The Buffy mythos put a lot of weight on potential. That’s the word for the women out there who have it in them to be the next Slayer. The final message of the original show was about unlocking your potential. But those shows didn’t always do right by their characters, wasting a lot of their potential. Memorable performances were cut short as heroes were cut down by the forces of evil. And look, I get it- you gotta have conflict, and conflict in a story like this can be deadly. But now the Buffyverse is getting a second chance to do right by its characters, particularly its characters of color.
Sentinels of Sunnydale
Early in the run of the “Buffy” comic, we were introduced to a new classmate who might have been familiar to Buffy fans- Robin Wood. Now there’s a guy with real potential! Robin was introduced late in the run of the Buffy as the new principal at Sunnydale High, but it was quickly revealed that he had more going on than some very nice suits. Robin turned out to be the illicit son of a Slayer, and not just any slayer. His mom was Nikki, the very cool, very 70s Slayer who was killed by none other than Buffy’s second vampire beau, Spike. This led to some thrilling tension, but Robin was too late an addition to leave a big mark on the cast.
In the comics, Robin is now a student and peer of Buffy and the Scoobies. He’s sort of hapless, as many human love interests of Buffy tend to be, but he’s got his own weirdly defiant charm. His backstory has had the lightest of hints thus far, but making Robin a regular cast member has injected some new energy into the familiar ensemble, while giving time to a familiar face! Way to have your cake and eat it too, Team Buffy!
Done far more dirty is Kendra Young, the second Slayer to crop up in the original run of the show. Kendra’s powers are activated when Buffy is clinically dead for a few minutes, but she gets better and so Kendra is called. (You’d think in the thousands of years of Slayers this would have come up before, but nope, Kendra and Buffy are the first time there have been two simultaneous Slayers). Kendra is fridged pretty dramatically on the show, giving motivation to Buffy and the Scoobs, but as the first major black character in the cast it was as they say, a bad look.
But Kendra is back! Not only that, she’s already shaking things up, and creating a sort of counter-Scooby gang, which is a fun new dynamic. So far, she’s largely filling the role of her eventual successor on the show, Faith. She’s the bad girl Slayer, a little more ruthless and driven. In a re-imagining of the story, Kendra would be the first character I would want to spend more time with, so the comic is very much delivering on that front.
Finally, we’ve got Jenny Calendar, the Romani computer science teacher and love interest to Giles. Ms. Calendar was viciously fridged (gee, I’m noticing a pattern here), her body set up for Giles to find, Hannibal Lector style. When I spoke to series writer Jordie Bellaire at the beginning of the series, she said that Ms. Calendar was one of her favorites. This fills me with confidence that we’re not going to see the character meet the same tragic fate, but so far we haven’t seen Ms. Calendar in all her sorceress glory. I’m patient, but you gotta hope that there’s a role in 21st century “Buffy” for a self-described techno-pagan!
In the City of Fallen Angels
Largely, Angel did a pretty good time at giving its cast screentime, but a lot of that show has aged very weirdly. One character who got done pretty dirty though was Detective Kate Lockley, who was Angel’s contact on the LAPD. She was very X-Files inspired, and a fun recurring part, but she vanished when actress Elisabeth Rohm got a part on Law & Order (and honestly? Good for her). She’s back though in the comics, and I could not be more delighted. Series writer Bryan Edward Hill has been absolutely slaying it on this series (pun intended), and I got a feeling he’s got some ideas in the tank for Kate. The first time around, Kate was a pretty standard TV cop. But now? I want to see the story reconcile the LAPD’s reputation, something Angel was not interested in doing in the early 2000s. But Hill might be just the guy to tell that story.
Then we’ve got Fred Burkle, a beloved central member of the Angel cast. Fred isn’t quite like the other names I’ve mentioned- though she eventually did also get fridged. We spent many seasons with Fred, and she got plenty of moments to shine. But Fred is the character who was probably the most poorly served by Joss Whedon’s predilections. She was a genius waif girl, locked up in an asylum because of her connection to mysterious magic powers. She’s often barefoot and mumbling. Fred is a lot.
We’ve met Fred in the comics, and her backstory seems largely similar, but I’m hoping her destiny is not. Fred was shown to be meeting with the evil lawyers of Wolfram and Hart, and an evil (or at least morally ambiguous) more in control version of Fred sounds exactly right. At its best, Angel is about temptation and redemption and too often Fred was used as the object to tempt other characters, and not the person getting tempted. It’s time to change that!
Finally, there’s another member of Team Angel, and that’s Charles Gunn. I loved Gunn on the original show. He went from scared street vigilante, to debonair thief, to morally tortured lawyer, which was a great transition to watch. Occasionally, he got used in a dud of a story, but you could say that about any character on Angel. But Hill and artist Gleb Milnikov have Gunn entirely nailed down. His thrown-together vigilante gear looks awesome, and he’s been the subject of the comics’ most harrowing scares, playing into fears a young black guy might have walking around L.A. in a tactical vest. And while I really liked Gunn’s arc in the show, I think there’s another way to play it. After meeting Angel, Gunn rarely goes back to his old neighborhood or hangs out with his old friends. Here though, we could tell the story of a Charles Gunn who is really connected to his city, and who never loses sight of his original mission.
Now that the “Hellmouth” crossover is concluded, the creative teams are getting back to work building up the worlds in their series. It’s a reminder that while there are lots of elements of the original story that remain classic, the Buffyverse is still rich to explore. I pray to the Powers That Be that we let these creators do their thing, because they know what they are about. This reboot is focusing on telling a new story and if left to their own devices, it may even be a pretty good one.
