Happy Anniversary To Her! The Sideshow Collectibles Spike Premium Format Figure Materializes For My Wife!

The Good: Absolutely amazing sculpt, Neat alternate heads, Good painted details, Stable base, Collectible value
The Bad: Skin tones are the wrong color,
The Basics: The Sideshow Collectibles Spike Premium Format Figure is a neat, but not flawless, Buffy The Vampire Slayer collectible!


For those who follow my reviews and know of my commitment to reviewing pretty much whatever is produced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it may appear to be a somewhat disappointing weekend for me and the blog. After all, it is Sunday and Marvel and Netflix released their thirteen episode season of Daredevil more than two full days ago now. How can I not have my episode by episode reviews of the season (along with the whole season review) done and posted by now?! The answer is simple: Netflix very thoughtlessly released Daredevil on my sixth wedding anniversary and I opted to prioritize my loving wife over my reviewing blog (go figure!). One of the ways I showed my wife appreciation for sticking with me for the past six years was by giving her the gift of the Sideshow Collectibles Buffy The Vampire Slayer Spike Premium Format Figure.

We saw the Spike Premium Format Figure on the shelf in a comic book shop six years and a month ago, when I took her on a trip to New York City (and we decided we wanted to be married). At the time, I couldn't swing the expense of the statue-like figure on top of her ring and the trip expenses, but I never forgot how she looked at that Spike statue with longing and excitement. I was super psyched to track down a mint in box one (it might well have been the last one on the planet!) and watching her open it enthusiastically on our anniversary was one of the high points of our celebration (for both of us)!

Unlike the new Wonder Woman Premium Format Figure (reviewed here!), the Sideshow Collectibles Buffy The Vampire Slayer Spike Premium Format Figure is a blend of polystone and cloth elements - like a ceramic doll. Also (fortunately!) unlike the Wonder Woman Premium Format Figure which graces my collection, the Spike figure does not have any thinner parts that can easily break off (Wonder Woman collectors, beware! If you ever try to rebox the figure . . . the hair!). Like the other Premium Format Figures, Spike is essentially a statue, not a doll or figure (he has no poseability for the body, though the coat can be moved).

And it's pretty cool, save the coloring.

Basics

The Spike Premium Format Figure presents the sexiest vampire of the Buffyverse incredibly well. This version of Spike has the vampire character in his familiar black trench coat standing in a cocky, neutral pose on a base that looks like the tiled floor of a masoleum. The blonde vampire has his human face on, with his hands at his sides, standing in an "at the ready" pose, as opposed to an action-oriented one. One of the neatest aspects of the Spike Premium Format Figure is that he has a full-vampire head that may be swapped out for the human one. The Spike Premium Format Figure is made of polystone for the body and base, a little bit of heavy steel (for the thin metal rod that extends from Spike's right heel and allows the Premium Format Figure to attach to the base) and cloth for the shirt, pants (sorry, ladies, this Spike figure is NOT anatomically correct!), belt and leather jacket. This is a heavy Premium Format Figure.

The Sideshow Collectibles Spike Premium Format Figure is cast with lifelike detailing. The hair is textured and details like the fingernails and boot laces on the boots are immaculately sculpted on. The cloth elements are impressive - the squeal of delight my wife let out when she realized that the pockets are actually pockets on the red striped shirt Spike wears was pretty delightful. The character's face looks exactly like James Marsters as Spike and elements like the cuffs at the bottom of Spike's pants are an incredible detail that helps Sideshow justify the lavish price of this collectible.

As for coloring, that is where this Spike falls down. Spike is a vampire and cannot tan. The Spike Premium Format Figure has far too much red in his skin tones to be considered an accurate representation of the famous vampire. It is ironic because when the Premium Format Figure is set up next to other Spike collectibles, this is a pretty glaring problem. There is something unsettling about this giant, sunburned version of Spike when set next to the exceptionally pale Spike in Hawaiian shirt! That said, all of the cloth elements are perfectly colored and things like the glossy black fingernails and the detail to Spike's eyes is extraordinary.

Features

As a Sideshow Collectibles Premium Format Figure, the Spike Premium Format Figure is only accented by an alternate head and the collector’s number on the bottom of the base. The base, the bottom, is a perfect fit for the Premium Format Figure, which is nice. With his foot placed properly in the hole in the base, the right foot roots the Premium Format Figure to the base. Spike is wonderfully rooted to the base, without any play.

The head pops off the Premium Format Figure when carefully pulled and it may be replaced with the vampire head. The vampire head is equally well-detailed as the human head and it features Spike with his vampire forehead, fangs out and an active and angry expression. His eyes are, appropriately, vamped out, too and Sideshow made it very easy to replace Spike heads. Smartly, the figure's head separates at the base of the neck, so the seam that is inevitable for removable parts can easily be hidden under the character's shirt and jacket! Both my wife and I prefer the vampire head given how few Spike figures have a decent option for that face.

Balance

As with all Premium Format Figures, the intent of the Sideshow Collectibles Spike Premium Format Figure is to be used as a decorative collectible and this is well-balanced at the base. The Premium Format Figure does not wobble on its base at all. The display base is augmented with four rubber discs that keep it perfectly stable, so it does not slide, tip, lean or do anything other than stand perfectly positioned on one’s shelf or display case.

Collectibility

Sideshow Collectibles has been making bigger and better collectibles for decades. The Spike Premium Format Figure was a 1:4 scale statue and limited to 350 pieces. Each one is individually numbered on the bottom of the base (mine, or rather my wife's, is 265/350!). These Premium Format Figures have already exploded in value and I suspect it will continue to appreciate in value as Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans age and want more adult collectibles. Moreover, finding one that has not been out of the package, on display, is a Herculean task. Tracking down a mint, unopened one is liable to be a great investment as more collectors break theirs (inadvertently!) or suffer fading of the cloth elements by having them out in natural light. This was an extraordinary investment and still is a good one.

Overview

The 1:4 scale Spike Premium Format Figure from Sideshow Collectibles is not the perfect collectible adult collectors might have wanted. Is it good enough? Yes. It's good enough to justify its price to the 350 Spike fans lucky enough to get their hands on one, but its doubtful that the rest of the Buffyverse fans would covet it so much that they absolutely needed to get one, too.

For other Spike or Buffyverse collectibles, please check out my reviews of:
Sideshow Collectibles Spike 1:6 Scale Statue
Puppet Spike Puppet
Cordelia Action Figure

8/10

For other Buffy The Vampire Slayer toys and collectibles, please visit my Buffy The Vampire Slayer Toy Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Surprise Perfection Of The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sideshow Collectibles Spike Statue!

The Good: Absolutely amazing sculpt, Incredible painted details, Stable base, Collectible value
The Bad: None!
The Basics: The Sideshow Collectibles Spike Statue is unbelievably incredible and a must-have for fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer!


