Giles recruits Faith to kill a Slayer gone bad, and Buffy (who is currently estranged from the sponsorship of Giles) gets in the middle of it. Good art, writing to match the TV show, and just generally a nice sop to those of us who mourned the end of the series. ( )

If Buffy, the petite pop-modern vampire slayer wasn't enough for you this second volume from Joss Whedon's “Season Eight” of Buffy brings tortured, anti-heroine slayer Faith back into play in a role even more suited to her than vampire and demon slaying.
Part of the draw of the Buffy-verse is the balance of darkness and good. Every character has had their dips into evil, from Xander's flirtations with all manner of monsters to Willow's grief-induced stint as the Big Bad. But some characters start out from deeper in the evil well. Giles and Faith are two of the darkest, Faith representing the out of control youth, caught in a cycle of violence from a young age and carrying on the chaos in her own life in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Giles' history, merely glanced upon in the TV series feels more like a betrayal, when you come to love this patient, always-trying man only to discover he has a hard core of frightening ruthlessness.
Buffy, Xander and even Willow are the Superman and the Spidermans of the Buffy-verse, but Faith and Giles are the Punishers.
This analogy is proven hard and fast from the first few pages when Giles calls on Faith to do what the other Slayers can't, walk into the house of a single mother who was turned into a vampire and slay the kids she turned. After this trying scene Giles meets back up with Faith at her apartment and asks her to handle a special case for him, one he doesn't even want Buffy, Xander, Willow and the other Slayers to know about. It stands to reason that not all the Potentials who are now endowed with Slayer powers would turn out good, especially as other creatures of power find and foster them since Buffy's operation is busy with the new threats from the mysterious “Twilight” and the good old U.S. Government.
Assassinating a Slayer, even if she is evil is not an easy task, as this volume proves.
Furthermore, “No Future for You” also proves that the switch to comics was an excellent move for Whedon and the Buffy-verse as the format allows a lot more playing, and a hyperfocus on characters otherwise glanced over in the series. Many plots dealt with Faith and her waffling between the forces of good and evil, but the glimpses we see of her past in these pages are heart breaking and enlightening at the same time.
One could easily argue, after this addition to Season Eight, that Faith might make a better lead, if the audience can handle a grittier, darker, less reliable narrator.

*Also, this volume features the cameo of my publisher's wife, Robin, which I was very glad to finally get to read. ( )

Summary: In the four-issue story arc "No Future for You", we catch up with everyone's other favorite slayer, Faith. She's been holding down the fort in Cleveland when Giles summons her for a secret mission. There's a Slayer - who also happens to be a British noble - who has gone rogue, and who better to take her out than someone who's a rehabilitated rogue Slayer herself? But, as much as Faith is used to doing the dirty work, there are aspects of this assignment for which she can never be ready. In the one-off issue "Anywhere but Here", we find out more about the motivations of Twilight, this season's Big Bad; Dawn's ex-boyfriend Kenny the Thricewise; and what's been going on with Willow and Kennedy since the end of season 7.

Review: I thought this was better than volume 1, although your reaction will probably vary proportionally with how much you like Faith. After re-watching Buffy and watching Angel, Faith has emerged as one of my favorite characters, which made an entire story arc featuring her right up my alley. The bad girl exterior has been done before, but her interior conflicts and darkness and hunt for redemption just make her so interesting - maybe even more so than Buffy. (She's also much less prone to both whining and speechifying, which are two big pluses in my book.) This story puts all of her history and all of her inner (metaphorical and literal) demons in the spotlight, and it's fascinating watching that play out. Add to that the reappearance of Dark-Past-"Ripper"-Giles, which is my favorite flavor of Giles, and I'm a happy girl.

Everything I praised about volume 1 - how it still looks, and sounds, and is structured - exactly like the TV show is still true in the second volume, and as the story spreads out and starts to pick up speed, I can't wait to see where it's going to go from here. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Buffy fans should definitely be reading this series, which really is getting better as it goes. ( )

These are just fun in the way that only Joss Whedon can deliver. I enjoyed Faith's return in this, as well as her growing relationship with Giles. ( )

In the second story arc of Season Eight, Giles recruits Faith to take out a rogue Slayer.

Wow. The first story arc was really good, but this one is great. Vaughan does amazing things with Faith. He's uber aware of everything she's been through, and he works it all in. He gives the reader a real feel for how her past has affected her, and Jeanty's art does as much as Vaughan's text. We can see Faith struggling with her demons, and her rivalry with Buffy is never far from her mind. We've heard so much about how Faith moves in on Buffy's turf; it was great to see how that old story looks from the other side.

And then there's Giles! He's got his own dark past, and we know that he's not opposed to murder when he considers the cause just. He's in the perfect place to both support and challenge Faith as she works through her issues. His role in this story also adds greater insight to his relationship with Buffy. The last time we saw them together, they were on the outs. They'd banded together to save the world, but they still weren't exactly good with one another. Vaughan builds off of that here. He builds off of it big time.

The plot is fairly standard, but the character-centric stuff turns the story into something special. The Buffyverse is never just about the plot. It's the characters and their connections that really make it shine.

But of course, plot is important, and everything that Faith goes through ties into the stuff with this season's Big Bad, Twilight. (Personally, I'm quite happy to think of that as a multi-layered jab at a certain sparky vampire series. How 'bout you?) Faith's story is at the heart of the book, but we drop in on the gang in Scotland at regular intervals. The stand-aloneish story at the end of the volume also gives us a bit more of a peek at what's been going on with these characters over the past year, even as it hands us some more clues to the mystery. The momentum's building, and building nicely at that. I likes.

Highly recommended to Buffy fans, but read the first volume, um, first. And watch the TV show before that.

(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina ( )