final episode of Buffy Season 7, Buffy's life has changed radically. At the beginning of the comic book sequel, 1,800 women and girls around the world are endowed with the powers of a hunter. Buffy and her allies, along with some 500 Slayers, witches, and other supernatural beings, have built a global network of Slayer cadres (called "Squads") who work together under Buffy and Xander's direction. The command center managed by the two is located in a secluded castle in Scotland , from where the Scottish squad also operates. Buffy and her Slayers are now known worldwide; Among other things through various bank robberies, through which the organization secures the luxury of ultra-modern information technology and weapons equipment. Various rumors are spread about Buffy's actual whereabouts, and two doppelgangers, one in Rome and the other underground, are placed to protect Buffy's identity.

As a consequence of its notoriety, Buffy's organization is viewed and hunted down by the US government, fearing for its world power position, as an international terrorist organization. In addition, because of the crimes she has committed, there is a certain public interest in the control of the criminals (Slayers with Buffy as their leader). General Voll , a member of a government project similar to the "Initiative", teams up with Sunnydale survivors Amy Madison and Warren Mears in the fight against Buffy's organization . There are also adversaries in their own ranks: the English huntress Genevieve Savidge is out for Buffy's position in the hierarchy and plans to kill her. In addition, a group of Japanese vampires tries to rob the hunters of their powers again. An ominous, masked figure who calls himself " Twilight " seems to be leading a personal campaign against Buffy's organization.

Volume 1: "The Return of the Slayer"

Volume 1 contains the collection of issues 1 to 5.

On a mission, Buffy and her team kill three huge demons, which in turn murdered three people. They discover a strange symbol on the corpses, the meaning of which remains unclear at first. Meanwhile, the US military goes on an expedition to the ruins of Sunnydale, where a soldier meets a survivor: Amy Madison . General Voll develops a plan with the witch and her hitherto unknown accomplice to take out Buffy. Shortly thereafter, the plan is implemented by Amy putting Buffy into a magical sleep and letting zombies loose on the other Slayers. Ethan Rayne ( Giles ' old friend) appears to Buffy in a dream and warns her about something or someone called "Twilight". Willow manages to stop Amy, and Buffy is woken up by a kiss from a stranger (it later turns out to be the Slayer Satsu ).

Amy teleports Willow to General Voll's military base. Warren Mears turns out to be her accomplice and friend, who now tortures the captured Willow. Together with Satsu, Buffy manages to save her. In the process, she learns that the mysterious symbol on the last corpses found is connected to Twilight and that the military has joined forces with him.

Volume 2: "How do you kill a huntress?"

Volume 2 contains the collection of volumes 6 to 10.

Giles gives Faith the dangerous job of killing the evil slayer Genevieve Savidge. In return he promises her a new identity and the “early retirement” from being a hunter. Faith accepts the assignment and travels to England , where she is supposed to attack Genevieve. However, the attempt fails and Faith is offered to join the plot against Buffy . She doesn't seem averse and hooks up with Genevieve. Shortly thereafter, Buffy is teleported to Genevieve's house by Roden, a powerful sorcerer, and attacked by the evil slayer. Faith's presence leads Buffy to the conclusion that she has switched sides again. Despite their protests, a fight ensues between the two, with Faith almost drowning Buffy in a pool. Just as she is coming to her senses, Buffy is teleported back to Scotland by Willow . Faith is left alone and shaken. Genevieve then tries to kill her for betraying her, but fails because of Faith's abilities and is killed. Faith has successfully completed her mission, but she decides to continue working with Giles against renegade hunters like Genevieve.

To learn more about Twilight , Buffy and Willow see one of the Old Ones , Sephrilian. This prophesies to them that Twilight will stand for the victory of mankind over the demons as well as the end of all hellish chasms; something Buffy will have achieved at some point. He helps both of them to have a series of visions that reveal many events in the past and future that shatter the trust between the two friends for a long time. Sephrilian reveals to them that he is looking forward to the upcoming war, since he now knows what their weaknesses are, which he will tell other demons. Buffy then kills him with the help of Willow and they both return to the command center.

