Buffy Season 8 Recap - After these messages, we'll be right back!

The opening to this issue is a montage of Buffy killing numerous demons, as she kills each one she adds a quip but gradually she puts less effort into them even telling the last demon that she can’t be bothered anymore. She gets home and crashes into bed, as she drifts off Xander comes in and tries to stop Buffy from falling asleep, Buffy asks him if the world is ending to which he replies no, she asks if Dawn has transformed again but Xander also denies that that is the problem. Buffy closes her eyes and tells him to only wake her if the world ends, as she falls asleep Xander finally tells her the problem, it isn’t her bed that she is ruining with her dirty clothes, it’s his! But the only response he gets is Buffy’s snoring.





The drawing style changes to indicate that something is different as Buffy wakes up, she hears a voice downstairs telling her that she has to get up or she will be late for school. Buffy sits up, confused, the voice she is hearing from downstairs is familiar, as she wonders if it could possibly be the person she is thinking of, her bedroom door opens and her mother and Dawn enter the room. Buffy immediately hugs her mother and then Dawn, she realises that she is in the past and not that her mother has returned. Joyce tells her that if she is late for school she wont allow her to go to the party, as Buffy hates the idea of going back to school she realises that her mom said “party” and gets excited.

As Buffy walks into school she sees Cordelia and her group harassing Willow, she quickly removes Willow from the group and cheers her up by telling her that one day she will be much better than them and she will be a powerful witch who helps save the world. “You think?” Willow asks. Xander then comes down the hallway on his skateboard which is then taken off him by the principle, as Xander sulks Buffy and Willow walk up to him and Buffy tells him that perhaps one day he will be a leader to hundreds of girls and he’ll get to wear an eyepatch. He, like Willow, thinks this is a very cool idea and they then go to find Giles.

Buffy and the “scoobies” (including Giles) are now on patrol, Giles tells Buffy about a group of vampires that are planning a ritual that will change the balance of good and evil. Buffy rolls her eyes and throws her stake into the air playfully, she thinks to herself how easy this is going to be, her teen body with an adult ‘super Slayer’ brain, there is no way this is going to go wrong, as the stake comes back down she doesn’t catch it and it hits her on the head. It seems her teen body isn’t as great at coordination as she thought.










The next two pages show Buffy killing the group of vampires with ease, she kills one and then stakes the other two with no problem. After the fight Giles tries to continue discussing the fight, pointing out that they were worshipping an image of a dragon, Buffy Xander and Willow all point out that there was no dragon so the Slayer duties are over and they can now go to the party. As Giles begins to tell her that she should take her Slayer duties more seriously Buffy snaps and tells him that one day there will be nearly two thousand Slayers and that she will be the leader of them and then storms off to get ready for the party.

At home Joyce tells her that she is worried about this party, she doesn’t know anyone who is going there and they have only recently moved to the area, it might be dangerous. Buffy laughs at the idea that Sunnydale is dangerous, her Mom asks why its funny and Buffy admits that it’s actually kind of sad, she hugs her Mom and tells her that she wishes she could stay here forever. Joyce tells her that she has a whole life ahead of her, she is going to go graduate, go to college, maybe meet a nice boy and settle down, but most importantly, she can come ‘home’ whenever she wants to. Buffy smiles sadly and kisses her Mom on the cheek and leaves for the party.

On her way to the party she is stalked by Angel, she jumps up to the roof he is on and asks him why he is following her. He tells her that he heard she had killed the five vampires with ease and was just making sure she was okay. He looks down at the necklace he gave her and points out that she is wearing it, she tells him it is only because it goes with her outfit, nothing more. She laughs at the awkwardness between them, the tension before they finally got together. She strokes his face and changes the mood, she asks him if he knew about someone’s past and future, would he tell them? Angel tells her that it would not be a wise idea because it could change their future to something much worse. She tells him that she needs to go and leaves him, as she walks to the party she relives her conversation with Angel, focusing on the fact he complimented the necklace then she suddenly realises he said that she defeated five of the vampires but there were only three, there must be two vampires left. She is so close to the party she can hear the music but she decides she must go back to find the vampires.

She gets back to the tomb where she killed the other vampires to find the last two vampires finishing the ritual, they tell her that she is too late but she quickly kills them believing that it is over. Suddenly the tomb falls down around her and a dragon emerges, she jumps on the back of it and they ascend into the sky. Buffy swiftly decides that the jewel in its head is the way to stop the dragon and manages to kick it out, as she suddenly looks forward to the party even more, the dragon disappears and Buffy falls to the ground, a tree breaks her fall then everything goes white as she wakes up. The drawing style changes back to normal and Buffy wakes up, seemingly having been asleep for mere seconds. She loves the fact that Xander is “all eye-patchy” to which Xander simply asks for her to get out of his bed again. Willow then walks in and she jumps up to hug her, as she hugs her she tells Xander, Willow (and Dawn who has just walked in) about her dream. “And you were there… and you were there….” She tells them that she was back in school, back when things were simpler, Buffy realises that she needs to come back to the present and tells them that it doesn’t matter, its over now. Buffy realises that she cannot tell Willow about her future/past because it may change Willow’s fate to something worse, but she still appreciates the brief moment where she got to go ‘home’ again and is now looking towards the future.