
Joss Whedon's resurrection of the 8th Buffy Season continues with its third installment, which is called Wolves at the Gate. As with the two earlier volumes, this one captures all the humor and action that made the show so popular in the first place. The writing and illustrating team have done a wonderful job of bringing back old characters and allowing them to shine as they interact with the standard regular.
The action starts, literally, with wolves at the gate, only they are not alone. They are joined by panthers, bees, and fog as they attack Buffy's base of operations in a Scottish castle. It takes all of the skills of her Slayer army to beat back the invaders, but not before they are able to take Buffy's scythe. It is this scythe that brought about the Slayer revolution.
It quickly becomes clear that the invaders are vampires, but they should not be able to morph into animals. It is not a skill that most vamps have. In fact, there is only one with that skill, and Xander has a past with him. So, he and a potential girlfriend are off to visit Dracula in the hopes of bringing him over to Buffy's side to fight of the invaders. Before long, everyone is off to Japan for an epic battle that could change the balance of power between slayer and vamp.
The writing and the illustrations are great. My one complaint was a subplot in which Buffy ends up having a romantic interlude with one of her slayers. It seems a bit out of place since she has never shown any lesbian tendencies, even as her best friend Willow is a lesbian. I am not sure what the writers were thinking other than the fact that Buffy was trying to reach out to find companionship as she is confronted with being a general in the war against the forces of darkness.