Volume 3: "Wolves!"

Volume 3 contains the collection of volumes 11 to 15.

While Dawn and the others have a party, Buffy and Satsu go to a vampire nest. Your foray is interrupted by an unexpected attack from Twilight. While Satsu is passed out, Twilight and Buffy fight each other. As the fight progresses, the reason for Twilight's hostility is revealed: He accuses Buffy of having made a mistake when she activated the powers of other Slayers. The world could not stand the coexistence of so many hunters and he would continue to crack down on them if nothing changed. He flies away before sunrise.

Back at the base, Buffy regrets that she is unable to keep the enormous number of Slayers under control, and indirectly agrees with Twilight. However, Xander believes she gave these girls something they badly needed: confidence, a place in life, and an important role to play.

Meanwhile, the "scythe", a powerful weapon of the hunters and the symbol of their powers, is stolen by a pack of vampires who can transform themselves into wolves and other forms. From Dracula , Xander and the huntress Renée learn that this was a gang of Japanese vampires whom he accidentally let in on the secret of his power. Since he is interested in destroying these vampires himself, he decides to help Buffy and her team with it. They travel to Tokyo together . Before they get there, Aiko, the head of the Japanese squad, is lured into a trap by the vampire Toru, the leader of the vampire gang in question, robbed of her powers by means of a small mystical lens and a scythe, and killed. After Buffy receives Aiko's dead body and a message from the vampires, she finds out with the help of Dracula, Renée and Willow what the vampires are up to Toru: they want to deprive all of the slayers of their powers. Buffy and her hunters face the army of thousands of vampires. You can win the fight and take control of the scythe again.

Volume 4: "Now comes Fray!"

Volume 4 contains the collection of issues 16 to 20.

Buffy's enemies manage to attack the command center in Scotland. Many hunters die in the attack; the survivors escape, including Xander and Dawn . Together with the forest creatures that live around the castle, they fight the attackers.

Buffy gets through a magical portal into the future New York and meets the local huntress Melaka Fray . With her she has to fight against Frays brother Harth, who is a vampire and who has conspired against Buffy and Fray with the seemingly centuries- old "Dark Willow" (Willow's obsessed with black magic ). They are helped by Gunther, a demon. In the present, Willow learns that she can get Buffy back through the same portal she went through. She will have the opportunity to do so at the next midnight and never again afterwards.

In the future, Buffy does research on herself and her Slayer army, but finds no record of it to her amazement. She learns that after many centuries, Fray is the first and only hunter. Dark Willow convinces Fray that if she left Buffy back in time, the world she lives in would be destroyed. She and her sister then take Buffy prisoner - as planned by Dark Willow - to take away the chance to travel back into their presence. It was Dark Willow who, in collaboration with Harth, brought Buffy into the future by telling Harth a very different story. Buffy manages to free herself and flees to the building on the roof of which the portal will open. Fray is already waiting for her there to stop her at any cost, but she doesn't succeed. Buffy, on the other hand, kills Dark Willow before she can explain the reason for her action.

Present-day Willow pulls Buffy back through the portal in time. Fray and her sister are certain that Dark Willow has lied to them because their presence still exists.

Volume 5: "Harmony Live!"

Volume 5 contains the collection of issues 21 to 25.

The vampire Harmony has her own reality show on MTV, in which she tries to improve the global image of the vampires. When the new huntress Soledad attacks Harmony during a live broadcast and as a result dies herself, she involuntarily creates additional bad publicity for her colleagues.

Andrew and Buffy head to Italy to meet the hunter Nisha, who leads the renegade hunters with Simone Doffler. In doing so, they unconsciously get involved in a real "cat and mouse" game with Simone, in the course of which it becomes clear that the evil hunter still has an open account with her former guard Andrew and therefore lured him into the trap. Shortly before the situation escalates, the Italian squad arrives. Buffy uses the moment to get Simone's weapon and let loose the Ragna Demon, a spider demon that Simone actually wanted to set on Buffy and Andrew, on the evil slayers. Buffy, Andrew and his squad escape.

