Comic Related - If It's Comic Related, You'll Find It Here!

When Riley was first introduced into Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, I didn't like the character. He was a clear replacement for Angel, who was busy moving to his own show, and I felt he made a little too convenient of a boyfriend for Buffy in the show. As that season wore on, Riley grew on me like so many of Joss Whedon's characters do, and I was a little sad to see him leave the show as well.

In The Buffy Season 8 comics we were privileged to see a pretty epic battle at the Rileys' farm, a location where this book begins. It's made clear that he and his girl don't really want to settle down and be farmers, that they miss their old life and adventures ensue.

The book starts out letting us know that Buffy asked Riley to check into whatever the current mission is, a missile silo with a mistery that leads them off to other places. I think the pacing actually was a little jumbled. We go from corn fields, to missile silos, to out in the middle of the ocean, and in all that I never really get a sense of urgency to turn the page. Yeah, the plot made sense and this is a one shot, but for a one shot it felt a lot more like a "Buffy Season 9: Issue #0!" prologue style book.

Perhaps it really is that the character of Riley simply isn't interesting enough to hold my interest as more than a supporting character, but I think it was more to do with the book itself. The dialogue between Riley and his wife felt a bit contrived and forced for the most part. The only time a line really stood out at me as interesting was when they were on the boat and Riley made his poignant observation.

The other thing about this book was seeing Angel as Twilight really was confusing as to where in the timeline this took place, and the book didn't make it explicit. I'm assuming it's after Buffy #35, which was the last issue to come out, but why is Angel still hiding as Twilight if that's the case?

The art was pretty mediocre. Some pages had nice detail in the backgrounds, but the figures look rushed across the entire book, very low on the facial detail and even distracting in some of the broad strokes made during the middle pages.

Overall, it wasn't the most useful issue in the world in terms of advancing the overall plot (which was the entire plot of the book, despite being a separate one shot), or in terms of character development. There was a reason this was labeled as a Riley one shot and not just inserted as an issue in the series as an interlude to the Season 8 climax. This book didn't do it for me, and I would recommend skipping it and waiting for Buffy #36.

6/10