Last month, when I reviewed the brand new Wonder Woman Premium Format Figure (reviewed here!), I found myself comparing the new statue to the Sideshow Collectibles Buffy The Vampire Slayer Spike Statue. Given that, I figured that I should take the time and actually review that superior Spike statue. Where the Wonder Woman Premium Format Figure was riddled with sculpt and coloring issues, the Spike statue is an immaculate work and an amazing collectible.

Basics

The Spike Statue presents the anti-hero of the Buffyverse perfectly. This version of Spike has the vampire character in his familiar black trench coat standing in a crouching position on a grave-like base. The blonde vampire has his human face on and has him holding a wooden stake in his right hand. The Spike Statue is made entirely of polystone (save a thin metal rod that extends from Spike's right heel and allows the statue to attach to the bast) and this is a heavy statue.

The Sideshow Collectibles Spike Statue is cast with lifelike detailing. The hair is textured, the character has back pockets molded onto the back of Spike's pants (which is impressive given that the jeans are under the coat and virtually invisible), and Spike has knuckles and fingernails molded into the statue. The character's face looks exactly like James Marsters as Spike and the billowing pose for the coat makes it look like he has just landed. Other impressive sculpted details include buckles on the vampire's boots and the inclusion of the scar over Spike's left eyebrow.

As for coloring, Spike is perfect in his coloring. It might get tiresome to read such glowing adjectives about the statue, but the work warrants it. Spike has such incredible detailing as depth to his skin tones, dry-looking lips, glossy eyes, and highlights to the character's fingernails. Spike's hair is colored in more than monotones so his head does not look like it is covered in a helmet (which is a mistake commonly made by those making Spike-themed collectibles). The base has great tones, so it looks like it is cement, made from tiny grains, as opposed to a single monotone rock.

Spike's boots are made to look worn and they contrast the smooth black of the coat in a way that gives the statue additional texture and depth.

Features

As a Sideshow Collectibles statue, the Spike Statue is only accented by the collector’s number on the bottom of the base. The base, the bottom, is a perfect fit for the statue, which is nice. With his foot placed properly in the hole in the base, the right foot roots the statue to the base. The left foot rests on the base and because the statue's left foot is arranged so it looks like Spike is about to push off from the balls of his feet, the statue connecting to the base flush is imperative. Spike is wonderfully rooted to the base, without any play.

Balance

As with all statues, the intent of the Sideshow Collectibles Spike Statue is to be used as a decorative collectible and this is well-balanced at the base. The statue does not wobble on its base at all. The display base is augmented with four rubber discs that keep it perfectly stable, so it does not slide, tip, lean or do anything other than stand perfectly positioned on one’s shelf or display case.

Collectibility

Sideshow Collectibles has been making bigger and better collectibles for decades. The Spike Statue was limited to 1,000 pieces. Each one is individually numbered on the bottom of the base (mine, or rather my wife's, is 165/1000!). These statues have already exploded in value and I suspect it will continue to appreciate in value as Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans age and want more adult collectibles.

Overview

Quite simply, the 1:6 scale Spike statue from Sideshow Collectibles lives up to all a Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel fan could hope for!

For other statues, Sideshow Collectibles figures or Spike collectibles, please check out my reviews of:
DC Direct Cover Girls Of The DC Universe Wonder Woman Statue
Sideshow Collectibles Abraham Lincoln Brothers In Arms 12" Doll
Puppet Spike Puppet

10/10

For other Buffy The Vampire Slayer toys and collectibles, please visit my Buffy The Vampire Slayer Toy Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Unfortunately Underwhelming Spike (And Peter David): Spike: Old Times

The Good: Most of the artwork, Basic concept
The Bad: No real character development, Devoid of clever lines, Dull plot
The Basics: A quick read, Spike: Old Times fails to capture or expand on Spike, Halfrek, or the deeper Buffy The Vampire Slayer mythos.


Lately, whenever I review a work by the author Peter David, I find myself having to mention up front that I like the author’s works. The sad truth is, the last few books (especially graphic novels) of his that I have read have not grabbed me as much as some of his earlier, prose works. So, while I have an affinity for his books and think he’s a wonderful guy (if you have a chance to go to a convention at which he is appearing, he is exactly as entertaining as his writing suggests he would be!), not all of his works are gems and Spike: Old Times is one of his flops.

That said, the initial concept surrounding Spike: Old Times is not a bad one. Spike: Old Times solidifies the implied idea that Spike, when mortal, met the vengeance demon Halfrek (then appearing as a human, Cecily). Peter David has long been known for taking apparently disparate elements of various genre works and finding clever connections for them. In the later seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!), the reuse of the actress who played Cecily in flashback scenes involving Spike’s origin story was seen as the vengeance demon Halfrek for Anya’s character arc. Peter David makes the alluded backstory between the two characters explicit in Spike: Old Times and while that is a charming idea, it fails to be more than a clever one-shot.

Flashing back to William The Bloody’s mortal life, where Spike was an unsuccessful poet, pining after Cecily, but driven to take care of his overbearing mother, William Pratt is goaded by bar patrons as he leaves to attend to his mom. In his wake, the bar patrons mock William in front of Cecily until one of them repeat’s William’s wish that the bar patrons be “the bloody ones.” Transforming, as vengeance demons do, to her natural state of Halfrek, Cecily grants the wish, killing everyone in the tavern and setting William on a collision course with Drusilla.

Flashing forward to modern times (an unfortunately ill-defined time period before Halfrek’s demise, but while Spike is in Los Angeles?!), Spike encounters Cecily in a bar and fights her, until she reveals her true nature. Realizing that Halfrek is, in some way, responsible for his getting vamped, Spike vows to stop her on her current quest for vengeance. He then encounters Lenny, a down-on-his-luck bad poet who is turning thirty that very day. Unfortunately, all the men in Lenny’s family die on their thirtieth birthday and Spike realizes that Lenny is the target of Halfrek’s vengeance. Vowing to keep him alive to break the curse, Spike must stop cars, demons and fireballs from killing Lenny for a few perilous hours.

Given that Lenny is unique to Spike: Old Times, it becomes a tough sell to get readers to care about the character based on a page of bad poetry. Of course, the book is supposed to be about Spike and him becoming a hero, but given how utterly unimpressive Lenny is, it’s virtually impossible to care about whether or not Spike succeeds in his quest. Fine, Lenny reminds Spike of himself and he feels bad because Lenny is at the mercy of Halfrek like he now realizes he once was. One would hope there would be something more to the story, but there really isn’t.

Also working against Spike: Old Times is the rushed nature of the story. It feels like there is a gap in the narrative after Spike defends Lenny from a demon, then they go on the run together. The conflicts happen very quickly and with minimal time for reflection. Spike’s big moment is realizing that Lenny is a descendant of the man who mocked him back in the day and continuing to defend him anyway. But the moment is truncated by plot movement and the book is ironic, but anticlimactic.