Giles and Faith bring the huntress Courtney to Hanselstadt, which is what appears to be a safe haven for hunters who reject their appeal. They soon notice that something is wrong there. It turns out that former guard Duncan only secures the city by alliance with a demon who feeds on children. Since vampires are afraid of the demon, there is peace in Hanselstadt, the residents regard the demon as their protector and therefore willingly gave up their own children as sacrifices. However, when the children "went out", Duncan began feeding the fugitive hunters to the demon. Giles can save Faith and Courtney from this fate, whereby Duncan himself is eaten and the demon is ultimately destroyed. Then vampires invade the city and Giles has to assert himself against them together with Faith, Courtney and the townspeople.

Volume 6: "Withdrawal"

Volume 6 contains the collection of issues 26 to 30.

The "Scooby gang" has found a new command center, which is again protected with Willow's powers. This is where all the squads that are forced to withdraw after the recent events will be gathered. Soon, however, the new hiding place is attacked by an army of demons, and again a large number of the hunters lose their lives. Twilight was able to track them down due to the excessive use of magic. The hunters then have to flee using their own submarine . Buffy decides to find shelter with Oz in Tibet to help them suppress the magic. Willow then teleports the submarine into the mountains of Tibet. Oz and his wife Bay, with whom he has a son, offer the hunters their help. To secure the hiding place, Buffy's people make a difficult decision: All of the hunters and witches among them agree to give up their powers in favor of safety.

Meanwhile, through Amy , Twilight and his accomplices manage to track down the new whereabouts of the hunters. It becomes clear that he knows Buffy personally from somewhere. Twilight mobilizes the military and moves into Tibet. Since they have traded all their powers for the safe hiding place, Buffy's army has to rely solely on human weapons, which Buffy refuses to accept. In order to regain her powers, she performs a ritual with Willow's help in which the three giant goddesses of Tibet - Remati, Vajrayogini and Ekajati - who now have the powers, are summoned. This is already happening in the middle of the war against Twilight's army. When the goddesses appear, they begin to kill people on both sides in an uncontrolled and indiscriminate manner. Buffy's army then withdraws to a temple. Twilight, however, lets his people keep fighting. When Buffy tries to get injured people off the field - including Riley Finn , who served her as a double agent in Twilight's ranks - she is lifted off the ground by one of the goddesses. She looks her in the eye for a moment and then lets her fall back to earth.

Hours later, Buffy comes to away from the now dormant battlefield and watches as Twilight's army loads some of the surviving Slayers into military vehicles. Without noticing it at first, it rises into the air under its own power and hovers over the action: It now has the power to fly.

Volume 7: "In the face of twilight"

Volume 7 contains the collection of volumes 31 to 35.

Twilight ultimately reveals himself to be Angel , Buffy's ex-boyfriend and soulful vampire. He apologizes to Buffy by saying that the Twilight threat should unite the Slayers to minimize the potential destruction the renegade Slayers could cause.

His second goal was to reunite with Buffy and in the process to ascend to a higher plane of existence called Twilight . Attracted by an uncanny power, Buffy indulges Angel in an hour-long act of love, in which they actually create a whole new world. Angel, who seems to be mortal again, reveals to Buffy that they can shape this world together according to their ideas and start a completely new life in it. From there, however, the two watch their old world collapse: through a merging of dimensions, demons invade the world and threaten their friends, who are now alone in battle. Meanwhile, the power that has seized Angel and forced him to act as Twilight is waning . Buffy and Angel decide to give up on Twilight and instead save their old world again.

Volume 8: "The Last Stand"

Volume 8 contains the collection of issues 36 to 40.

When the fight seems hopeless, Spike arrives in a futuristic spaceship and announces that he has a solution to the problem. A clue leads them to a magical object buried in the ruins of Sunnydale. It is the “seed”, the source of Twilight's power. Giles plans to destroy it. However, unnoticed by others, Twilight has again taken possession of Angel and causes him to kill Giles. In her confusion, Buffy destroys the Seed and ends the demonic bustle. With all demons, however, magic is also banished from the universe. All existing hunters and vampires retain their abilities, but the witches are now completely powerless.

