Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Origin By Josh Whedon and Dan Brereton

 Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Origin 

By Josh Whedon and Dan Brereton

This comic is often considered volume 0 and is adapted straight from Whedon's original script of the film. It was released as a 5 issue mini-series that ran from January 1999 to March 1999 printed by Dark Horse comics. Now Mr. Brerton wrote the comic itself, he's an American-born artist and writer known mostly for his work in comics. His best-known works are the comics Nocturnals and Giantkiller. Before I get into the comic itself though, we got into Joss Whedon. 

Whedon was born on June 23, 1964, in New York City. The middle born of 5 kids, all boys and a 3rd generation television writer. Whedon's father wrote for the Golden Girls and his grandfather was a writer on the Dick Van Dyke show. Whedon attended Winchester College in England and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1987. He worked as a staff writer on Roseanne and Parenthood and was an uncredited writer on films like Speed, Waterworld, and Twister. He also co-wrote Toy Story, an early draft of Atlantis the Lost Empire, Titan AE, and Alien Resurrection, although he has publicly stated dissatisfaction with Alien Resurrection and Titan AE (I however am insane, and actually kinda like Alien Resurrection.  Mostly because Brad Dourif is my creeper-patronus, Winona Rider is always great, and I picked Signourney Weaver as my Mandatory Gay-Man’s Pop-Icon.  Kill me #RipleyClones.). 

His big break was when he convinced enough people to give Buffy Summers a second chance and produce a television show that became, well, huge. He then produced the spin-off Angel and went on to write or direct a large part of modern nerd pop culture. Television shows like Firefly and the film Serenity, a 24 issue run on The Astonishing X Men, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The films Cabin in the Woods, Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron. Joss Whedon was rapidly becoming... The King Nerd on Nerd Mountain if you'll excuse my bluntness but here's where we got to grab the bull by the horns. 

Because things started to surface, there was a letter from his ex-wife accusing him of infidelity and predatory behavior throughout their marriage. This simmered for a few years until in 2020 Ray Fisher accused Whedon of unprofessional behavior on the set of Justice League. Fisher was supported by his co-star Jason Momoa and Gal Godot came forward stating that her own experience with Whedon was less than pleasant in her own words, she later expanded on them saying Whedon would threaten her career whenever she disagreed with him. Then Charisma Carpenter, came forward with her experience on the Buffy and Angel set basically calling out Whedon for being abusive, bullying, and basically acting like the villains he wrote for the show. Amber Benson and Michelle Trachtenberg also backed up Ms. Carpenter as did basically the rest of the Buffy cast including Sarah Michelle Geller. Even other writers, like Jose Molina, called Whedon casually cruel and spoke about how Whedon enjoyed making women writers cry while working on Firefly. Detailing how Whedon once bragged about making one young lady cry twice in a single session. Which is not something a grown man should ever brag about! I mean making your employees cry once isn't a good thing never mind twice! (Frigid covered it pretty good.  I just want to say that bosses like this are one reason why people like me exist.)

So as of this writing, the King Nerd has fallen (Unfortunately, he didn’t get Romanoved. {If we start killing people in basements for being petty bullies, we’re going to run out of basements}), and it's nobody’s fault but his own. Because the guy who wrote Giles, Buffy Summers, Malcolm Reynolds, and Agent Colson, sure as hell knew better. He sure as hell was capable of better and decided to act like a petty cruel little bully anyway. So what does that mean for the body of work he leaves behind? For me, it doesn't change much. The works are still what they are and at this point refusing to partake isn't going to help anyone. Instead, maybe we should look at these works and use them as opportunities to realize that any of us can rise above ourselves and any of us can sink to dark depths. Let's turn to fiction, shall we? 

Buffy is a vampire hunter who outshines the vampires she is hunting.  It’s characters like her who bring the Vampire Hunter, an archetype that was present as far back as Carmilla but overshadowed by the monster they hunt, into the limelight.  Maybe it’s because in this case, the little blonde girl who we expect to be the victim is the one doing the hunting.  Maybe it’s because Buffy plays into the idea of Vampires as hidden predators and abusers and how they can be confronted (In a lot of ways, she is largely hunting toxic-masculine archetypes.  Or really just toxic human archetypes.  It’s great.). Or maybe it’s because Buffy is a Vampire Hunter whose entire life isn’t defined by the monsters she hunts. So Buffy is allowed to be a person with family, friends, and goals outside of killing the monster, whatever or whoever that monster may be.  The Origin is a look at how Buffy gets dragged kicking and screaming into her role as Slayer and a frank look at what crossing the threshold from normal life to heroism costs her. 

