Buffy the Vampire Slayer's revival needs to ignore a decade's worth of canon storylines. Debuting in 1997 and quickly become a cult classic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer focused on the titular young woman as she struggled to balance her responsibilities as a supernaturally empowered defender with the average expectations of the teenage experience. The show ran for seven seasons and was popular enough to justify a five season spin-off about Buffy's vampiric lover, Angel. The franchise remains beloved and influential decades later, even as the show's creator Joss Whedon has become increasingly controversial for his behavior while on set.

It was recently confirmed that Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival should ignore those stories and start fresh.

What Happened After Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Revealed The Aftermath Of "Chosen"

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics continued the adventures of the Scooby Gang and their allies in a wide-ranging and wild story that shouldn't be the basis for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival show. Initially written by Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight was considered a canonical continuation of the show. Picking up a year after the ending of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and roughly at the same time as the ending of Angel), the comic reintroduced Buffy as the head of a global organization dedicated to uniting the newly empowered Slayers under a single banner.

Initially planned as a 25-issue run, the success of the run led to be in expanded to forty issues. It also received numerous follow-ups, as well as set the stage for a comics continuation of Angel set within the same expanded universe. Over a decade of stories, Buffy was sent into a dystopian future, combating attempts to normalize vampires in society, and contended with the sudden erasure of magic across the world. This comic universe came to a close with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12, with the Buffy comics shifting to new continuities and a modern reboot in 2019.

Buffy's Comics Cannot Fit Into A TV Show Revival

The Revival Shouldn't Come With Required Reading

Across several comics and miniseries, the canon Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics continuation ran for over 250 issues. This means there are a lot of big events, surprising deaths, and shocking resurrections. If the TV revival were to build off those comics, there would be a lot of explaining necessary to justify the number of changes that occurred since the ending of the TV show. Even given the time-gap that exists between the final comic and the present day, the sheer amount of world-shattering events featured in the comics would be enough to baffle most audiences unfamiliar with those stories.

The [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] revival shouldn't just try to do a hard adaptation of the comics...

The audience of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series is much larger than the fan base that followed the comics, so confusing them with info dumps about the comics would be overwhelming. The revival shouldn't just try to do a hard adaptation of the comics either, as they are very reflective of their time and have certain elements better not brought to live-action. While the years since the conclusion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer invites explanation, it'll be an easier and cleaner way to restart the series on TV by treating the comics continuation as their own separate continuity.

Buffy's Comics Have Some Stories A TV Show Is Better Off Avoiding

Some Plots From The Sequel Comics Are Too Bizarre For Mainstream TV

While the Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival could pull ideas from the sequel comics, there are plenty of stories from the Buffy comics that don't need to be brought to the new TV show. At the heart of Season 8 was the mysterious villain Twilight, who was eventually revealed to be a magically influenced Angel. Angel ended up killing Giles, setting up a confusing resurrection plot. Meanwhile, Dawn went through a number of physical transformations that would be strange to see on TV. A more uncomfortable plot to adapt for the character would be her eventual romantic relationship with Xander.

The freedom of comics as a medium allowed Whedon and other creatives to take the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe to places they never could on TV. That means that adapting the comics directly would push the TV revival's budget to the breaking point. The overarching plots of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic continuations were massive and oftentimes confusing for those not up to date on several tie-in storylines, making it a thorny mess to adapt. It'd be easier to just restart the timeline without that additional baggage, allowing the revival's creatives to tell their own unique Buffy story.

Buffy's Comics Are Still An Important Part Of The Show's Legacy

Buffy's Sequel Comics Proved The Franchise Deserved A Follow-Up

Even if the Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival doesn't directly adapt the storylines of the comics continuation, that run of stories still plays an important part in the overarching legacy of the franchise. Debuting a couple of years after Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel concluded, the comic sequels to those shows proved that the fan base for the Buffyverse was still invested in their stories. Similar to how the old Star Wars tie-ins are entertaining even if they are considered non-canon to the current franchise, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel comics are still compelling and unique reads.

Even when they became confusing or weird, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel comics were a crucial way for the universe to continue onwards. It allowed unfinished plotlines or undeveloped concepts to come to fruition. The comics also gave many characters a refreshing sense of closure that was missing from the more bittersweet and open-ended nature of the shows. If nothing else, the comics proved that a continuation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was worth doing. Without the comics sequels, we might not have gotten the Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival — even if the show shouldn't pull from the comics.