In this story by Ben Edlund we meet a vampire who use to be a priest back during the Spanish inquisition. He burned a real witch at the stake and a friend of hers who happened to be a vampire killed all of his friends and turned him into a vampire.
At first he was disturbed by his new life, tried to escape it. After all as a man of God he was now spurned by him. He lashed out and killed a holy man, this gave him a new purpose. A goal in his unlife. He would kill those who did God's will in order to show mankind that nothing we do is right, that we can never truly understand our father above. He meets another priest and tells him all of this. He means to kill this man but he doesn't react, at all. In fact he then tells the vampire that he is in fact God. That the vampire is just as stupid and blind as everyone he looks down on. He orders the vampire to walk into the dessert and wait for the sun to rise, he agrees and runs off to kill himself. Moments later the sheriff shows up and we learn that this man isn't God, he isn't even a priest. He is just a crazy person off of his meds. It is such a great story that pulls you in and makes you think. It shows you how powerful faith is but also how dangerous it can be in the wrong hands. This story is an extremely important one, not just as a Buffyverse story but as a story about faith and humanity.
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The issue all about the one and only Nikki Wood. The slayer who would go on to give birth to Robin Wood. She is the slayer with the smallest screen time, other than the Chinese girl Spike killed, but the most talked about. The slayer that everyone wants to know more about. Well Doug Petrie gives us a story all about her! The story starts with Nikki in bed with her lover, could this be Robin's father? The story doesn't tell us. All we know is that she wanted to tell him the truth about herself but he is killed before she gets the chance. She tries to stop the man responsible and the cops try to bring her in for questions. She escapes and finds out that they were just transporting vampires in those crates but also a flying bat demon. She fights the bat demon but it takes to air with her on it's back. Her fear of heights kicks in so she forces it down into the subways where she feels more at home. It isn't long before she manages to kill the bat demon and goes hunting for the man who killed her lover once more. It is a great story, the only bad part is there isn't one following it up. It leaves me wanting more. The job of any good story! This story by the Great Jane Espenson is a fun escape from the normal stories we have had thus far. For it is not really a story but more of a riddle. Something that you can't figure out no matter how hard you try. It simply shows us a picture and asks us to find the vampire. We go over the clues one by one but which one could it be?
Well in the end the answer is quite simple when we get right down to it. For you see the picture was nothing more than a mirror so the vampire was the one who wasn't shown. As I said, no real story but a fun break to bring a smile to your face! This one is my favorite so far. Spike, is once more writing to Darla about what is going on. We find out that she has gone back to the Master in Sunnydale. Meanwhile Spike and Dru are in Italy. Dru is captured by the count and Spike is attacked by demons who are to take care of him. Spike beats them and forces one of them to take him to the count and Dru.
On the helicopter there he finds a statue of Count Dracula and he now knows for sure that he is the one who has Dru. He is going to make him pay for everything. He gets to the house to find Dru playing the piano. It turns out that is wasn't Count Dracula who has Dru it is a man called The Comte De Saint-Germain. He wasn't going to take advantage of Dru he just wanted to play music with her and the demons were going to take care of Spike. Not by killing him but by letting him have a night of passion with Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren. Spike regrets coming here. Instead of a night of passion he sits and listens to the two of them play music. It is not the night he would have wanted. On the way out he breaks the statue of Dracula as payback. He an Dru leave the house and out of the ruins of the statue Dracula returns. Turns out that the statue held Dracula prisoner. He goes out and kills the creature, he can't be human because he is 200 years old and Spike didn't need an invite to enter the house, therefor he must be some kind of demon. Spike set his worst enemy free, how is that for irony? Peter David keeps killing it with this series. Here is an exciting story set in the great city of Las Vegas by Brett Matthews. It is the story of a vampire who spends all his time gambling away his days. It's become routine to him, almost boring. He wants something more. It is then that he hears a commotion, a few casinos guards are rough handling a beautiful woman. Are hero jumps in and kills them, saving the girl.
