Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Reunion" takes place after Buffy's resurrection and return from the dead and her return from a brief meeting with Angel which takes place off the screen. Written by Buffy writer Jane Espenson ,who had also penned a number of stories in "Tales of the Slayers" and approved of by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" created Joss Whedon-- Reunion fills in a small gap in the Buffy chronology with a funny little gem of a story that unlike many of the Buffy comics fits easily and smoothly in the overall narrative of the Buffyverse.

While the 'Reunion' of the title refers to Buffy's reunion with Angel, the comic is less about her or Angel and more about the speculations of the Scooby Gang about what Buffy and Angel had been up to. The fantastic scenarios they envision resemble the speculations in one Batman comic that had kids imagining increasingly outlandish visions of Batman, only to be completely underwhelmed when they encounter the real one.

Xander's idea of Buffy and Angel's reunion has their clothes flying up to the celling in the heat of passion-- until he's forced to modify his story by Dawn's entrance into one in which Buffy and Angel exchange teen angst flavored dialogue parodying teen soaps like Dawson's Creek... only to have them attacked by a flaming skeletal monster whom Buffy slays by tipping over the Hollywood 'L' on him. In Xander's vision, Angel is weak, pathetic and insecure-- in no small part because Xander has always resented and hated Angel.

The narrative breaks the fourth wall of comic book storytelling as in the process Anya and Dawn question Xander's descriptions, including his ZRRRRRRK sound used to describe the demon's attack and finally dismiss his method of disposing of the demon as "stupid'. Similarly Anya comments on the flying clothes asking what they are, off screen, as if she were an observer to the comic book. This lets the commentary function as a kind of pop up video in comic book form.

Anya's story has Buffy and Angel meeting at Denny's for a burger where Buffy delivers lines in Anya's mechanically precise wording until they're attacked by a gigantic pink bunny demon. The demon loses his pink fur and reveals a burning bunny skeleton underneath. In her version Anya gleefully notes, Buffy loses.

Dawn's story begins as an over the top romantic encounter between Buffy and Angel, and changes Buffy's dress halfway through-- which Anya comments on. This is however interrupted once again by a demon attack. Dawn tries to figure out how to kill it, suggesting drowning it in the ocean and then even though its still alive-- hacking away at it with a shell. (Dawn's answer is closest to the correct solution, which may itself indicate her qualifications to be a slayer.) Dawn comments that the story got out of control and got away from her. Each attempt to tell the story seems to hopelessly come packaged with the demon attack, each time an attack by a burning skeletal demon. This of course resembles the very real way in which stories get away from people trying to tell and in which a writer may find that the characters in his story appear to have taken on minds of their own-- so to speak.

Giles raises the suspicion that a demon may be inside their heads, similar to what had happened with the spirit of the First Slayer in "Restless". Willow's arrival however clears it up that it was she who accessed their minds and introduced the image of the burning skeletal demon in their minds to warn them that an attack by the demon is coming. Willow explains that she knew this because she saw it in a crystal ball. In retrospect, both her claim that she's going to buy a super secret ingredient from an old hag 'who puts the hag in haggle' and that she saw the oncoming burning skeletal demon attack in the witch's crystal ball make little sense.

While Buffy begins to prepare the burning demon attacks and wreaks havoc in the store. Buffy attempts to fight it as Anya warns her against an uppercut to the burning demon's skeletal chin on the grounds that 'you tried it in my story and it didn't go well'. Finally Buffy uses a fire extinguisher to put out the demon's flames and with his flames extinguished, destroys the rest of him in a conventional enough manner.

Privately Willow has a flashback revealing that she had summoned the demon in order to persuade Buffy to open up and reveal the secret in her heart of what she had been doing during her meeting with Angel-- but the literal minded and destructive demon interpreted her command in the simplest and most brutal way possible by ripping her open and bringing back her heart.

While Willow was genuinely concerned about Buffy after her resurrection and return from what the rest of the Scooby Gang believed had been hell-- this seems like a rather selfish and gossipy use of magic, only to find out what Buffy had talked about with Angel-- rather than a more direct means of being concerned over Buffy's welfare. This may of course be considered as heralding Willow's increasingly abusive use of magic in Season 6, culminating with the Season 6 season finale that has Willow become the "Big Bad".

All in all, "Reunion" is a clever gem of an issue that plays with storytelling and the fourth wall, while at the same time giving us some enjoyable moments with the Scooby Gang and another look at Buffy after her return to life and return to earth.