Moreover, the volume has a disappointingly pointless turn to it in the larger continuity of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The most important artifact to vengeance demons is their totem that allows them to grant wishes. When that totem is destroyed, their wishes are undone. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Halfrek did not have her wish-granting totem on her when she was killed in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As a result, not only would Spike: Old Times not have occurred, because William’s wish and longing for Cecily were never realized, he should not have fallen prey to Drusilla. Not only would Lenny not have been cursed, but Spike would not have been vamped . . .

The artwork in Spike: Old Times is generally good. The coloring is good, with decent depth and shading to the characters. Moreover, all of the characters are recognizable; the moment Cecily changes, it is obvious she is a vengeance demon to anyone who is a fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. While there is no extraordinary artwork in the book, it is all good, which puts it above any number of graphic short stories (I refuse to call the one-shot a graphic “novel”).

In the end, though, Spike: Old Times is not worth picking up on its own. Because there is a Spike Omnibus, one no longer has to!

For other Spike graphic novels, please visit my reviews of:
Lost And Found
Shadow Puppets
Spike: After The Fall

2.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Decorative And Pretty Durable, The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set of 4 Is Great For Fans!

The Good: Decent artwork, Durable, Dishwasher safe, Decent collectible value
The Bad: Obviously, pretty expensive for pint glasses.
The Basics: Dark Horse Comics produced a set of four Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glasses that are not just your average glasses!


My wife is a big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan, which is nice because it makes it very easy for me to shop for her. She generally enjoyed the Buffy The Vampier Slayer Season 8 graphic novels I picked up for her. So, when we were out a local comic book shop and saw the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set of 4, I was pretty unsurprised when she eagerly turned to me and informed me that they would make for a great gift. She got them as part of her Easter basket this year and ever since, she has been drinking out of them for everything!

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set of 4 features the artwork of Jo Chen on heavy, clear glass. Each set of four is identical and features the same four pieces of Buffy The Vampire Slayer artwork. As their name suggests, each pint glass holds a little over two cups worth of liquid. A whole 16 fl. oz. fits into the glass and my wife has been enjoying making beer heads on hers. Wider at the top, the 5 3/4” tall clear glass drinking glasses are all identical, save for the artwork silkscreened onto them.

Most of the artwork on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set of 4 is pretty iconic and it is universally good. Jo Chen’s covers for Buffy The Vampire Slayer #1 with Buffy in a tight shirt holding the Slayer scythe is an obvious, but instantly recognizable Buffy The Vampire Slayer image. Issue #32’s cover with Buffy flying is the brightest glass in the set and Buffy The Vampire Slayer #34’s image of Buffy and Angel in a passionate embrace is easily going to please the fans who loved early Buffy. The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set is completed with the cover from Last Gleaming (reviewed here!) that features all of the main Buffyverse characters, save Spike, coming out of Buffy’s head. This alteration of the cover to issue #35 is neat because it replaces the image of Twilight with that person’s proper face!

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glass Set of 4 is fairly durable and after a month of constant use, none of the glasses has faded. However, I did notice that one of our glasses – the one with Buffy flying – had an unsightly (for lack of a better term) tear in the silkscreen and when I tried to address it with Dark Horse toys, they informed me adamantly there was nothing I, or they, could do. This means I am likely to buy another set of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Pint Glasses, just to insure my wife always has a mint set.

To be fair, Dark Horse goes to pretty extraordinary efforts to insure these glasses arrive unbroken and the sheer amount of packaging for them is sufficient. While they might just be drinking glasses, they are styled to make them a favorite of any Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan!

For other kitchen supplies, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Cuisinart Grind Central Coffee Grinder
GE JES1142SJ Microwave
Westinghouse WST3037 4-Waffle Waffle Maker

6/10

For other kitchen product reviews, please be sure to visit my Kitchen Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Is The Ultimate Cordelia The Ultimate Cordelia Figure? Yes, It Sure Is: "You're Welcome" Cordelia

The Good: Great sculpt, Decent accessories, Nice base
The Bad: Hmmm . . . Looking, none that I can find . . .
The Basics: Perhaps the best Cordelia figure made, this sculpt accurately captures her look from "You're Welcome" and will be coveted by fans!


So, I have a shelf of action figures in my kitchen that represents the strong women of science fiction and fantasy. Yup, there's my deep, dark geek secret for those checking me out in the virtual world. I'm an unabashed geek and I have a particular fondness for women who are presented in science fiction and fantasy as smart, resourceful, clever and strong. But not just any figures end up on that shelf. I'm pretty discriminating in what I consider a worthy figure for that shelf.

At least, that's what I thought until I brought someone to my inner sanctum and they asked, "What's with the Cordelia shelf?" Sigh, yeah, out of the ten figures currently on display on that shelf, five are plastic recreations of Cordelia Chase from Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Perhaps the current highlight is from the newest set, the "You're Welcome" Cordelia.

Basics

"You're Welcome" Cordelia is one of the exclusive action figures from the Angel figure line from Diamond Select toys. This Cordelia get up was only in Angel, NOT Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the figure comes carded on the red Angel card. She is a 6 1/2 inch tall action figure featuring a sculpt of Cordelia Chase as she appeared in the 100th episode of Angel, entitled "You're Welcome." This is the episode where Cordelia wakes from her coma with vital information for Angel and marks her final appearance in the series.

The sculpt is an excellent one, capturing a more determined look and subtle smile than some of the other Cordelia figures. The figure looks like Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase, which is a step up from many of the earliest Cordelia figures, which looked more like Eliza Dushku as Faith than Carpenter's Cordelia. As strange as it may seem to say, they got Cordelia's lips right and that's a nice level of detail.

The detailing on the button down shirt is impressive and whomever designed the figure had a keen appreciation for physics. Yes, this is a realistically endowed Cordelia figure that has all the curves in all the right places. Yes, it's a good sculpt.

As well, the coloring is realistic and well done. The shirt has an impressive level of detail in the stripes and mine was perfectly painted. Moreover, the skin tones are well presented, even if they are uniformly colored.

Accessories

Cordelia comes with three basic accessories: the base with Wolfram & Hart secret room wall, a katana and a pile of books. All three items fit the figure well in that they are emblematic of items from the episodes that Cordelia was last seen in, especially the katana.

The wall is a decent plastic base that is a 3 1/2" square base that has a 7" wall behind it. This is essentially a recolored wall like the one that came with the Illyria figure, down to the weapons stuck to the wall. Despite the base not having any foot peg (there is no corresponding foot hole on the figure, so this makes perfect sense) it is a fine support piece that makes for a decent display stand.

The books/tape is an admittedly weak accessory given the lack of support play environments. The tape is a video of Doyle shown in the episode that nicely foreshadowed the end of the episode, but does nothing as an independent accessory. But the book and the tape fit the character and they will fit in one of Cordelia's hands if she is not holding anything else, so it's a fair wash.

