While many have heard of the cult favorite 1990s TV show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ even fans of the original series and movie may have a hard time when it comes to distinguishing between the many comic book offshoots based on the show.
With both the show and its comic universe having been recently rebooted (Boom! Studios latest issue of Buffy actually sold out even before its release, see here), I want to take an opportunity to explore the history of Buffy Summers and the Scooby Gang in comics.
In this post I’ll trace the major comic book appearances of everybody’s favorite Vampire Slayer and then let you know if any of the many Buffy comics can fetch high prices, or if the entire output is dollar bin fodder (spoilers: it’s not).
First some background about the girl from Sunnydale and her origins. Buffy the Vampire slayer was created by television, movie and occasional comic book writer and aficionado Joss Whedon (yes, the guy who produced the ‘Avengers’, ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ for Marvel and tried but failed to save ‘Justice League’ for Warner).
Whedon’s original concept for Buffy was, if interviews are to be believed, “Rhonda the Immortal Waitress”, basically a heroic female who is the opposite of what she seems. After writing for television for a few years, Whedon had the idea of making the Immortal Waitress a subversion of the horror genre. In every horror film there’s an innocent blonde who ends up getting killed at some point. With Buffy, Whedon took that concept and turned it on its head. What he came up with was a valley girl who is the ‘Chosen One’, a demon killer; feared by the forces of hell.
In Buffy’s case the forces of the ‘Hellmouth’- which in the 1992 original movie, featuring Kristy Swanson as Buffy, Luke Perry as her boyfriend and Donald Sutherland as her watcher (Merrick)- was a Vampire infested Los Angeles.
However while the movie, which was transformed against Whedon’s wishes into a comedy, didn’t exactly bomb at the box office, neither did it live up to either its creator's or the critics expectations.
Later, an unusual thing happened. Whedon got the chance to return to his original idea and adapt it for TV. Offered the possibility of developing an original television series, he pitched the idea of a show about 'High school as a horror movie.' Buffy the TV series was the result and the rest is history.
The show featured a new actress (Sarah Michelle Geller) as Buffy and introduced a group of quirky friends (Willow played by Alyson Hannigan, and Xander played by Nicholas Brendon, amongst others), it also threw in a new Watcher (Giles Rupert, played by Anthony Stewart Head) and an undead love interest, Angeles played by actor David Boreanez. Buffy quickly gained a cult following. The TV series premiered in 1991 and managed to stay on air for seven complete seasons. Between the sixth and seventh season, Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights for the first Buffy comic book series.
Dark Horse Presents Annual (1998) – First Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Comics
On to the tangled comic book history of Ms. Summers: although the comic book connections to Buffy were always strong, for example Whedon’s love of the Chris Claremont era X-Men is responsible for Buffy having the surname ‘Summers’ (after Scott-‘Cyclops’-Summers), adapting Buffy to comics brought problems. The difficulty facing Buffy comics wasn’t that the material wasn’t adaptable; it was trying to integrate the comic stories with the already established film and TV series canon. This problem was eventually solved by abandoning the canonical status of the vast majority of the comics. This makes them hit and miss in terms of quality, as well as art and story. In time, there were spin-offs, and many different titles were launched before the Buffy saga itself began to develop entire new seasons in comic book form. This preview of the Buffy comic in the DHP Annual sold on December 17, 2018 in 9.8 certified condition for $200.00. With 108 copies on the CGC census, it’s also the most certified Buffy-related comic. That said, there have been a total of only 18 sales over the past three years.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 [Darkhorse] (September 1998) – First Stand Alone Buffy Comic
Written by Andi Watson, with pencils by Joe Bennet, this non-canonical Buffy comic series dealt mostly with Buffy’s adventures in High school. This issue sold well and was reprinted, as well as published with two photo-variant covers. All in all, with 47 copies on the CGC census and six sales recorded on GoCollect.com over the last nine years, its safe to say that this comic flies under the radar. Still, an original first print last sold on October 2018 for a respectable $85.00 in 9.8 certified grade. The photo-variant covers, on the other hand, tend to sell more often than the original, but not necessarily for more money. The last sale of the regular variant in 9.8 was April 15, 2018 on eBay for $75.00, and the so-called Another Universe Edition variant, sold in 9.8 in May of 2018, for $45.00.
Since it went off the air, the subsequent seasons of Buffy (as well as its sister show ‘Angel’) have all appeared in comic book form. Although none of the comics started out as canonical, the first attempt on Whedon’s behalf to integrate the Movie and TV Buffy-verse with the comics occurs here. Not a well-known book, it is nonetheless important if you’re a Buffy fan. With a new TV series set to launch, we may see interest develop in these older Buffy comics, if newer fans of the show want to explore its past there is a lot of material out there.
