Buffy The Vampire Slayer #18 review

Time of Your Life part three

I've been cold on this arc and that really hasn't changed. Still not interested in Fray or her supporting cast.

I will say there are some things worth noting. Fray is notably more straight forward in her job. She sees vampires, she kills vampires. "Driving" along they see a bunch of vampires attack some EMS guys and Buffy is more willing to let them do their thing for the "greater good." Tragedies versus statistics, but I never quite thought Buffy as a Stalinist. Though by issue's end it is Fray that is betraying Buffy. This might be interesting. Might be interesting, and this is what's kinda killing me about this arc. So many big things happening around what is basically a minor crossover event. It seems almost unfair. The arc in of itself isn't terribly interesting, just the subplots. I would have preferred Whedon to get to the nitty gritty with this story and save everything else for an issue that could properly launch the other stuff. Or even better, not have done the crossover at all.

Though there are some highlights.

There is a great scene between Xander and Dawn that has Xander...riding...Dawn...um, well, it's not quite what you might think, though it adds a great deal of sexual tension. Is this Xander's next big relationship? And isn't Dawn still a bit young? Still, that scene is hysterical when they encounter a bunch of mystical trees with flaming swords for arms. That one had me scratching my head. Trees. With flaming swords. For arms. Crazy.

One other thing, considering how much lesbian sex this book now contains in its short run, why doesn't Dark Horse just get it over with, slap a "mature readers" tag and allow them the option of going the full monty? Come on, everyone is going lezzo, why tease us? Just how pert are Willow's breasts? We must know!

Still for the diehards, but proving itself to be important to the overall series. Whedon isn't wowing me here, but I'm not the type of fan this story is written for.