I have to say, I really enjoyed this issue. I thought the story pacing was just right, and I loved the artwork and colors used. Plus, the cover by Jo Chen? Just gorgeous.

I thought that that Tales did a great job of portraying the newly-altered universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; better, perhaps, than Harmonic Convergence, by Jane Espenson (though I love me some Jane, don't get me wrong!) While I enjoyed Harmonic Convergence, it felt rather rushed, and I did not come away with any clear sense of how the world of vampires and slayers had changed - though obviously something had changed drastically! To quickly recap HC - basically, the issue changed the nature of the slayerverse in that it brought vampires out into the public sphere. I know a lot of people who took issue with this, but I actually think it's a good idea. I never really bought into the fact that no one knew vampires existed except for Buffy and her gang. But while I like the idea of vampires in the public consciousness, the execution of this theme in Espenson's issue felt a bit cartoonish - which is not bad, per se...sometimes cartoonish works, but it didn't really work for me in terms of establishing a radically new theme/world. On it's own, I don't think this new issue would either, but as a follow up it made the newly changed slayerverse come to life a bit.

This issue does not include Buffy, or any of our main characters. And while there is nothing particularly compelling about Jacob - I think that maybe that's the point. He's just your typical emo kid, living in a small town and wanting to feel something - anything - that will make his life seem more meaningful. So of course, he hangs out with vampires. The metaphor for hanging with the "bad crowd" is a bit heavy-handed, but it plays out well here. Eventually Jacob is turned into a vampire himself, and ultimately he turns his friend Alex - who we find out is a slayer.

The interesting thing is that Alex didn't want to become a slayer. Or a vampire. She has no choice in any of these areas - though Jacob's last words in the issue are about his own power of choice in turning her. It's a grim, disturbing ending - implying that Alex's choice means nothing. But is Jacob's crime against her the only real evil here? What about the slayer spell that took her from the normal life that she wanted? Where was her right to consent in that? It's a lot of food for thought, and while it's fun to look at the spell Willow cast (a spell to make every potential slayer an actual slayer) as a kind of mass-women-empowerment-thingy, ultimately there are some problematic aspects to the whole scenario - the most obvious being, of course, choice.