The katana, though, is an awesome accessory and it is one of the few weapons to come with a Cordelia figure, making her a true action figure! This is a direct reference to the episode and the sword comes with its sheath. As someone who grew up on toys in the early 1980s, I remain constantly impressed by the level of detail on things like the scabbard, which has the appearance of a strap wrapped around it going up to the handle. The sword fits easily into Cordelia's hand and she looks good wielding it!

Playability

"You're Welcome" Cordelia is surprisingly well-balanced for a toy that rests on boots with heels! I suppose that's the benefit of wider feet (in comparison to the high heels on the Pylean Princess figure) and flat feet.

But "You're Welcome" Cordelia is also strengthened in posability by her impressive articulation. Cordelia is articulated at fourteen points: knees, groin joint, shoulders, elbows, biceps, wrists (one is cleverly hidden by the bracelet the sculpt possesses), waist and head. The head is kept on via a ball joint, so the figure's head can move with incredible articulation and range of motion.

Nothing prevents "You're Welcome" Cordelia from having an extreme range of leg motion, yet this figure is remarkably stable for displaying. Stand Pylean Princess Cordelia up and she remains standing! But moreover, she is balanced well enough that she does not need to be kept in the rigid, factory-approved stance!

It is not difficult to see how this Cordelia would be fun for play. Truth be told the Angel audience that is likely to purchase "You're Welcome" Cordelia is much more likely to leave the figure in the package (a shame given the quality of the sculpt) or set in on a shelf in a pose as a display piece than actually sit and try to play with it. But of all the Cordelia figures, this one is ideal for play between the articulation and accessories.

Collectibility

The "You're Welcome" Cordelia was a Diamond Select exclusive figure and was therefore mildly limited in comparison to other figures in the Angel line. The limited edition nature of the figure, in combination with the quality of the sculpt would seem to guarantee that it continues to appreciate over time, though currently it's still possible to find this figure for under $20. One suspects that should Carpenter be cast as Wonder Woman or have a similarly huge starring role on screen, that this particular figure would skyrocket in price.

Overview

Fans of Cordelia Chase will enjoy the concept, because this was Cordelia's final appearance and quality of the sculpt of "You're Welcome" Cordelia is impressive. Diamond Select Toys did the figure amazingly well and it is one that is bound to please fans, even if the general populace is unlikely to "get" the figure.

So yes, this might well be the best action figure representation of Cordelia Chase and a must-have for fans of the Buffyverse!

This figure represents Cordelia as she appeared in her lone appearance in Angel - The Complete Fifth Season, reviewed here!

For other Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel toys, please visit my reviews of:
Puppet Spike doll
Pylean Princess Cordelia Chase
“Fear Itself” Anya in bunny costume

10/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Last Gleaming Finishes Off Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Well . . .And Poorly.

The Good: Story comes together, Moments of character
The Bad: The artwork, Fragmented panel placement, A lot of exposition that seems very contrived.
The Basics: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight – Volume 8: Last Gleaming ends the Twilight chapter in an unpleasant mix of interesting story and terrible artwork.


For those who regularly follow my reviews of Buffy The Vampire Slayer graphic novels, it is a time to rejoice! I have returned to finally finish the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight graphic novel reviews. Unfortunately, my analysis of the final chapter, Last Gleaming is decidedly split, but the best I can promise you is that this review will be a “no spoilers” review.

Last Gleaming is a terrible mix of engaging plot points and unbearable plot exposition that sounds very shaky. It is a mix of wonderful character moments and artwork that robs those moments of almost all of their punch. But, ultimately, it is the end of Season Eight, so Buffy readers are going to want to read it just to see how their investment in the prior seven volumes pays off. Unfortunately, the more I consider Last Gleaming, if I had to tell someone who had not yet read any of Season Eight whether or not to, the more I am forced to admit that this was probably not worth it. Last Gleaming is the end of a long trip to a place that was ultimately unsatisfying and, frankly, the journey there was not exactly indispensable.

Last Gleaming finds Buffy and Angel returning to Earth after giving birth to another universe in the prior volume. That act has allowed demons and monsters to explode into our plane uninhibited and now the world looks like it will be overrun with evil. But the appearance of Spike in a bug-driven space ship seems to change all of that. Spike comes with the knowledge of how to save the world, which involves digging up the Seed Of Wonder. Spike even knows where the Seed Of Wonder is: in the ruins of Sunnydale.

Flying over to Sunnydale, Spike, Angel and Buffy have to confront the Master again. But to keep the universe safe, Angel is isolated and while Buffy and Spike are together, they uncover the Seed Of Wonder. What happens next changes everything for Buffy and her friends!

Last Gleaming is a big, bold ending to Season Eight. At the same time, it is a lot of exposition and Spike's explanations of the surreal events that preceded this volume make most everything make sense. Angel, who had been exposed as Twilight, is finally explained in a reasonable way. Even so, Last Gleaming does not make clear just what exactly Twilight is, as far as a possessing entity.

The real problem with Last Gleaming is the artwork. At a critical moment near the end of Last Gleaming, one of the characters is so poorly drawn - especially in scale to Xander. That poor representation of a critical character robs what should have been one of the biggest Buffy moments of the franchise of its emotional resonance. More often than not, the characters have an animated look to them, looking more like thumbnail sketches than the characters from the television series.

What character moments there are tend to be minimized by the plot events, but there are a few decent character moments that resonate even after one finishes the book. Last Gleaming includes a variant cover gallery and a one-shot that illustrates how Riley became involved with Twilight. They are fine "bonus features."

Last Gleaming ends at a point where it seems like the franchise could continue, but it is hard to get excited about the prospect given how much of the spark is extinguished through this volume.

For the other volumes in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, please check out my reviews of:
The Long Way Home
No Future For You
Wolves At The Gate
Time Of Your Life
Predators And Prey
Retreat
Twilight

5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Marginally Decent Way To Finish Off Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG: "Class Of '99"

The Good: Good images, Clearly offers more options for gameplay
The Bad: Playability is still ridiculously low, especially out of booster box, Foil issues, Overproduced
The Basics: "Class Of '99" Buffy The Vampire Slayer gaming cards may be part of a mediocre game, but they capture one of the best seasons of the show for card collectors!


When Score came out with the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG game with its initial release, “Pergamum Prophecy” (reviewed here!), I didn't give the product much of a chance in the marketplace. Customizable Card Games were already a flailing market and the Buffy The Vampire Slayer audience did not seem like the target demographic for the product. So, I was mildly surprised when Score, which produced the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG managed to come out with an expansion set and then another. The second expansion set was “Class Of '99” and the only thing truly unsurprising to me about it was that shortly after the set was released, the game's production was halted and this ended up being, more or less, the final outing for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG.

“Class Of '99” is one of only three expansion sets to the erratic trading card game and it focuses on the third season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And while this might be an all right game, the cards are not in any way self-explanatory and the box of booster packs does not come with any rulebook or guide. As a result, players need to hunt down starter decks when buying if they want to have any hope of understanding what to do with the cards they get (even the online resource whose URL is on the bottom of every card is no longer active!).

