Into The Fray

Having finally caught up completely on my weekly comic reading, today I got to dive into the Fray trade paperback that I'd bought around the time Buffy # 1 hit the stands, several months ago. This is a collection of the eight issues of Fray that came out back around 2002 or so, at a time when Joss Whedon was working on Buffy, Angel and maybe even Firefly. As far as I can tell, this was his first actual comic work, predating Astonishing X-Men.

You'd never know it from the final product, though. He was already showing the good sense of pace and rhythm that we've come to know and expect from him in his more recent comic scripts. The usual Whedon humour is on display, as well, despite the dark subject matter. This particular slayer, Melaka Fray, isn't cut from the cheerleader mold that Buffy was, and is already carrying around a lot of emotional baggage even before she finds out she's the chosen one. And that's when she isn't carrying around the loot from her latest grab, since thieving is how she makes a living in the far-flung future we find her in.

It's a very good, self-contained story that you could read and enjoy without ever having seen a Buffy or Angel episode. If you're well-versed in the Buffyverse, though, there are all kinds of things you'll appreciate more, including what happens to Fray's watcher, and why Fray isn't quite prepared for her role like she should be.

I hope Whedon revisits this set of characters at some point, because he fleshed them out to the point of making me want to see more. Considering the futuristic setting, it'd even make a Hell of a motion picture, and wouldn't even require getting petulant Sarah Michelle Gellar involved! Not likely to happen, but a boy can always dream...

Next up: Alice in Sunderland!