Written by Jordie Bellaire and Jeremy Lambert with art by Ramon Bachs and Raúl Angulo (and based on the iconic series created by Joss Whedon), this issue raises serious questions about the nature of Xander and Willow’s friendship, but it also raises an even bigger questions of who the story’s “big bad” really is.

To call this a step down from what Dark Horse was doing with their long-running, engaging, and yes, flawed but always daring Buffy comics in an understatement. Increasingly, it’s not only the timeline that has been changed but the core of the characters, the values of the series, the universality of the themes, and, most of all, the quality of the storytelling. It’s not that this doesn’t work as a Buffy comic. It’s just not a good comic.