As a result of the events, Willow breaks up with Kennedy and distances himself from the rest of her clique. Faith inherits Giles' estate in England and retires there with the purified Angel to help him rehabilitate himself.

Buffy moves to San Francisco to live with Xander and Dawn , who have since become a couple, and continues to pursue her role as a hunter there.

Characters

Buffy Summers

At the age of fifteen, Buffy found out about her calling to be a vampire slayer and fought until season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer alone against demons and vampires. According to tradition, after Buffy was clinically dead for a few minutes, Kendra was appointed the Slayer. When Kendra died too, Faith became her successor. It was Buffy who broke the tradition of the forefathers in the seventh season using the "scythe", the symbol of the power of the hunters, and at the same time gave all the girls who felt called to this task their powers. She makes it her business to train the slayers who want to join her and founds a secret organization that she and her friends from Sunnydale (the "Scooby Gang") lead.

Rupert Giles

Originally from England, Giles was Buffy's second guard until he was released by the Guardian Council and reinstated as such in Season 5. He's always by Buffy when she needs his help, and takes on the London hunter's squad in season eight. Together with Faith, he takes on the slayers who have defected to the evil side. Giles' relationship with Buffy has been strained since Sunnydale was destroyed, but by the end of season eight they can settle their differences to join forces against Twilight and his allies. Giles is killed by "Twilight" obsessed Angel in the same way that Angelus killed his lover Jenny Calendar in season 2 by breaking her neck.

Willow Rosenberg

Willow is Buffy's best friend, who she met after she moved to Sunnydale ( Buffy Season 1). Together with Xander and Giles they founded the "Scooby Gang". They always supported Buffy in the fight against evil. As the television series progressed, Willow discovered her passion for magic and became a powerful witch. At times she was drawn to the side of evil and even tried to destroy the world. With Giles' help, she learned how to use magic responsibly and is an important part of Buffy's organization. Willow is in a relationship with the Slayer Kennedy, but tries to keep her away from Buffy's organization, fearing for her safety. Through the demoness Saga Vasuki, with whom she has a secret love affair, Willow's powers continue to grow. She uses a magical shield to protect Buffy's command center in Scotland. In the volume “ Now comes Fray! “One learns that Willow will later find the opportunity to survive centuries and wreak havoc in the future New York as Dark Willow . At the end of season eight, Willow loses her power as a witch, which she resents Buffy very much. She breaks up with Kennedy and distances herself from her friends.

Xander Harris

Xander met Buffy at Sunnydale High and was in love with her for a long time. In the fifth season he got engaged to the ex-vengeance demon Anya after a long relationship, but left her standing at the altar in the sixth season. Anya died in the last episode of the seventh season fighting against primordial evil. In the same season he lost the sight on his left eye while fighting the psychopathic priest Caleb, and he has been wearing an eye patch ever since. In the comic sequel, Xander and Buffy run the Hunters' command center in Scotland. During the eighth season, he falls in love with Buffy's little sister Dawn.

Dawn Summers

Dawn first appeared in the fifth season of Buffy . Originally it was a bundle of mystical energy, a so-called "key" that has the power to open the gates between different dimensions. To prevent the outcast goddess Glory from returning to her dimension, a monastic association gave the key a carnal form in the form of Dawn and sent her to Sunnydale as Buffy's then 14-year-old sister. To save the world and Dawn, Buffy sacrifices herself at the end of the fifth season and is brought back to life by means of magic in the first episode of the sixth season. After the destruction of Sunnydale, the relationship between the two sisters is tense. After sleeping with the roommate of her ex-boyfriend and demon Kenny, Dawn is cursed by the latter and goes through several transformations during the eighth season. First she turns into a giantess , then into a centaur and finally into a living doll, until she apologizes to Kenny and the curse is lifted. She eventually makes up with Buffy. Later she falls in love with her old flame Xander, who now reciprocates her feelings.