Basics/Set Composition

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Customizable Card Game “Class Of '99” was the final set of Buffy gaming cards created by Score. For those unfamiliar with the concept, CCGs are basically a late-teen oriented product designed to capitalize on the youthful desire to play with the acknowledged maturity of the target audience. The initial idea of the customizable card game was to allow young adults and adults to play in a way that was as free and imaginative as playing with action figures, but without the stigma of being a twenty-five year-old lining up dolls and having them have relationship issues, then stake the each other. The result is something that is a midpoint between the freedom and creativity of action-figure free play and the structured rules and rigidity of a board game. This continued the game where “Angel's Curse” ended, giving fans new play potential from scenarios and characters from the third season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Players might prefer that I describe the game instead as a strategy game that is like a Role-playing game with cards. The break here is that the characters, vessels, and scenarios are all already conceived by others. The original concept was to find a way to make play socially acceptable for an older audience and it generally worked. In the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, though “Class Of '99” continued to illustrate the flaw in the premise: the target audience was well-beyond the play stage of life and as a result, most simply never got the concept. As well, the strength of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was always in the show's dialogue, which a card game does not truly represent.

“Class Of '99” is a 276 card set focusing on characters, weapons, villains, locations and scenarios presented in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. While the product was released rather early in the series (season six was just beginning), “Class Of '99” focuses on the third season of the show. The set consists of 58 common cards, 58 uncommon cards, 54 rare cards, 68 starter deck fixed, 12 starter deck Essence, and 4 Ultra Rare, and 18 promotional cards not found in these boxes. Like most CCGs the most popular characters and scenarios are given rare status and the background supernumeraries fill out the more common cards.

The 138 card set features 75 Characters (cards featuring heroes and villains from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, like Riley Finn and Vamp Willow), 12 Personality Essence Cards (enhanced character cards for vital characters, like Angel and The Mayor), 26 Challenge (obstacles players use to thwart their opponent), 25 Items (cards featuring magical or significant devices, like Candy Bars or the Living Flame), 13 Episodes, 62 Actions (cards that describe actions your characters take, like Preparing For Ascension or Vampire Embrace), 19 Locations (which essentially form the “board” for the game), 26 Skills (cards that alter characters for multiple rounds, like Invulnerability or Telekinesis), and 14 Events (cards that assign player actions). This set continued to illustrate a very basic and broad sense of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe and it is clear the fans would “get” the references on the cards. In fact, that becomes one of the few enjoyable aspects of this game.

The booster boxes of “Class Of '99” come with thirty-six packs of twelve cards each. The booster packs are nice because they contain seven common, four uncommon and one rare card each, making it the highest proportion of rare cards one might pull in a pack of “Class Of '99” cards (there are starter decks which are fixed and have fewer rares). Each box has thirty-six rares and this almost makes a complete set, though there are four ultra rares to hunt down in addition to the standard rares! As well, the packs have a foil card inserted one in every other pack and the booster boxes are a great way to bone up on those for collectors.


Playability

Here is where the “Class Of '99” booster boxes are absolutely worthless to players. There are no rulebooks in this box of cards. One has to buy a starter deck for that. As well, the website advertised at the bottom of each and every card is now defunct. As a result, buying just the box leaves one often unable to play the game.

What I can say is that the game is not intuitive. Deck size (60 cards) is in no way self-evident and how the cards work is not entirely clear. As a result, this seems to be a fairly complicated game that mixes characters using strength, endurance and charisma to overcome obstacles. Sitting down even with the rulebook (when I finally got one) was not terribly fun.

Rules/Rule Changes

The rulebook for this game is basically thirty pages long and it boils down to moving characters around locations, dealing out cards to try to stop your opponent from reaching the end and accumulating points and occasionally doing combat with one another. This continued the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG without adding any new card types or fundamentally altering the way the game was played.

"Class Of '99" added "Episode" card types, but without a rulebook, these are just nifty looking cards with no clear way to play them.


Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer franchise will appreciate the image quality of the characters and scenarios from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the ”Class Of '99” cards. While there are Willow, The Mayor, Trick, and Oz characters, Buffy is hardly the most interesting or worthwhile one.

For the highlight, it's definitely 129 Faith, Villain Slayer. Powerful and enough to kick the butt of any Buffy, this card has a great image of Eliza Dushku as Faith. I think this is the best card in the series because, in addition to having a great image, it has the power to actually allow an adversary to win the game. I like that potential and it certainly makes the game more interesting than usual.

Collectibility

The “Class Of '99” set has generally low collectibility. Packs were vastly overproduced and undersold, so most of these were blown out on clearance. As well, the foil cards – where the entire set is replicated in foil cards is annoying to collect.

Overview

“Class Of '99” cards are overproduced, underwhelming and impossible to play out of the booster box. One needs other resources and it is hard to get excited about hunting them down given how lackluster the game mechanic is. Even so, there is just enough to these cards to allow me to recommend them to fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for nostalgia, if not gameplay.

This set culls images and quotes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 , reviewed here!

This set was released after "Angel's Curse" (reviewed here!) and was followed by a single promotional card.

This is a set of gaming cards I sell in my online store! Click here to check out my current inventory!

5.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Slightly Better Expansion Still Makes For A Disappointing Game With "Angel's Curse."

The Good: Good images, Fun text
The Bad: Unclear game mechanic, Vastly overproduced, Foil cards are annoying to collect
The Basics: While “Angel’s Curse” progresses the now-defunct Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG into the second season, it is still difficult to get into.


There are few products I have so misjudged fan interest in like I did the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG. To be fair, I came a bit late to the party as I found most of my boxes on clearance as the series was ending. Even so, I found myself overwhelmed with scores of Score’s “Pergamum Prophecy” (reviewed here!) boxes that I almost did not pick up the second set of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Customizable Card Game set, “Angel’s Curse.”

“Angel’s Curse” is one of only three expansion sets to the erratic trading card game and it focuses on the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, much the way the “Pergamum Prophecy” set focused on the first season. And while this might be a great game, the cards are not in any way self-explanatory and the box of booster packs does not come with any rulebook or guide. As a result, players need to hunt down starter decks when buying if they want to have any hope of understanding what to do with the cards they get (even the online resource whose URL is on the bottom of every card is no longer active!).

Basics/Set Composition

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Customizable Card Game “Angel’s Curse” was the second set of Buffy gaming cards created by Score. For those unfamiliar with the concept, CCGs are basically a late-teen oriented product designed to capitalize on the youthful desire to play with the acknowledged maturity of the target audience. The initial idea of the customizable card game was to allow young adults and adults to play in a way that was as free and imaginative as playing with action figures, but without the stigma of being a twenty-five year-old lining up dolls and having them have relationship issues, then stake the each other. The result is something that is a midpoint between the freedom and creativity of action-figure free play and the structured rules and rigidity of a board game. This continued the game where “Pergamum Prophecy” ended, giving fans new play potential from scenarios and characters from the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Players might prefer that I describe the game instead as a strategy game that is like a Role-playing game with cards. The break here is that the characters, vessels, and scenarios are all already conceived by others. The original concept was to find a way to make play socially acceptable for an older audience and it generally worked. In the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, though “Angel’s Curse” continued to illustrate the flaw in the premise: the target audience was well-beyond the play stage of life and as a result, most simply never got the concept. As well, the strength of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was always in the show’s dialogue, which a card game does not truly represent.

