Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 5 - Predators and Prey

When the vapid vampire Harmony Kendall lands a popular reality TV show, the world’s slayers are inextricably cast as villains. With Buffy and her allies’ reputations smeared, they must find a way to continue protecting the very people who now fear and hate them. Buffy must also contend with a malicious renegade slayer contingent and finally deal with Dawn’s continued magical transformations.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 5: Predators and Prey collects Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #21-25, written by Jane Espenson, Steven S. DeKnight, Drew Z. Greenberg, Jim Krueger and Doug Petrie. Georges Jeanty and Cliff Richards provide the art.

Thus far, the eighth season has been structured with four issue arcs followed by self-contained one-off issues. Predators and Prey eschews this format in favour of a more episodic form of storytelling, enabling this collection’s writers to tell a series of stories that either build on or wrap up events from this season. These stories vary in quality, with the better ones being those that help progress the overall narrative of the season. Jane Espenson’s “Harmonic Divergence” casts Harmony as a Lauren Conrad-esque reality star whose stumbling efforts to achieve fame accidentally leads to the tarnishing of the slayers’ public perception. It’s an interesting turn of events, especially since the insipid Harmony accomplishes something on a global scale that legitimately hurts the slayers’ operations without even meaning to. It’s a complication that works well to ratchet up the tension and makes things more difficult for Buffy and her allies.

 

Steven S. DeKnight’s “Swell,” Drew Z. Greenberg’s “Predators and Prey” and Doug Petrie’s “Living Doll” provides a different function in that they’re responsible for tying up some of the loose ends introduced during season eight. “Swell” is a Japan-set adventure where Kendall and Satsu team up together in order to fight off the miniature demonic Vampy Cat dolls. Besides getting to see more of Kendall and being able to warm up to her character a little more, this story is notable for featuring Satsu moving on from her romantic pursuit of Buffy. “Predators and Prey” is both hilarious and touching, as we see Andrew and Buffy working together to dismantle the operations of a rogue slayer group. Greenberg more or less closes the book on the renegade slayer Simone, who functioned loosely as a season three Faith kind of a character earlier in the season. Beyond that, he pens a really funny scene in which Buffy and Andrew bond while en route to their assignment and he also adds a bit of genuine emotion as Andrew finally earns the trust and respect of Buffy and her allies. Then “Living Doll” serves the sole purpose of resolving the Dawn subplot, which means this Dawn-heavy issue focuses on Buffy having to save her little sister. It’s not the most interesting of stories, but at least we get a sense from its closing moments that Dawn is maturing as a character.

The weakest story collected is “Safe,” written by Jim Krueger. It’s a filler issue centered on Faith and Giles as they investigate a supposed slayer sanctuary in Eastern Europe. It has a lot of potential, but it progresses far too quickly due to its short length. It’s a treat getting to see Faith and Giles working alongside one another, but it’s done in a manner that feels far too much like skippable filler.

Predators and Prey is a mild step-up from the previous collection of season eight stories. The dialogue is stronger and there does seem to be a conscious effort being paid towards moving the narrative along. Its major flaw is in the stories’ rushed pace, particularly with “Predators and Prey” and “Safe.” With so many cooks in the kitchen, it’s actually remarkable that this collection feels fairly consistent. Of course, Georges Jeanty and Cliff Richards are to be praised for this as their art helps to unify all of the stories collected here.

RATING: B-