“All I want to do is graduate from high school, move to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die.”

Jill Pantozzi | March 13th, 2008

Those immortal words were spoken by Buffy (and quoted by me relentlessly) in the original film Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Kristy Swanson. Let’s see where we are with that after seven seasons of the television show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and issue #12 of the Buffy comic, shall we?

Graduated high school? Check. Moved to Europe? Check. Married Christian Slater? Not quite. Unless Christian Slater is an Asian girl who Buffy just slept with. Died? Double check.

Did I just gloss over the fact that Buffy slept with a woman? No way! That’s what this article is all about. Drew Goddard, a former writer for both the Buffy and Angel television series and now of Cloverfield fame, began a new arc with issue #12, “Wolves at the Gate Part 1.” Four pages in you’re hit with this shocker:

Obviously I needed to get online and see what other people were saying. My first stop was to the Dark Horse site where there is a letter from editor Scott Allie. That’s when I realized this was a much bigger deal than I first thought. Sure, I was expecting to read a slew of posts on websites like Newsarama and IGN where they review and discuss comics. What I was not expecting was a New York Times article on the issue. The New York freakin’ Times! Discussing not only Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the Buffy comic! ABC News also ran a story as well as MTV.

I’ll admit, when I first turned the page, my jaw dropped. I think I almost had the same reaction Xander did a few pages later after walking in on them; “Oh merciful Zeus! I didn’t see anything, I swear! Oh, my eye, my burning beautiful eye.” In fact, the entire scene where just about everyone else walks in and has their own unique hilarious reaction to seeing Buffy in bed with a woman, was almost lost on me because I felt awkward, like I had just walked into the room too. Drew Goddard easily made it feel like that scene came straight out of a Joss Whedon episode though, it really was hysterical. Kudos to him.

I didn’t know what to make of this new development. I thought, are they making Buffy a lesbian? An odd choice seeing as how they already did that with Willow, to great effect, but why would you reuse an idea like that. Then I thought, didn’t Buffy tell Satsu last issue that she wasn’t interested in her? For those of you who don’t know, Satsu is one of the many slayers Buffy now trains and commands. Early on in Season 8, Buffy was put under a Sleeping Beauty-type spell and was awakened when someone who was in love with her gave her a kiss. We found out last issue Buffy knew it was Satsu for some time and was flattered, but not interested.

After reading all the interviews with Joss out there I believe I can safely state they are not making Buffy a lesbian. This is a direct quote from him from the NY Times article linked above. “We’re not going to make her gay, nor are we going to take the next 50 issues explaining that she’s not. She’s young and experimenting, and did I mention open-minded?”

I have been a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since the original movie in 1992. That’s almost 16 years of getting to know and love the character of Buffy. No one knows her better than Joss Whedon himself but in my opinion, what happened in this issue is out of character for her. That being said, any fan of Buffy knows how impulsive and, I’ll say it, idiotic she can be. That’s how you know Joss made a great character, she’s human, she makes mistakes. It seems to me Buffy is making the same type of mistake with Satsu that she did with Spike. She knows Satsu is in love with her, not to mention sorta her employee, and she sleeps with her anyway because she’s lonely. You’d think she would have learned, but hey, this is Buffy we’re talking about. Anything is possible.

Putting aside all the hoopla about the sex scene, which I’m sure is burned into fanboy memory just like that Angel/Spike Buffy sandwich (#3) is in mine, the issue was great. Drew Goddard seems to be setting up a really interesting arc and I look forward to seeing where it goes. Not only was his dialogue fantastic but he brought back one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite Buffy episodes of all time. The Master. No, not that one, the other one. Dracula.