Faith Lehane

Faith was called to be the next Slayer after Kendra's death. Due to her difficult childhood, she is mentally unstable and in the course of time came to the side of evil until Angel put her back on the right track. In the fight against primeval evil (Buffy, season 7), she supported Buffy and the contenders and thus regained her trust. At first, Faith is not very active in Buffy's organization until she and Giles begin to crack down on the evil Slayers as she once was. After Giles death, she inherits his house in England and tries to rebuild Angel, who was completely depressed by his acts as Twilight .

Andrew Wells

Andrew was once one of Buffy's enemies with Warren and Jonathan. In the seventh season of Buffy , however, he was enthusiastic about Buffy's cause and became a member of the Scooby gang. He was the unofficial guard (the actual Guardian Council was murdered in the seventh season of Buffy on behalf of the Ur-Evil ) of the later renegade huntress Simone Doffler and in the eighth season he leads the hunter's quad in southern Italy. To stop Simone's craft, he recreates the long-extinct Ragna demon, which he hides from Buffy. His plan still works, and he can, in collaboration with Buffy and his squad, kill the evil slayers under Simone's leadership. He is overwhelmed when Buffy forgives him for his actions, realizing that Andrew did them with good intentions.

Oz

Oz, actually Daniel Osbourne, was a friend on Sunnydale High Willows and a member of the Scooby gang for some time. After he was bitten by his cousin, who is a werewolf, he too began to transform into a werewolf on three nights a month (full moon phase). Since he has no control over himself in this state and represents a danger to his fellow human beings, he allowed his friends to lock him up in a cage for some time. When it was over with Willow, he decided to leave Sunnydale and go to Tibet to better control the wolf in himself, which he ultimately succeeded in doing. He met his wife Bay in Tibet and has a son with her. Although he hasn't seen Buffy and her friends in years, he helps them fight the military and Twilight. Oz's wife is seriously injured in the fight in the attack in Tibet.

Riley Finn

Riley appeared as Buffy's boyfriend at the time in season four. He belonged to a secret organization of the US military, called "The Initiative", which fought against demons, captured them and experimented on them. At the end of the fourth season, the initiative was officially disbanded after an experiment went wrong and Buffy was forced to save the world again. Before that, Riley had already deserted and then had problems for a long time that he could not hold a candle to Buffy in the fight against evil. This eventually led to the failure of their relationship and Riley returned to the military, which continued to fight in secret against the supernatural in the world.

In the sixth season, Riley, who had meanwhile married, returned to Sunnydale to ask Buffy for her assistance on a case. In season eight, he helps Buffy by spying as a double agent in the military. During the battle in Tibet, he went over to Buffy's side and, like many others, was injured in battle.

Satsu

Satsu is one of Buffy's Slayers. She is secretly in love with Buffy and even manages to wake her from the magical sleep Amy put her into. She and Buffy later have a one-night stand. Since the two of them soon quarrel and Buffy cannot fully reciprocate her feelings, she decides to take over the Japanese squad after Aiko's death.

Melaka Fray

Buffy meets Fray when she gets into the future New York through a portal. Fray is the first huntress in several centuries without a new hunter appointed. Legend has it that there was a huntress who managed to banish all demons from the human world, so that there was no longer any need for a new hunter. After the vampires and demons were able to invade the world again, Fray was called to be the new hunter. However, she has to share her skills with her twin brother Harth, who has since been turned into a vampire. While Fray possesses all the physical abilities of a hunter, Harth has inherited the spiritual superiority, including prophetic dreams, of the hunters, which creates a certain handicap for Fray compared to her predecessors and makes her more difficult to find her way in her role as a hunter. This means that she only has to acquire all of her knowledge about the previous hunters through books.

Fray also has an older sister who is a police officer.

Amy Madison

Amy was Buffy's classmate at Sunnydale High. Amy's mother was a witch - that's how Amy got into magic. When she turned herself into a rat one day, it was years before Willow was able to turn her back into a human again. After that, an enmity developed between her and Willow, so that she conspired against this and Buffy. She helps the military destroy Buffy's organization, cooperating with her friend Warren and Twilight.

