Buffy Season 8, Vol. 3: 'Wolves at the Gate' by Drew Goddard

The following review contains spoilers.

You know, the concept of teleporting Japanese vampires (or at least Japanese vampires who can turn into mist and fly almost as quickly as if they were transforming) isn't entirely unsalvagable. At the very least, Buffy Season 8, volume 3, Wolves at the Gate, gets some good action scenes out of it. Giant Dawn fighting a giant robot of herself who mocks her tendency to cry and get kidnapped makes a great action scene that's also good for laughs.

The biggest problem with Wolves at the Gate, however, is that it's entirely action-based with little character development and future impact on the plot. Dracula, the Japanese vampires, even the possibility of using their device to depower Slayers...none of it is brought up again in future volumes. It's one thing for the first volume to be primarily action-based, since the first volume is meant to introduce readers to the day to day missions of the characters and showcase what their combat roles are, but this third volume just feels like filler. Isn't one of the benefits of switching to comic book format the lack of a need for filler?

The majority of the character moments that are there aren't very well-placed. It would be remiss of me to not mention the Buffy/Satsu subplot, where Buffy sleeps with a fellow Slayer out of curiosity and because she hasn't had sex in awhile. This subplot was controversial for different people, but I honestly don't find it too big of a deal. Buffy tells Satsu upright that she's only sleeping with her for fun and emotional comfort instead of love, and Satsu accepts it despite being in love with Buffy herself.

It's actually more reasonable and has less Unfortunate Implications than Xander going to Dracula for comfort after his ex-girlfriend, Anya's, death, which is a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome on several different levels. What is Dracula to Xander? He appeared for one episode, hypnotized him, and it's revealed in a side comic that Dracula hypnotized Xander again for several months after the events of Season 7. Xander, buddy, what happened to your self esteem? Did Drew Goddard, this volume's author, wipe it all away, or was it Joss Whedon's fault?

And finally, this volume ends on a sour note with the death of Xander's girlfriend, Renee. Joss Whedon normally handles character death well by tying them into thoughtful themes of loss, justice, and sacrifice, but Wolves at the Gate has no thoughtful themes whatsoever, so her death comes off as crass. On top of that, Renee doesn't have much of a personality besides liking Xander and reading comics because she wants the nerdy Xander to like her, so it feels like she was created just to be killed off. The fact that she's one of the series' only black characters just makes it worse.

Even the action scenes have plot holes. By the end of the Season 5 pilot, Buffy had made it clear that she was more than a match for Dracula. Dracula normally gets the upper hand over his enemies by turning into incorporeal mist, then solidifying and attacking when they're off guard, but Buffy becomes fast and sharp enough to sense when Dracula's in his mist form and to stake him the moment he materializes. The Japanese vampires, who have the same powers as Dracula with less experience using them, should not be hard for her to fight.

The one good character moment is when the Scooby Gang trap a vampire in a magical prison to interrogate him. They douse him with oil and threaten to set him on fire until he capitulates...then they set him on fire and kill him anyways. Perhaps this scene was meant to convey how the Scoobies had become drunk with power, but since it's never referred to again or followed up on in future volumes, it just comes across here as darkly cool.

But to those disappointed by Wolves at the Gate after the amazing Faith-centric No Future for You, take heart. This volume was lackluster, but because it's mainly self-contained, its mediocrity does not spill into future story lines like Vol. 4 onwards.