It sometimes feels that there are too many reasons to count why the show means so much to me even though it’s so removed from my own coming of age. For those who watched ‘Buffy’ while it was airing in the late ’90s and early ’00s or came to it later but had lived though that time, there tends to be a great sense of nostalgia, especially for folks who were growing up alongside the characters. While I’m a generation removed from the original viewers of the show, it still resonates with me deeply (and with friends who I’ve converted into fans). It is my belief that you either love ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ or you haven’t watched it yet. For faithful fans and for the uninitiated, here are five reasons ‘Buffy’ still matters today and will for years to come.

The Slayer Cycle has been a constant in all versions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One young woman is granted the power of the Slayer until she dies — at which point it passes on to the next one. But the new Slayerverse just revealed there are ways around that, and that a quietly vital Slayer used one such loophole.

The game does an excellent job of slotting straight into the series, though with its 10 to 12 hour length it would likely be more of a three episode arc than a standalone episode. Joss Whedon provided support for the game’s writing process and it shows, the witty dialogue from the show is present which makes it really feel like a proper part of the Buffyverse.

This issue finds Willow realizing the reality of her situation in Abhainn. Rather than use this as an opprtunity to showcase a battle of witches, Tamaki opts to let more of Willow’s base instincts take over. When magic and might would serve the comic from an artistic standpoint, having Willow act like the nerd she is at times works. This consistency to the character proves Tamaki understood who Willow is and makes sure to impress this upon the audience. Teenage Willow would much rather talk it out than battle, at least for now.

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.

So much is lost in reimagining Buffy, and its not entirely clear what is gained, because while the series delivers occasional one-off, character-focused stories like last issue’s Wesley one-shot and the excellent Willow spinoff, it’s when the characters come together that the series feels further from the heart and soul of Buffy.

“It’s an invasion of my head, it’s like there are these strangers walking around in there,” Buffy says. And at the time that was just a guess from Joss Whedon and episode writer Jane Espenson about what hearing others’ thoughts would feel like, but now it;s what we deal with every day as we inject the rage and anxiety and bad takes of hundreds, if not thousands of people directly into our brains.

One might think issue four is the perfect time to jump into some climactic action immediately. But again, mirroring Willow’s experience, we’re lulled into a false sense of security. The creative team does this by providing more interiority through narration, using more dialogue, and emphasizing moments.

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