Warren Mears

Warren was the leader of his "gang", consisting of himself, Andrew and Jonathan, until he caused the death of Willow's friend Tara, was skinned alive by Dark Willow in revenge and allegedly murdered. Early in season eight, it turns out that Amy's magic kept him alive. He tortures Willow in revenge when Amy teleports her to General Voll's military base. By destroying the Seed and the resulting banishment of all magic from the world, Amy can no longer keep him alive, which is why Warren finally dies.

General Voll

The US military feels threatened by Buffy in their world power position and therefore founded a project unit similar to the "Initiative" to which General Voll belongs. This makes it his task to smash Buffy's organization. He fears the power and ideology of the hunters. He teams up with Amy, Warren and Twilight. To spy on their machinations, Buffy uses her ex-boyfriend Riley Finn as a double agent.

Twilight

Before the real meaning of Twilight is revealed, the reader identifies Twilight as a masked, male figure defined by a symbol that appears repeatedly on objects, living and dead people during the course of the eighth season. According to his own statements, he fights the slayers because he thinks it is a mistake that there is more than one of them. He blames Buffy for all the evils the renegade Slayers cause. Working with the military, he succeeds in killing a considerable number of women hunters. Twilight is superior to Buffy in battle and has the power to fly.

In truth, however , Twilight is a non-physical force, similar to Urböse , which only appears a few times in the form of a giant lion at the end of season eight. This power was able to convince Angel in collaboration with Whistler, the demon known from the two series ( Buffy and Angel ), who claims to be responsible for the balance between good and evil and therefore does not belong to either side, to convince in his cause act. In the final editions of the season, it becomes clear that Twilight took possession of Angel, at least in part, and was able to impose his will on him. The love act between Buffy and Angel allowed Twilight to envision herself in the form of a new world. But because Buffy and Angel decide against this world and Buffy destroys the source of power, the "Seed", Twilight is ultimately destroyed.

fishing rod

Angel is a vampire around 250 years old, but at times he is on the side of good. He was born in Ireland in 1727 and turned into a vampire in 1753. Under the name Angelus, he and his creator Darla left a bloody trail in world history. Around 1900 he killed a gypsy girl whose clan took revenge on him by placing a curse on Angelus that gave him back his soul. From then on, he felt remorse for what he had done and chose to repent by helping people in need.

In the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Angel and Buffy met and fell in love. When they slept together later, Angel lost his soul, as the gypsy curse breaks as soon as he experiences a moment of perfect happiness. Angelus tried to destroy the world as a result, which Buffy and her friends prevented. Willow put the curse of the soul on him again. Angel left Sunnydale at the end of the third season of Buffy and together with new friends founded the detective agency Angel Investigations in Los Angeles, which specialized in the fight against the supernatural. At the end of Season 5 of Angel, more or less intentionally, Angel obtained an apocalypse and thus fulfilled the Shanshu prophecy , with the result that he became mortal again, as one can see from the cannon comic book sequel Angel: After the Fall (English Angel: After the Fall ) learns. However, he kept this fact a secret for a long time. When he threatened to die after being seriously injured, the higher powers turned back time to prevent this. The apocalypse never happened and Angel remained a vampire with a soul.

Angel next appears in Buffy season eight as Twilight . After he - possessed by Twilight - kills Giles, Faith brings him to England on Giles' estate, which she inherited after his death. There she tries to rehabilitate Angel and at the same time protect her from the revenge of the hunters.

Spike

Spike is a platinum blonde vampire who mostly wears black leather clothes. He was born William Pratt in London around 1850 and made a vampire in 1880. Together with Angelus, Darla and his then companion Drusilla, he went murdering through the world as William the Bloody and is considered one of the most dangerous vampires.

