Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 2 - No Future for You

When a rogue slayer plots to kill Buffy in order to claim leadership over the slayers, Giles dispatches Faith to assassinate her before her plan can come to fruition. In exchange, Faith will be given a new start in life. There’s just one problem – Buffy is blissfully unaware of Giles’ plan and she’s none too pleased when she and Faith cross paths again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 2: No Future for You collects Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #6-10, written by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon with art by Georges Jeanty and Cliff Richards.

No Future for You is a four-part Faith-centric arc that catches up with everyone’s favourite bad girl slayer a year after the events of the series’ television finale. She’s still in America where she’s doing the occasional odd job when Giles contacts her and recruits her in his mission to assassinate the rogue slayer Lady Genevieve. Faith ventures to England where she poses as an aristocrat named Hope and cons her way into Genevieve’s inner circle. It is then that Faith learns of Genevieve’s plan to kill Buffy, which throws her for a loop considering their rocky past. This espionage-tinged narrative provides an interesting avenue for Faith to take, as we see her playing a role that is opposite of who she is. There’s a lot of humour to be had there as well as we’re meant to see Faith as the Eliza Doolittle to Giles’ Professor Higgins, which later transitions more into a rather badass Emma Peel and John Steed reference in the concluding moments of the arc. It’s clever and helps us to see these characters in a new light. For Giles especially, he seems freer and more himself when partnered with Faith rather than wedged into having to be a mentor or father figure. It’s also refreshing to see Faith being treated as an equal and with respect by someone other than Angel, although it seems that Buffy is still stuck in her narrow high school mentality when it comes to her edgier foil.

Brian K. Vaughan’s dialogue is superb throughout his four issue run. It’s evident that he has a firm grasp on Faith’s character and this knowledge shines through brilliantly. Faith’s distinctive tone as a character is in each line of her dialogue and you can almost hear Eliza Dushku’s husky voice while reading it. Beyond that, Vaughan also digs deeper into her character through flashbacks. We understand her psyche and sympathize with her through references to her abusive childhood to her relationship with Mayor Wilkins to her complicated rivalry with Buffy. Artist Georges Jeanty emphasizes Vaughan’s work in his expressiveness and in his ability to capture the visual likenesses of the actors who played these characters. He continues to turn in incredible work that makes this series so fantastic.

A one-off issue follows Vaughan and Jeanty’s No Future for You arc written by Joss Whedon and illustrated by Cliff Richards. In it, Willow and Buffy take a trip to gain insight into Twilight. In the process they learn secrets about one another, which is particularly emotional since we’re told they’ve been spending very little time together after the destruction of Sunnydale. It’s an interesting issue and I enjoy the way in which we see these characters interacting with one another. Friendship was a central theme to the television series so it’s nice to see that carried through. There are some weird sequences (Buffy and Willow play a game where they exchange fantasies), more Dawn interludes and an uncharacteristically poorly designed demon, all of these serving as low points to this singular issue. That said, bonus points must be awarded to Cliff Richards as he manages to closely mimic the familiar facial features of both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan.

Admittedly, I enjoyed this volume far more than its predecessor. Brian K. Vaughan’s four part story starring Faith was really fun and refreshing, as we rarely got this level of attention paid to her during the actual television series. She’s portrayed as a central figure and the narrative he builds around her is one I’d love to see more of. His dialogue is consistently on point and the talented Georges Jeanty is there to deliver more fantastic art. The Whedon-penned one-off is great too, but it's Faith that's the real star of this collection.

RATING: A-