Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s upcoming revival needs to ignore a decade’s worth of canon storylines. Debuting in 1997 and quickly become a cult classic,Buffy the Vampire Slayerfocused on the titular young woman as she struggled to balance her responsibilities as a supernaturally empowered defender with the average expectations of the teenage experience. The show ran for seven seasons and was popular enough to justify a five season spin-off about Buffy’s vampiric lover, Angel. The franchise remains beloved and influential decades later, even as the show’s creator Joss Whedon has become increasingly controversial for his behavior while on set.
It was recently confirmed thatSarah Michelle Geller is set to reprise her role as Buffyfor an upcoming revival of the show. It will seemingly be a continuation of the original narrative, picking up after the events of the season 7 finale “Chosen.” However, this isn’t the first time Buffy’s future was explored. A number of comics beginning in 2007 that ran for over a decade fleshed out the future of the Scooby Gang in dramatic (and often bizarre) fashion. Despite the legacy of those comics, theBuffy the Vampire Slayerrevivalshould ignore those stories and start fresh.
What Happened After Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season EightRevealed The Aftermath Of “Chosen”
TheBuffy the Vampire Slayercomicscontinued the adventures of the Scooby Gang and their allies in a wide-ranging and wild story that shouldn’t be the basis for the upcomingBuffy the Vampire Slayerrevival show. Initially written by Joss Whedon,Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eightwas considered a canonical continuation of the show. Picking up a year after the ending of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and roughly at the same time as the ending of Angel), the comic reintroduced Buffy as the head of a global organization dedicated to uniting the newly empowered Slayers under a single banner.
2007-2011
2008
2009
2010
2010-2011
2011-2013
2012-2013
2013
2014-2016
2016-2017
2017
2018
5 Issues
Initially planned as a 25-issue run, the success of the run led to be in expanded to forty issues. It also received numerous follow-ups, as well as set the stage for a comics continuation ofAngelset within the same expanded universe. Over a decade of stories, Buffy was sent into a dystopian future, combating attempts to normalize vampires in society, and contended with the sudden erasure of magic across the world.This comic universe came to a close withBuffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12, with theBuffycomics shifting to new continuities and a modern reboot in 2019.
Buffy’s Comics Cannot Fit Into A TV Show Revival
The Revival Shouldn’t Come With Required Reading
Across several comics and miniseries, the canonBuffy the Vampire Slayercomics continuation ran for over 250 issues. This means there are a lot of big events, surprising deaths, and shocking resurrections. If the TV revival were to build off those comics, there would be a lot of explaining necessary to justify the number of changes that occurred since the ending of the TV show. Even given the time-gap that exists between the final comic and the present day,the sheer amount of world-shattering events featured in the comics would be enough to baffle most audiences unfamiliar with those stories.
The [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] revival shouldn’t just attempt to do a hard adaptation of the comics…
The audience of theBuffy the Vampire SlayerTV series is much larger than the fan base that followed the comics, so confusing them with info dumps about the comics would be overwhelming. The revival shouldn’t just attempt to do a hard adaptation of the comics either, as they are very reflective of their time and have certain elements better not brought to live-action. While the years since the conclusion ofBuffy the Vampire Slayerinvites explanation,it’ll be an easier and cleaner way to restart the series on TV by treating the comics continuation as their own separate continuity.
Buffy’s Comics Have Some Stories A TV Show Is Better Off Avoiding
Some Plots From The Sequel Comics Are Too Bizarre For Mainstream TV
While theBuffy the Vampire Slayerrevival could pull ideas from the sequel comics,there are plenty of stories from theBuffycomics that don’t need to be brought to the new TV show. At the heart ofSeason 8was the mysterious villain Twilight, who was eventually revealed to be a magically influenced Angel. Angel ended up killing Giles, setting up a confusing resurrection plot. Meanwhile, Dawn went through a number of physical transformations that would be strange to see on TV. A more uncomfortable plot to adapt for the character would be her eventual romantic relationship with Xander.
Why It’s Time For a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot
With rumors of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot circling, Screen Rant is here to tell you why it’s the perfect time for the Sarah Michelle Gellar series to return.
The freedom of comics as a medium allowed Whedon and other creatives to take theBuffy the Vampire Slayeruniverse to places they never could on TV.That means that adapting the comics directly would push the TV revival’s budget to the breaking point. The overarching plots of theBuffy the Vampire Slayercomic continuations were massive and oftentimes confusing for those not up to date on several tie-in storylines, making it a thorny mess to adapt. It’d be easier to just restart the timeline without that additional baggage, allowing the revival’s creatives to tell their own uniqueBuffystory.
Buffy’s Comics Are Still An Important Part Of The Show’s Legacy
Buffy’s Sequel Comics Proved The Franchise Deserved A Follow-Up
Even if theBuffy the Vampire Slayerrevival doesn’t directly adapt the storylines of the comics continuation,that run of stories still plays an important part in the overarching legacy of the franchise.Debuting a couple of years afterBuffy the Vampire SlayerandAngelconcluded, the comic sequels to those shows proved that the fan base for the Buffyverse was still invested in their stories. Similar to how the oldStar Warstie-ins are entertaining even if they are considered non-canon to the current franchise, theBuffy the Vampire SlayerandAngelcomics are still compelling and unique reads.
Even when they became confusing or weird,theBuffy the Vampire Slayersequel comics were a crucial way for the universe to continue onwards. It allowed unfinished plotlines or undeveloped concepts to come to fruition. The comics also gave many characters a refreshing sense of closure that was missing from the more bittersweet and open-ended nature of the shows. If nothing else, the comics proved that a continuation ofBuffy the Vampire Slayerwas worth doing. Without the comics sequels, we might not have gotten theBuffy the Vampire Slayerrevival — even if the show shouldn’t pull from the comics.
