The after-school club of magical beings – Review of “Welcome to the team part 2”

So Buffy season 9 number 17 is out. This comic focuses heavily on the way the original scooby gang are drifting apart and forming new alliances.
WRITTEN BY: Andrew Chambliss
PENCILS: Georges Jeanty
INKS: Dexter Vines
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: January 9th

The last issue ended with the blue wonder that is Illyra grabbing Buffy and teleporting her to a different world. For a world supposedly bereft of magic, there sure are a lot of magical shenanigans going on (they do seem to have an explanation for this every time it happens too though). The blue demon seems to have regained her abilities but is reluctant to explain why or how. Meanwhile she has joined a council of creatures, beings, things and a girl with a talking red balloon.

This council is led by an old acquaintance D’hoffryn. He seems to think that the few beings that actually have some magic left to use in our world need to stick together. Buffy first thinks he is after her to become a vengeance demon, only to then accuse him of wanting to guilt trip her into joining their “after school club”. But they soon convince her they are all in it together trying to stop that pesky Siphon. So off go slayer and smurfette, as Buffy so lovingly calls Illyria, back to our dimension. There Buffy is told she will get some

more help and after first believing that it is Spike, which makes her a bit flustered, it turns out to be someone with whom she didn’t leave things on great terms, Koh.

Meanwhile in San Francisco Sander slays a bottle of NyQuil. It seems our angry young man is not coping so well in a world without magic either. He and Dawn (who keeps on getting sicker and sicker) are arguing a lot. She questions him wanting to be out there in the field and not on the side-lines. He says he is not. It seems the only two people in the whole scooby gang that were “normal”, or as normal as a woman who was a key-giantess-living-doll-centaur can be, and who could actually fit into this magic-free world are just as confused as the rest of them. Things are changing, Willow is off finding magic, Buffy is forming new friendships and alliances, there is a new Slayer in town; Billy and Zompires everywhere. Buffy as we know takes one look at change and adapts (and by adapts I mean fights), the others seem to struggle more.

After retreating to the sofa for some sleep (Dawn’s cough is keeping him awake) the phone wakes Xander up. It’s Billy telling him Dowling is at the hospital after getting attacked by an über-zompire. Zander and Dawn rush off to see what has happened.

Speaking of our young wanna-slay boy, after having his ear chewed off by Xander, Billy sets off to try to do some Hardy Boy detective-like work on his own. He dashes off to try and find the missing Buffy. I am not sure what I think of Billy yet. I’m a bit against the whole notion of a boy slayer, but his relationship with his “watcher” Devon is a bit cute. So I will refrain from hating him until I know where they are going with this.

Back at the hospital Dawn passes out, I guess it couldn’t have happened in a better place. So what is up with Dawn? My first guess was of course she is pregnant, but I am not sure now, the coughing isn’t exactly a pregnancy symptom, but the puking and fainting is. Buffy also seem to be forgetting more and more about Dawn which makes you wonder if she is about to fade away. I guess we just have to wait and see. Which is a lot like what you feel through “Welcome to the team part 2”, that it is a bridge in story-lines, not exactly answering anything. It adds some more questions to the mix and carries the story along in an interesting enough way. Kind of like every episode of Lost ever. I do like the interaction between Illyria and Buffy, but I think much more could be done here, especially with regards to Spike as they both harbor feelings (of sorts) for him. It also had to be said that although the front cover is lovely (the Phil Noto version that is), I am not loving some of the artwork in this. Some of the characters do not really look anything like what they should.

Right, back to the story-line  Towards the end the trio of magical-beings-in-a-non-magical-world try to ambush the Siphon’s fancy pad. But it doesn’t go their way at all and it seems someone has sold them out, but who? Personally I have my money on that red balloon thingy. Looking forward to the next issue, hopefully we should be getting some more answers then!