BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: RING OF FIRE

By Jason Henderson     November 15, 2000

One of the things I've most enjoyed about reading Dark Horse's adaptations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the one thing an adaptation offers over a show. Assuming for a moment that you wouldn't bother with an adaptation if you didn't like the property in the first place, adaptations lack a lot of offerings that TV episodes provide. You don't have the actors to get the best reading of a line, nor directors to make sure the readings and pace are staying consistent. You also don't have the help of music, nor do you have enforced commercial breaks around which to gather the ebbs and flows of the story. What you do have is a limitless budget for ink, and ink can make anything. But strangely, in the past Dark Horse Buffy stories I've reviewed, the plots have stuck pretty closely to the world of the series, even in terms of 'budget.' It's as if the comic were trying to cast the illusion that you're watching television, a lousy goal in that it can't be done and wouldn't be much to aspire to, anyway.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire, writer Doug Petrie and artist Ryan Sook cast all television pretensionsand limitationsaside, opening up the graphic Buffy world. We open on the ocean, on an Asian cargo ship, in the sort of gut-wrenching storm Gene Colan would have put Dracula's ship through in Tomb of Dracula. Angelus, the evil Angel, descends on the ship and its crew like a god, lit up by lightning and glistening droplets of water.

Later, in what should be a commonplace Buffy-versus-bad guy battle, the whole roof gets torn away by something very large and more at home in a Japanese monster movie than Buffy. I love this suggestion, that this Buffy doesn't live on a soundstage, but in a world where creatures can drop from the sky with giant claws bared.

The plot, actually, owes a lot to Japanese stories like Daimajin. Angelus has gotten his hands on an ancient suit of samurai armor that once belonged to a samurai demon. The demon, for reasons owing to Joss Whedon's whole concept, is buried in Sunnydale and Angelus hopes that returning the armor to the demon will, of course, bring him great power.

For those who are still watching Buffy, you may find it interesting to return to the show's thrilling second season, actually the first full season. The comics, for various reasons, remain stuck there, before the Graduation. And I'm glad. It's nice to revisit these younger characters in their high school surroundings, where the show certainly had its freshest crop of satirical targets. These are the days, you may recall, when Angelus had just killed Jenny Calendar and Giles was going right off the deep end. In this story, Giles is still reeling from the blow. As presented here, Giles is a liability to Buffy, capable of committing unwise and unholy acts out of desperation. It's a brave and interesting direction on Petrie's part, one never explored enough in the show.

Viewers who have gotten used to Spike being a comic character may have forgotten that the current arc for Spike is the third, that of gelded vampire who trades barbs with the gang but doesn't do much harm. His first prevailing concept was that of super-villain supreme, coming on after the death of the Master with the goal of destroying Buffy and the resume to back it up. He'd already killed two Slayers before, 'and they begged for their lives.' His second character arc is used in Ring of Fire: Spike is trapped in a wheelchair thanks to Buffy. He must watch as his sire, Angel, insults him cruelly and taunts him with attentions towards Drusilla. The nastiness of the whole Spike/Angel/Dru era rings true here, and Drusilla does something I don't recall her ever having the gall or presence of mind for in the show.

What I can't figure out is why Kendra is in this story. Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I remember Kendra being a workaholic African who showed Buffy up in how serious she could be about all things Slayerish. She was sort of a Green Lantern Slayer to Buffy's Green Arrow. But in this comic, Kendra is a whole other character, a camo-wearing, grenade carrying, fightin' and cussin' uberbitch, less like Kendra than like, I dunno, a brown Faith. She doesn't really have much reason for showing up (she says she's been tracking this latest case, which started overseas) and I can't help but think that maybe we're looking at a character taking some other character's place spot in an outline.

Sook's art is peculiarly suited to the material here. Sometimes his renditions of the cast are eerie and dead-on, other times they're more suggestive than reflective. But the mood Sook establishes is the finest I've seen in any graphic Buffy presentation. Sook creates characters with weight, especially concentrating on bringing the emotion out of their eyes. Sook has an instinctive gift for framing characters in shadows that seem to have been constructed; his work reminds me of a strange mixture of Gene Colan and Mike Mignola. Sook draws Buffy well not because he's captured the most exact Sarah Michelle Gellar, but because he's captured Gellar's facial quirksher vulnerability, her smiles, her poutiness and irritationbetter than anyone else has.

Ring of Fire is stylishly done adaptation work. Considering the limitations of adaptation in the first place, in which the characters must always end where they left off, ultimately learning nothing and growing not at all, Petrie and Sook cast a grand illusion of movement, keeping the story going at break-neck speed. The result is a book that feels like the series but burst open in physical space. If it troubles you that the story ends up much ado about nothing, why would you read an adaptation in the first place?

Trade Paperback from Dark Horse Comics. Written by Doug Petrie. Art by Ryan Sook.