The Origin starts out much the same as the film but quickly gets darker in tone. The vampires are more menacing and savage with the characters being completely redesigned. Lothos especially is unrecognizable compared to his film counterpart and that's a good thing. You also have the battle between Slayer and Vampires take on a more cat and mouse tone. It feels like Merrick and Buffy are fighting a guerrilla war, ambushing vampires at their most vulnerable and trying to stay away from the stronger ones that Buffy can't fight yet. Mostly by actively fleeing whenever Lothos shows up. This creates a whole different tone to the business of being a Slayer. No longer I am wondering if Merrick is really in the business of setting up young women to be meals on wheels for a middle-aged, self-important predator. Instead, Merrick comes across as a desperate man who is outnumbered, outgunned, and just trying to get one Slayer across the finish line come what may. 

Pike also comes across as more harried in the comic, while in the movie his friend Benny whinging at the window to be let in so he can eat is played more for laughs. Here it's made to feel like Pike is put under siege every night and he sees his only options as escaping town entirely or helping Buffy kill his tormentors so he can at least get a good night's sleep. Which actually helps build a believable relationship between the two (I mean...yeah.  Helping kill vampires so you can actually nap is pretty reasonable.). Pike is at least roughly in Buffy's age group being under 21 and is the only one she can talk to as an equal about this insanity. Meanwhile, she is Pike's best chance of ending this nightmare and returning to a normalish life. As normal as you can live knowing vampires are a real thing and roam our cities anyways (Yeah, I would not be living normal after that.). 

Not much is changed about Buffy's friends, although their upper-class lifestyles are brought more front and center so that there's a greater removal between them and most of the victims (The vampire’s victims, or theirs? {They’re not really shown as having victims unless we count them bullying each other}). While they at least express fear and some wonderment at what the hell is going on around them, they still come across as callous and superficial but at least it's a bit more realistic (Rich teenagers being callous and superficial is hyper-realism.). Things really take a turn for the dark when instead of being killed by Lothos, Merrick actively kills himself with a pistol rather than be turned into a vampire and used as an intelligence source by Lothos (Based As Fuck.). Buffy has a near breakdown over losing the one adult in her life that had been a mentor figure to her and attempts to totally retreat back into her old life patterns, and this is shown and treated as the mental break it is. The finale only gets darker as the body count is rammed up, Buffy's friends betray her to the vampires and it ends with her burning down the school gym to kill all the vampires and fleeing to Los Vegas with Pike. 

I honestly like this version a lot better. It works better with the television show and while avoiding unnecessary gore or shock is still horrific and dark. We have Buffy's nightmarish situation of being thrown into a war completely cold, paired with Pike's situation of being besieged by a monster wearing his best friend's face. All of this juxtaposed with the banality of American high school and the superficial, self-absorption of your average (bourgeois {having run into teenagers from communist nations, there’s not much difference}) teenager.  Buffy and Pike are able to put an end to the abuse and predation they’re suffering from but because of the indifference of society around them, that end comes at a high price. 

This speaks to a lot of different real-life situations that people find themselves in and also just feels more grounded without the constant attempt to lighten the tone with hit or miss comedy. The Origin gets a B+ from me. I encourage you to give it a read, it's available as a graphic novel, part of the Dark Horse series omnibus or you can find scans of it online although I'm sure no one reading this review would ever google the title of this miniseries and add the phrase read online or some such. 

I hope you enjoyed this doubleheader review folks. Join us tomorrow for a guest review looking at vampires via Terry Pratchett. Next week, I look at how we fuse the vampire with the vampire hunter and get the qualities of both. We look at Vampire Hunter D and Blade! Now Fangsgiving is brought to you by our ever-wise Patrons. They voted to have this theme month and have it focused on vampires. You can join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month. See you soon and until then, stay safe and Keep Reading.