Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine #22

I found Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine #22 (written by Andrew Chambliss, illustrated by Georges Jeanty) mildly disappointing. It’s not bad — I’d almost call it good — but the previous issue held so much promise that just staying at the same level is disappointing. There’s so much potential, but they just need that one last push to show that they really get it now.

The main problem is that I keep comparing this issue to Angel & Faith #22, and I absolutely loved that issue. Seeing as it’s the most recent Buffyverse development, I end up comparing the two, and this doesn’t hold up to that standard. Yes, it’s unfair, but it’s also inevitable, so everything from here on is going to be about the issue itself.

The characters are back to themselves here. As I hoped for previously, now that the main three characters are reunited, their interactions are exactly what I hoped to see here. It’s something that I find hard to describe, but they just all click. Their conversations and banter just feel right. Away from the battle, there’s a focus on Dawn and Spike together, which again feels like something right out of the series when all the characters clicked together. I’m not praising these things just because they returned to what worked in the TV series, either. It’s backwards to want things to stay the same, but nothing that the writers have tried since worked that well, so going backwards is actually a step forward in this case.

The problem here is that the plot has slowed to a crawl to allow for the character moments. Things are happening, but they’re small things. To be cliche, this feels like the calm before the storm. There’s enough time left in the storyline to allow slowing down, but it would’ve made more sense earlier instead of here, right after instigating a nearly apocalyptic battle, where it throws off the pacing.

The art continues to be really good. The problem with trying to review the art in this series, especially now, is that all of the character designs and other elements are pretty well locked down. All of the characters in it have been here for a while now, and there isn’t too much that changes over time, especially since Georges Jeanty has been the artist for almost the entire run, as well as most of Season Eight. The one particular image that sticks in my mind from this issue is the Deeper Well, which manages to live up to the way that it was depicted in “A Hole in the World”. It’s a deep hole of coffins stacked from one side of the planet to the other, and evoking that same sense of scale is surprising when seen in the context of the comic, especially since here they don’t dwell on that image like they did in that episode.

Should you spend $2.99 on this comic? I’m going to have to go with the cop out answer that I gave last time. Unless you’re a completionist (at which point, you’re not paying attention to this anyway), I’d put off buying this until we know if it pays off later. There’s a chance that it will and a chance that it won’t, but my patience for an answer is wearing thin. I sound like a broken record, but just wait and see if it actually manages to pay off in the end before you go out and buy them.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) thinks he knows better than to have hope, but doesn’t really. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more thoughts occasionally.