“Angel’s Curse” is a 220 card set focusing on characters, weapons, villains, locations and scenarios presented in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. While the product was released rather early in the series (season five was just beginning), “Pergamum Prophecy” focuses on the first season and first few episodes of the second season (which is what allows the set to have cards of Spike and Drusilla). The set consists of 47 common cards, 92 uncommon cards, 47 rare cards and 4 Ultra Rare, 15 Essence cards (rarity is unclear) and 15 promotional cards not found in these boxes. Like most CCGs the most popular characters and scenarios are given rare status and the background supernumeraries fill out the more common cards.

The 138 card set features 34 Characters (cards featuring heroes and villains from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, like Oz and Drusilla), 4 Personality Essence Cards (enhanced character cards for vital characters, like Angel and Cordelia), 13 Challenge (8 Evil, 5 Good, these are the obstacles players use to thwart their opponent),13 Items (cards featuring magical or significant devices, like Spike’s car or Mr. Pointy), 42 Actions (cards that describe actions your characters take, like the Wrath of Angelus or Desperate Maneuvers), 11 Locations (which essentially form the “board” for the game, 12 Skills (cards that alter characters for multiple rounds, like Diana’s Touch or the Ritual Of Acathla), and 9 Events (cards that assign player actions). This set continued to illustrate a very basic and broad sense of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe and it is clear the fans would “get” the references on the cards. In fact, that becomes one of the few enjoyable aspects of this game.

The booster boxes of “Angel’s Curse” come with thirty-six packs of eleven cards each. The booster packs are nice because they contain seven common, three uncommon and one rare card each, making it the highest proportion of rare cards one might pull in a pack of “Angel’s Curse” cards (there are starter decks which are fixed and have fewer rares). Each box has thirty-six rares and this almost makes a complete set, though there are two ultra rares to hunt down in addition to the standard rares! As well, the packs have a foil card inserted one in every other pack and the booster boxes are a great way to bone up on those for collectors.

Playability

Here is where the “Angel’s Curse” booster boxes are absolutely worthless to players. There are no rulebooks in this box of cards. One has to buy a starter deck for that. As well, the website advertised at the bottom of each and every card is now defunct. As a result, buying just the box leaves one often unable to play the game.

What I can say is that the game is not intuitive. Deck size (60 cards) is in no way self-evident and how the cards work is not entirely clear. As a result, this seems to be a fairly complicated game that mixes characters using strength, endurance and charisma to overcome obstacles. Sitting down even with the rulebook (when I finally got one) was not terribly fun.

Rules/Rule Changes

The rulebook for this game is basically thirty pages long and it boils down to moving characters around locations, dealing out cards to try to stop your opponent from reaching the end and accumulating points and occasionally doing combat with one another. This continued the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG without adding any new card types or fundamentally altering the way the game was played.

Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer franchise will appreciate the image quality of the characters and scenarios from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the ”Angel’s Curse” cards. While there are Principal Snyder, Angelus, Willow and Kendra characters, Buffy is hardly the most interesting or worthwhile one.

For the highlight, I’d have to go with card 91, the rare Cordelia. This Cordelia features a tough-looking image of Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia and it seems to have some decent skills to the card. Given that I can’t play the game well, I went with a card that looks real good!

Collectibility

The “Angel’s Curse” set has generally low collectibility. Packs were vastly overproduced and undersold, so most of these were blown out on clearance. As well, the foil cards – where the entire set is replicated in foil cards is annoying to collect.


Overview

“Angel’s Curse” cards are overproduced, underwhelming and impossible to play out of the booster box. One needs other resources and it is hard to get excited about hunting them down given how lackluster the game mechanic is. Despite expanding the image base from the first set well, it is too hard to get psyched about this game to make hunting it down at all worthwhile.

This set culls images and quotes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 2, reviewed here!

This set was preceded by “Pergamum Prophecy” (link above) and followed by “Class Of ‘99” (review pending!)

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Still Into Buffy The Vampire Slayer? There’s Always The Gaming Cards Starting With "Pergamum Prophecy!"

The Good: Good images, Fun text
The Bad: Unclear game mechanic, Vastly overproduced, Foil cards are annoying to collect
The Basics: Overproduced and difficult to figure out "Pergamum Prophecy" establishes the Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG poorly.

It seems like the easy way a show knows it has become a phenomenon is when the merchandising on it truly begins to pick up. In the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, there were toys, conventions and even a trading card game which never truly took off in the CCG community. While Buffy The Vampire Slayer ended up being remarkably popular, the attempts to capitalize on that popularity were often hit or miss. As an avid card collector, I was quite happy when a load of the first Buffy The Vampire Slayer Trading Card Game cards, “Pergamum Prophecy” came my way. Unfortunately, the more I tried to get into these, the more I found it was a losing battle.

The “Pergamum Prophecy” gaming cards are cute, culled from images from the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but the game mechanic is unclear and it just isn’t a very fun game. Moreover, with the target audience for the television show being teenage girls and young women, Score – who produced the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Trading Card Game – seems to have missed its target audience. This is not a demographic that has ever truly glommed onto the Customizable Card Game fads (at least not in the United States) and Pergamum Prophecy was a failed product. Even my partner, who is a huge fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer did not want much to do with “Pergamum Prophecy” outside reminiscing about the show and seeing a few of the principle characters.

Basics/Set Composition

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Customizable Card Game “Pergamum Prophecy” was the first set of Buffy gaming cards created by Score. For those unfamiliar with the concept, CCGs are basically a late-teen oriented product designed to capitalize on the youthful desire to play with the acknowledged maturity of the target audience. The initial idea of the customizable card game was to allow young adults and adults to play in a way that was as free and imaginative as playing with action figures, but without the stigma of being a twenty-five year-old lining up dolls and having them have relationship issues, then stake the each other. The result is something that is a midpoint between the freedom and creativity of action-figure free play and the structured rules and rigidity of a board game.

Players might prefer that I describe the game instead as a strategy game that is like a Role-playing game with cards. The break here is that the characters, vessels, and scenarios are all already conceived by others. The original concept was to find a way to make play socially acceptable for an older audience and it generally worked. In the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, though “Pergamum Prophecy” helps to illustrate the flaw in the premise: the target audience was well-beyond the play stage of life and as a result, most simply never got the concept. As well, the strength of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was always in the show’s dialogue, which a card game does not truly represent.

