Tai Freligh reviews Buffy: The High School Years FCBD 2017…
In our 2017 all-ages offering, you’ll thrill to a monster-slaying, citizen-saving adventure with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sixteen-year-old Buffy is still learning her trade, and sometimes battles with demons and bad luck can erode a girl’s confidence – and her ability to have high-school fun. #SlayerStruggleIsReal. Then, your favorite plants and zombies will take a time-traveling journey to the past, where they run into a devious sheriff. If they have to work together to rise to the sheriff’s challenges, can they do it? It’s Plants vs. Zombies vs. Sheriff Tarnation!
I’m a huge Buffy fan who watched all seven seasons of the show when it originally aired and loved it. Of course I also watched Dawson’s Creek (and I’m not afraid to admit it!) and all those kinds of shows, so I was excited to see a comic book about the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show. The focus on the high school years makes me wonder if there is another comic book series focusing on the college years. The first three seasons the Scooby Gang were in high school and the last four they were in college.
I thought it was very well illustrated and was a fun storyline, but far too short for my tastes. My major gripe about this particular comic book is that it is sold as a Buffy story with a secondary, less important Plants versus Zombies storyline when in fact, the Buffy story is much shorter than the PVZ story, which seems to drag on forever. I’m not even a remote fan of the video game nor the comic book and was disappointed when I discovered that a majority of pages were devoted to this instead of Buffy, hence my low overall rating.
I wouldn’t recommend picking this up on Free Comic Book Day unless you’re a huge Plants versus Zombies fan. If you’re a huge Buffy fan, then I would look into their regular Buffy: The High School Years comic books, which from the ad in this comic book appear to feature illustrations of a Buffy that actually resemble Sarah Michelle Gellar, the actress who played her on the television show.
Buffy: The High School Years FCBD 2017 is available in comic book shops on May 6th for free.
Rating: 5/10
Tai Freligh is a Los Angeles-based writer and can be found on Twitter.
Originally published May 5, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