Spike appeared with Drusilla in the second season of Buffy , at the end of which he allied with Buffy to get rid of Angelus. After that he left Sunnydale for some time. After Drusilla was over, he returned to Sunnydale for season four and was captured by The Initiative. He was given a chip that made it impossible for him to harm anyone. When he realized that he could harm demons on the other hand, he helped Buffy fight them from now on. In season six, Buffy had a violent affair with Spike. Finally she broke away from him because she only “needed” him to feel alive. At the end of the sixth season he left Sunnydale again to find an ancient demon in Africa. He passed various tests to regain his soul and returned to Sunnydale. He later helped Buffy fight primordial evil . Meanwhile, Spike sacrificed himself to prevent the impending apocalypse.

In the final season of Angel , it was learned that his essence was locked in an amulet when he apparently died in Buffy . He was physically restored and joined Angel's crew.

At the end of season eight, he helps Buffy defeat Twilight .

Dracula

Dracula is a special vampire in Buffy's universe. While other vampires, like Angel or Spike, are technically considered demons, Dracula's appearance stems more from magic. According to his own statements, he exchanged his soul for this existence. Dracula can hypnotize his victims and transform himself into different shapes (bat, wolf, smoke etc.). It is unclear how Dracula can be killed (Buffy impaled him several times to no avail). He lives in a magnificent castle in Transylvania and gathers a harem of female vampires according to his model. Since his first appearance in the fifth season, Dracula has had a special, friendly relationship with Xander, which continues into the eighth season. In season eight, he plays a role in helping Buffy and her team wipe out a gang of Japanese vampires whom he has accidentally revealed to the secret of his existence, making the vampires master the art of shapeshifting. Indirectly, he helps Buffy to get back the scythe she has stolen.

Harmony

Harmony was also a student at Sunnydale High. On graduation day (last episode of Buffy Season 3), she was turned into a vampire. She is not particularly intelligent and tried repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, as the villain. She moved to LA for a while, where she worked as Angels' secretary at Wolfram & Hart. When she betrayed him at the end of the series ( Angel ), she was fired and only reappears in the eighth season of Buffy . Because of the popularity of the hunters, people are now aware of the existence of demons and vampires among them. When Harmony sucks a famous personality in front of the cameras, she gains fame overnight. She takes advantage of the moment and gets her own reality show on MTV, where she tries to improve the public image of the vampires and, on the other hand, to put that of the hunters in a bad light. So it came in handy when she was attacked on her show by a hunter who was killed in the process.

Angel: After the fall

The success of the Buffy comic led IDW Publishing and Joss Whedon to also continue the spin-off series Angel as a comic entitled " Angel: After the Fall ". Since the character Angels is already involved in Buffy's eighth season and both comic series appear in different publishers, the bridge between the two storylines about Buffy and Angel was built using the comic series " Spike ".

Web links

• Buffy and Angel on the website of the German publisher Panini
• Buffy and Angel on the website of the US publisher Dark Horse
• Review of the series at Slam
• Analysis of the differences between TV series and comic continuation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Release of the 1st edition of the 8th season - www.darkhorse.com . Retrieved August 30, 2013.
2. ↑ Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8: One-Shots Bundle. Dark Horse Comics , archived from the original ; accessed on November 21, 2019 (English). 
3. ↑ Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Motion Comic, Ep. 1 (eng.) - www.amazon.com . Retrieved August 30, 2013.
4. ↑ Release of the 1st edition of the 8th season in Germany - www.paninicomics.de . Retrieved August 30, 2013.
5. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE about the release of the first volume . Retrieved August 30, 2013.
6. ↑ Volume 8 in the German Comic Guide . Retrieved September 3, 2013.
7. ↑ Review of the 1st edition of the 9th season (eng.) - Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved August 30, 2013
8. ↑ Season 9 in the German Comic Guide . Retrieved September 3, 2013.
9. ↑ Interview with Scott Allie (eng.) - www.tor.com . Retrieved August 30, 2013
10. ^ Will Fitzgerald: The Comics of Joss Whedon: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8. ramp.ie, archived from the original ; accessed on November 21, 2019 (English). 
11. ↑ Angel: After the fall - www.booklove.de . Retrieved August 30, 2013