“Pergamum Prophecy” is a 220 card set focusing on characters, weapons, villains, locations and scenarios presented in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. While the product was released rather early in the series (season five was just beginning), “Pergamum Prophecy” focuses on the first season and first few episodes of the second season (which is what allows the set to have cards of Spike and Drusilla). The set consists of 47 common cards, 92 uncommon cards, 47 rare cards and 4 Ultra Rare, 15 Essence cards (rarity is unclear) and 15 promotional cards not found in these boxes. Like most CCGs the most popular characters and scenarios are given rare status and the background supernumeraries fill out the more common cards.

The 220 card set features 60 Characters (cards featuring heroes and villains from Buffy The Vampire Slayer), 8 Personality Essence Cards (enhanced character cards for vital characters), 31 Challenge (15 Evil, 16 Good, these are the obstacles players use to thwart their opponent), 21 Items (cards featuring magical or significant devices, like Bat sonar and a metal robot body), 46 Actions (cards that describe actions your characters take, like “Run, Fast!” or making an Overhand Toss), 28 Locations (which essentially form the “board” for the game, 16 Skills (cards that alter characters for multiple rounds, like Watcher Training and moving at a Fast Pace), and 2 Events (cards that assign player actions). This set establishes a very basic and broad sense of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe and it is clear the fans would “get” the references on the cards. In fact, that becomes one of the few enjoyable aspects of this game.

The booster boxes of “Pergamum Prophecy” come with thirty-six packs of eleven cards each. The booster packs are nice because they contain seven common, three uncommon and one rare card each, making it the highest proportion of rare cards one might pull in a pack of “Pergamum Prophecy” cards (there are starter decks which are fixed and have fewer rares). Each box has thirty-six rares and this almost makes a complete set! As well, the packs have a foil card inserted one in every other pack and the booster boxes are a great way to bone up on those for collectors.

Playability

Here is where the review may appear to fall down, but it (in fact) offers the most true experience of buying a “Pergamum Prophecy” box of Buffy The Vampire Slayer gaming cards now. There are no rulebooks in this box of cards. One has to buy a starter deck for that. As well, the website advertised at the bottom of each and every card is now defunct. As a result, buying just the box leaves one often unable to play the game.

What I can say is that the game is not intuitive. Deck size (60 cards) is in no way self-evident and how the cards work is not entirely clear. As a result, this seems to be a fairly complicated game that mixes characters using strength, endurance and charisma to overcome obstacles. Sitting down even with the rulebook (when I finally got one) was not terribly fun.

Rules/Rule Changes

The rulebook for this game is basically thirty pages long and it boils down to moving characters around locations, dealing out cards to try to stop your opponent from reaching the end and accumulating points and occasionally doing combat with one another. As “Pergamum Prophecy” is the first of these games, there are no rule changes, but the establishment of this game is nothing to write home about in terms of either fun or playable.

Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer franchise will appreciate the image quality of the characters and scenarios from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the ”Pergamum Prophecy” cards. While there are Spike, Drusilla, Angel and Giles characters, Buffy is hardly the most interesting or worthwhile one.

For the highlight, I’d have to go with card 152, the rare Willow Rosenberg. This Willow features a moon-eyed image of Willow and has her with 4 book smarts points, and the abilities in spellcraft and computers. It seems like a fun card!


Collectibility

The Pergamum Prophecy set has generally low collectibility. Packs were vastly overproduced and undersold, so most of these were blown out on clearance. As well, the foil cards – where the entire set is replicated in foil cards is annoying to collect.

Overview

Ultimately, the “Pergamum Prophecy” cards are overproduced, underwhelming and impossible to play out of the booster box. One needs other resources and it is hard to get excited about hunting them down given how lackluster the game mechanic is.

This set culls images and quotes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 1 and Season 2.

"Pergamum Prophecy" was the first Buffy The Vampire Slayer CCG and was followed by "Angel's Curse," reviewed here!

This is a set of cards I proudly sell in my online store! For my current inventory, be sure to click here to check what I have available!

For other CCGs, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Star Wars CCG – Theed Palace
The Lord Of The Rings TCG – The Fellowship Of The Ring
Star Trek: The Card Game

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Effectively The Third Volume Of Angel: After The Fall, Spike: After The Fall Has Its Charms.

The Good: Fills in a story gap well enough.
The Bad: Terrible artwork in too many places, Illyria's character is a bit off.
The Basics: A mildly interesting bridging story, Spike: After The Fall is hampered by a predictable plot and poor artwork.


More is not always better, I do believe. After all, as the follow-ups to the fifth season finale of Angel (reviewed here!) pile up, they largely fail to resonate or entertain with little more than a passing interest for the fans. As a result, some of the attempts have fallen a little flat. Spike: After The Fall is one of those attempts. The thing is, the fundamental problem with this book, for those who have been checking out the new Angel series as if it were Angel Season Six, is that this continues to distract from the rising action that began in Angel: After The Fall (reviewed here!).

Spike: After The Fall continues to fill in the blanks between the final episode of Angel and Angel: After The Fall, which begins months later. The Spike vignette in Angel: After The Fall - First Night (reviewed here!) was a very simple tale; when Los Angeles is teleported to Hell during the final battle, Spike is elated to have survived another apocalypse scenario. Given that, he decides to hang up his spurs . . . until he hears weak humans shouting for help and he leaps back into action. Unfortunately, he is overwhelmed and Spike is about to be killed by demons when he is rescued by Illyria. In the first After The Fall volume, Spike is one of the lords of Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) and Spike: After The Fall is the bridge between the two points in Spike's character arc.

Having been rescued by Illyria, Spike has begun to rescue humans from the hell-ravaged streets of Los Angeles. Staying alive by leaving places when the crowd gets too large and unwieldy, Spike and Illyria take up residence with their refugees in an abandoned amusement park. Soon after, though, Spike is set upon by Non, the Lord Of Beverly Hills. Non is a demon goddess, like Illyria, who feeds upon humans, making them into zombies.

Having captured Spike and begun to torture him for her amusement, Non and her army of women begin to feed on Spike's flock as Illyria reverts to Fred and freaks out. As Spike is seduced by Maria (a spiderwoman) while in captivity, Gunn takes on Non and shows off his captive Slayers. As Non and her Sadecki demon - which has the ability to influence others - make zombies of all the men and protect the borders of Non's territory, Spike's situation begins to look more dire . . . especially as Connor enters the fray!

Brian Lynch continues his exploration of the post-"Not Fade Away" world with this story which is illustrated by his partner in many of these ventures, Franco Urru. This is not Urru's best work as an artist. Urru opens the hardcover anthology with terrible artwork that resembles thumbnail sketches or animatics from an animated feature. The sloppy artwork sets up a poor perception of the overall story and the art gallery in the back - essentially the episode's "bonus feature" - is unimpressive as well. Throughout the book, Spike is underdetailed and in things like the dream sequence while Spike it being tormented, some of the "long shot" artwork is just disappointing for its lack of detail, both in the penciling and coloring.

