Warning! Spoilers for Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1!
A new Buffy the Vampire Slayer character is making a classic Buffy mistake in the pages of Boom! Studios Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1, as Slayer Thessaly seems to have unwittingly found herself romancing a vampire – proving that no matter how dystopian a future might get, some things never change.
Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1 – written by Casey Gilly, with art by Oriol Roig, and lettering by Ed Dukeshire – is the start of a new five issue miniseries, featuring Thessaly, daughter of the late Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay, as the new Slayer, and as the issue concludes, it is clear that unto each generation, a Slayer-vampire love connection is born.
The Last Vampire Slayer Is A Dark Future Buffyverse
The dark future Buffyverse from The Last Vampire Slayer, where the sun is dying and vampires no longer fear daylight, first appeared in Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer, which ran for four issues from 2021-2022. The first issue of that miniseries introduced Thessaly Maclay-Rosenberg, and now the continuation series, Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer, features her as its central protagonist, having taken the mantle of “last” Slayer from the now gray-haired, long-exhausted Buffy Summers. As the title’s punctuation slyly makes clear, this is now a Thessaly the Vampire Slayer story, set in Buffy’s world. As it turns out, however, Thessaly is not immune to repeating one of Buffy’s biggest mistakes.
The One Lesson Buffy Didn’t Want Thessaly To Learn
Set five years after the previous Last Vampire Slayer miniseries, the new book finds Thessaly romancing a young woman named Cora Devonshire. It is only at the end of the issue that readers see Cora in a vampire party house, drinking blood. The reveal is, of course, a parallel to the early days of Buffy Summers’ relationship with the vampire Angel. While it remains for the four upcoming issues of Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer to clarify Cora’s living status and her true intentions with Thessaly, the plot is a good piece of connective tissue tying Boom! Studios new era of Buffy stories back to the franchise’s TV origins.
The Last Vampire Slayer‘s take on the future of the Buffyverse has so far had the self-awareness needed to tell Buffy stories for a contemporary audience, while wisely choosing how and when to mirror pivotal moments and plot lines from the TV run. It is possible Cora Devonshire, the latest vampire to woo a Slayer, has no nefarious intentions, that she will prove to be an ally to Thessaly, as well as a love interest. That said, the romantic pairing of Slayer-Vampire Slayer is so potent because of the amount of dramatic tension baked into such a dynamic. Conflict as a result, in one form or another, is inevitable.
The relationship between Buffy Summers and Angel is one of the most enduring parts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy’s relationship later in the series, with Spike, allowed the TV show to tell the story again, from a different angle. The Last Vampire Slayer depicts Buffy and Spike still together – but of course, Spike is a singular character, one whose character arc is difficult to replicate. Whatever becomes of her relationship with Thessaly the Vampire Slayer, it is up to the creators of Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer to make Cora a memorable addition to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise in her own right.
Buffy: The Last Vampire Slayer #1 is available now from Boom! Studios