BOOM! Studios has released a preview of The Vampire Slayer #12, out on 15 March, and the situation for Buffy and Faith has not improved since we last left them. With Willow in the grip of a dark power she cannot control — Slayer abilities she was never meant to carry, consuming her from the inside — Buffy is done watching from the sidelines. She wants her powers back. Whether it is too late is the question the issue intends to answer.
Issue twelve is the culmination of a storyline that Sarah Gailey and Hannah Templer have been building across the run: a Buffyverse in which the decision to transfer the Slayer powers to Willow — made with the best intentions, as these things usually are — has produced consequences that nobody anticipated and nobody knows how to undo. Buffy without her powers has had to find other resources. Willow with them has been pushed into a version of herself she never wanted to become.
What the preview makes clear is that Buffy’s nightmares and her history — the things she has carried and survived — will prove more useful than anyone expected. This is consistent with what the series has been doing throughout: insisting that what Buffy is, stripped of the supernatural designation, is still extraordinary. The powers are hers by right. But the person underneath them is what makes her worth watching.
The Vampire Slayer #12 is written by Sarah Gailey with art by Hannah Templer and a cover by Sebastian Fiumara. It is in shops from 15 March, priced $4.99. If you have been following the run, this is not one to miss.
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