Will the Buffy TV Show Revival Ignore the Comics That Continued the Story After Season 7?

Warning: spoilers for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV finale, and comic book continuation plots.

For a lot of people, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended in 2003 with series finale “Chosen”. After a season-long battle with The First and its subterranean army of stocky Turok-Han, the Scooby Gang saved the world by changing Slayer lore forever. No longer would one girl stand alone against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness; now, there’d be a whole bunch. Using a mystical scythe, Willow had magically hacked the source of Slayer power to bestow super-strength on every Potential around the world. Multiple slayers: no waiting.

The world of Buffy continued on TV for another year over on LA-set spinoff Angel (which resurrected James Marsters’ Spike after he’d sacrificed himself to take down The First in the Buffy finale) and then in 2004, that show came to its own apocalyptic conclusion.

Afterwards, and throughout Buffy and Angel’s televisual run, comic book spinoffs had been retelling TV stories and inventing new ones, but none were considered canon. That all changed in 2007 when Dark Horse published the first official continuation of the TV show story, a canonical comic book series produced and co-written by original series creator Joss Whedon, and titled Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Eight.  

Comic book seasons Nine, Ten, Eleven, and a shortened Twelve followed, along with the Angel and Faith, and Angel and Spike After the Fall spinoffs, to name just a few. All of these stories kept continuity with the TV shows, and fed into and crossed over with one another’s worlds, which leaves the question: with a Buffy revival pilot reportedly nearing commission at Hulu with the involvement of Sarah Michelle Gellar, would a return to Buffy on TV acknowledge the canonical comic book stories, or skip ‘em? After all, the comics wouldn’t be the only thing this non-Whedon revival project would be pretending didn’t exist.  

There’s a decent argument for the proposed new show skipping comics continuity, and many would tell you it contains the words “Dawn”, “Xander”, “Giant” and “Giles trapped inside the body of his 12-year-old self” and “Spike flies a spaceship now”.

Perhaps that’s unfair. Dawn and Xander’s romance, and the Dawn-gets-turned-into-a-giant-who-has-to-live-in-a-castle-stable story weren’t popular, but they were surrounded by fun stuff, from Harmony’s reinvention as a reality TV star who becomes a spokesperson for vampires everywhere, to Andrew growing into his role as the next Giles, to the returns of Oz, Amy, Warren, Anya (sort of), D’Hoffryn, Jonathan (again, sort of) and more.

The canon comics were… zany might be the right word. Magic played a huge role, as did time travel. There were two new species of vampire (zombie ones and sunlight-resistant bat ones), several Big Bads not all of whom turned out to be rogue slayers or magically possessed allies. The US government’s subtext-heavy segregation of magical people provided some decent drama too.

The real reason for a revived Buffy TV show to ignore comics continuity though, is that there is so much of it. Five collected volumes plus multiple spinoffs is an unfeasible amount to try to work in to a new show, the majority of whose audience may not even have known of the comics’ existence. Far better to go from the TV show’s finale and for writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (Poker Face, Agents of SHIELD, Haven) and director Chloe Zhao to build anew from there.

It was a solid ending, after all. The TV series concludes with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character surveying the crater that was once Sunnydale. Asked by Faith how it feels to no longer be “the one and only chosen” and instead having to just live as a person, in a damn-near perfect final moment, Buffy smiles, and the credits roll.

Had Buffy known that her next move was robbing a Swiss bank and going to Tibet while her little sister shacked up with her best pal, she might not have looked quite so peaceful.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is streaming now on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US.

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