Here’s another slightly incoherent, nevertheless endearing volume of Buffy Season Eight; I mean to say, it isn’t always clear, how things relate to the greater scheme of this chaotic Buffy-season-eight-verse, but I still loved everything about this fourth volume. Whedon’s poignant dialogs and Moline’s lively art make a fine mix. Plus, there’s this neat Buffy-Fray crossover, where Buffy is thrown into the lurk-lurking future of the brunette, lone slayer — Melaka Fray.
But first things first: right in the beginning of the opening chapter, Dawn goes through the second phase of her annoying enchantment-curse-thing as she transforms into a beautiful female-centaur. Xander and newly transmogrified Dawn stay behind in slayers’ headquarters, while Willow and Buffy travel to New York, following a frail lead from previous volume, concerning Buffy’s scythe.
Just to make things more interesting for Xander and Dawn while the others are away, the slayers’ Headquarters castle is attacked by a mystical-missile (courtesy of Twilight and skinless Warren) that spawns ethereal-green and extremely violent creatures. The whole fighting and occasionally run-for-your-life situation leads to yet more confusing moments for Xander, when he – literarily – needs to ride Buffy’s little sister – as dirty as it might have sound, hadn’t we known she’s now centaur.
Meanwhile in New York, Buffy, Willow and some other slayers rendezvous in a nifty Manhattan loft. Suddenly and unexplainably (save for some sketchy graphs of "time ripples" drawn by Willow) Buffy is sucked into the future, where she finds herself face to fist with Melaka Fray — the future slayer who has her own independent arc bearing the same name, which you should definitely read.
As Buffy struggles to understand Fray’s futuristic American (“Vampires are Lurks. A Spin is a lie. Toy is bad, but spled is good. Boy the English language is just losing it. I should have treated it better…”), both slayers decide it’s best to learn the why and the who of Buffy’s time travel.
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