Warning: Spoilers for Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1
Summary
- Spike and Buffy finally get their happy ending, but it comes with a dark twist in a post-apocalyptic London overrun by vampires.
- Buffy struggles with adjusting to her newfound peace, and the quiet domestic life conflicts with her identity as a Slayer.
- Buffy's high-alertness and inability to make peace with her happiness is causing her romance with Spike to suffer.
Fans who adore the pairing of Spike and Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be glad to know they have a happy ending — but one with a dark twist. In a post-apocalyptic London overrun by vampires, an elderly Buffy starts mentoring the true last Vampire Slayer, Thessaly, daughter of Willow and Tara. As her Watcher, Buffy rekindles her former romance with Spike, who also serves as Thessaly's Watcher.
These events, fully explored in a prior miniseries, lead into into BOOM! Studios' latest Buffy-starring ongoing, which begins with Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1 by Casey Gilley, Oriol Roig, Gloria Martinelli, and Ed Dukeshire. While serving as co-Watchers to Thessaly, Buffy and Spike can finally be a couple without distractions.
Except, for Buffy, that's the problem; the quiet domestic life conflicts with the identity she's had since she was 15, and she struggles with adjusting to her newfound peace even as Spike s her.
Buffy Remains on Edge as a Former Slayer
Without Slayer duties to worry about, Buffy and Spike have a lot more alone time while Thessaly's the one on patrol. Unfortunately, because she's been trained to have her defenses up since she was a teenager, Buffy can't sit down without waiting for a pin to drop. She mistakes a raccoon in the bushes for some anomaly and nearly stakes Spike out of her own paranoia. This is enough to spoil the mood for the both of them as Buffy storms into the shower in a huff, leaving Spike to wallow on his own.
Buffy has been on high alert for nearly her entire life, waiting for the next vampire to swoop in from around the corner or waiting for the house to burn down so she can save it. Now, her life is in a position where there is no fire, but she still has to unlearn the feelings that come with peace. Her body and mind have to adjust to the fact that there is no danger present or looming. Whatever danger may come, Thessaly has it handled. Buffy recognizing this change in her status quo is proving easier said than done. As a result, her romance with Spike is suffering.
Buffy Can't Make Peace with Her Newfound "Happiness"
Slayers, of course, aren't typically designed to have happy endings. Traditionally, Slayers exist to vanquish evil every day until they die, after which the next Slayer in line takes their place to start the process all over again. Willow poses this as a problem recently in The Vampire Slayer, pointing out that Slayers are merely a "temporary solution to a permanent problem." Buffy finding happiness destroys that narrative, but because she's spent close to 50 years living this kind of precarious existence, she fails to unlearn the narrative for herself. Buffy the Vampire Slayer simply doesn't know how to be happy yet, and it's bringing grief to what she has with Spike.
Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1 is out now from BOOM! Studios.