Lynch's work in Spike: After The Fall is another tough sell for fans of the Spike character, for a few reasons. First, Lynch seems to overemphasize the relationship between Fred and Spike as it was developed (or not) in the fifth season of Angel. Spike pines for Fred and works to protect Fred by keeping Illyria in control of Fred's body throughout this volume. But even that is irksome as Illyria's control over her body was pretty absolute in the television series and no reason for her slippage is given in this book. It's a tough sell, then, for detail-oriented fans.

Beyond that, all Spike: After The Fall does it bridge the gap between the two volumes in After The Fall so far and tease readers. So, for example, Gunn's scene with Non has absolutely nothing to do with Spike and it feels a lot more like filler than anything else. After all, by that point, Spike is a captive but he hasn't figured out what is actually going on yet. Similarly, Spike trying to take refuge at Wolfram & Hart pretty much just sets up the question of "Where is Angel?" that is played out in the first and third volumes of Angel: After The Fall. Spike's story is rather limited here and the teaming of Spike and Connor is a weird one that is not played out in the other volumes either.

Outside that, Lynch does a decent job of keeping Spike's voice sounding real and Spike-like. Spike is cynical and survives by avoiding when necessary, insulting everyone along the way. Spike: After The Fall also has the requisite humor that fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel expect from him. In this case, the humor takes the form of Spike insulting the remaining man in his party and others trying to mimic Spike's voice at times. That is funny and it works, even in print.

There is, as well, one real good surprise in the final moments of Spike: After The Fall, which works perfectly for the Illyria character. Unfortunately, there is little tension for readers here as we know: 1. Spike can't die (we've seen him in subsequent volumes) and 2. Spike will depose Non, so it's just a waiting game on "how." That is only mildly interesting and - poor Spike - the idea of Spike getting tormented by virtually anyone who comes along is sad and continues to gut the idea that Spike is truly one of the best big bads. For sure, he has evolved, but in the case of Spike this seems to mean everyone and their brother can come along and kick his butt.

As a result, this is one of the less compelling Spike stories and it is easy enough to pass by. There is nothing essential here that fans cannot live without, especially at the hardcover price.

For other graphic novels that feature Spike, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Spike: Shadow Puppets
Spike: Lost & Found
Angel Not Fade Away

5.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Telling Fans What They Already Know About Spike, Spike: Lost & Found Flops!

The Good: Good artwork, Generally good character observations.
The Bad: Short, No real character development, Thin plot.
The Basics: Simple problem, simple solution: Spike: Lost & Found is a mini-episode graphic novel which tells readers what they already know about Spike.


For those who might not follow my many, many reviews, I have become a bit of a fan of the works of Joss Whedon. My wife is a huge fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, though I myself prefer Angel. One of the exciting things in the next few months for me will be sharing Firefly with her and we've pretty much committed to getting into Dollhouse eventually. In the meantime, I've been helping her get her fix by rounding up various graphic novels from the Buffyverse and gifting them to her. As she is a big fan of Spike, the Spike graphic novels always get me the reward of a delighted squeal and a hug from my wife. But as I look for more things to review, I have been reading her graphic novels and some of them are better than others. As one who is probably a little more discriminating, I think I can help readers separate the cream from the . . . well, less creamy. Spike: Lost & Found is one that is easy to pass on.

"Spike: Lost And Found" is a very short graphic novel and it is entirely predicated on having a memory of two episodes, one from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and one from Angel. When Angel spun off from Buffy in the fourth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!), there was a crossover episode, which involved Spike hunting the Gem Of Amarra, a mythical stone which could make a vampire invincible. After finding the Gem, it is taken by Buffy and Oz drives it to Los Angeles to give to Angel. On the episode of Angel - which is essentially recapped in Lost & Found - Spike arrives, tortures Angel for the Gem, is double-crossed by the torturer after Cordelia and Doyle give it up and Angel destroys the Gem Of Amarra. Lost & Found flashes back to those events, but most of the action takes place in the very brief window of time in the fifth season of Angel (reviewed here!) between when Spike becomes corporal, but before Fred is taken by Illyria.

When a vampire begins slaying in the middle of the day, Angel becomes wary of the implications. Murders in Los Angeles by a new vampire who can kill in broad daylight remind Angel of the Gem Of Amarra and he visits Spike to ask him about it. Spike, who was not around for the Gem being destroyed, insists Angel knows more about it than he does. Wesley's investigations suggest that the translation of Gem Of Amarra should actually have been "gems." Knowing now that they are hunting another Gem Of Amarra, Angel and Spike try to figure out how another Gem Of Amarra made it out into the world.

Their investigation leads them to the front doors of Wolfram & Hart, to Harmony (who was with Spike during the original caper). Harmony, it turns out, had picked up another ring which is another Gem Of Amarra. She has since sold it on EPay (so she could get new boots) and Spike and Angel hunt the ring from the bidder to the murdering vampire.

Lost & Found is a perfect example of "simple problem, simple solution," which is probably why this graphic novel is only 48 pages long. The story is unambitious and basically serves the simple purpose of reiterating that fifth season (of Angel) Spike is not the same gruesome jerk he was before he got his soul. The thing is, anyone who is enough of a fan to bother reading Lost & Found already knows this. As a result, Scott Tipton's story is essentially a double redundancy. Spike says he is different from who he was, then he is put in the same circumstances he was placed years before and lo and behold! he actually has changed.

So, Lost & Found is not so much chock full of character development as it is character observation or reminder. An it's a pretty obvious reminder for the fans.

As well, Tipton's story ultimately makes less sense in the resolution than many fans would like. The vampire who is running around during the day is supposed to be made invincible by the Gem Of Amarra. In order to make him not invincible, he must be separated from the Gem. In the episodes, the ring that holds the Gem is pulled off the finger and this makes sense. Invincibility does not equate to dexterity. But the troublesome thing in Lost & Found is the method by which the adversary loses the ring. One would think it would not be possible given that the ring is supposed to make the vampire invincible.

That said, despite the ridiculously short nature of this graphic novel and the fairly thin plot, this is one of the best graphic novels in the Spike series in terms of artwork. For one's $7.49, they get forty-eight pages of recognizable Spike, Angel, and Harmony. The panels look good and all of the characters are recognizable and the color contrasts are pretty incredible, which is quite a feat given that some of the panels have a lot of very dark colors to them. Fernando Goni, who illustrated this graphic novel, did an amazing job with the images, such that there is only one bad panel in the entire book. The only other complaint is a little nit-pick, which is that the daywalking vampire looks a bit too much like Angel for my tastes.

Ultimately, though, Lost & Found is a "well, duh" episode of Spike and as a result, it is no surprise that the graphic novel is so short. Spike has changed. We get it, we did not need a recycled episode to prove it to us. Sadly, the publishers at IDW thought differently. At least they made it look good.


For other Joss Whedon Universe graphic novels, please visit my reviews of:
Spike: Smile Time
Angel: Not Fade Away
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Twilight

4/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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