She asks him to take her somewhere nice so he does. They get in the car and drive up to his special spot. She asks if he has ever taken anyone there before and he assures her that he hasn't. A lie, the bottom of the cliff is filled with the bodies of his many many victims. He moves in for the bite, but something isn't right. The blood isn't hers. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere hours later. Not sure of what happened. Only knowing one thing, the sun is coming up. He lights his cigarette with his hand as he starts to catch on fire, if he has to go he is at least going to enjoy it. It's a good story with a nice twist. Vampire feeding on vampire with some sleazy Las Vegas thrown in. What could be more fun? And here is Part 3 of Peter David's thrilling story. This one setting up the season 5 episode of Angel, Why We Fight. In this issue we learn how Spike got his Nazi jacket and how he ended up on the submarine.
Once more we see that Spike is writing letters with Darla. Thus cementing their relationship even further. To me this is one of my favorite parts of this series. It is nice to think that all four members of the Whirlwind had a relationship with one another. I always wanted Spike and Darla to have some scenes together but they only had group scenes. It wasn't enough for my liking. This fills that void for me. Spike finds Dracula in Darla's room and the two almost get into it before Dracula explains that one of his brides was captured by some Nazis. Darla must also have been captured and now they have to work together to save them. The two of them break into a Nazi camp and almost at once Dracula is gone. Leaving Spike to fight his way out. He finds a werewolf named Osborn, which means he is most likely a relative of Oz from Buffy. How cool is that? It's a nice Easter egg that I really enjoyed. Spike makes it out and finds a note from Darla that she is well and as gone off to England. Who can blame her for wanting to get out of Nazi Germany. Before Spike can leave two Vampires show up, Nostryev and the Prince of Lies. The same two vampires that show up with Spike on the episode Why we Fight. This episode doesn't just add to this series but to the bigger universe as well. That is a mark of great writing! We are back in the world of the slayers, away from those pesky vampires as Rebecca Rand Kirshner tells us the story of a girl, Sonnenblume, who grows up in Germany just as the Nazi party is taking over. She is friends with a Jewish baker and her family but as the anti-Jewish sentiment reaches an all time high. She tries to do her part as a good German but it never really feels right to her. She feels that something is wrong but her family keeps telling her that good German's have to know their place in the world. That they are above everyone else, better than everyone else and has to remember that. One night while walking down the street looking for the undead she sees some Nazi breaking into the bakery looking for the Jewish family that she use to be friends with. She finally figures out that vampires aren't the only evil things out there. That sometimes people can be evil too. She fights the German's and saves the family. Vowing to protect people from the evil that man does as well. It is a tale of someone learning that their government isn't to be trusted. That just because we are told something doesn't make it true and that we have to figure out for our-self what is right and wrong. Welcome to the second battle between Spike and Dracula by Peter David. In this story David managed to do something that we never really saw in the show. A relationship between Spike and Darla. The two members of the whirlwind who had the least in common. No real connection to each other.
The story is told between two different points of view, that of Spike writing to Darla and that of a young boy Edward Wood Jr. who is telling his class about his weekend. Spike takes Dru to see Bela Lugos, the actor who plays Dracula in all the movies do a live play of the story. Ed Wood sits next to them. In the front row sits the real life Dracula. After the show Dracula tries to kill Lugos, only for Spike to jump in at the last minute and stop him. They do battle till Dracula turns to a bat and tries to fly away. Spike gets a hold of him and goes for a ride. They end up crashing on a plane and Spike makes it away while Dracula is believed dead. Meanwhile one of his brides tries to kill Lugos for him only to be dusted by Dru. She then tries to turn him into a real vampire but is stopped by the young Ed Wood. He saved his hero, the greatest vampire ever, the non vampire Bela Lugos. Ed Wood's teacher is not happy that he is telling tall tales in her class. He tells her that he won't tell vampire stories in class again. Instead he will just make horror movies. And so he does. He goes on to make many horror and sci-fi B-movies. Including Plan 9 from Outer Space. Over all this issue has been a great addition to the universe. Any time we get to see Spike and Dru it is always a treat. Welcome back to another Jane Espenson issue. Do I really need to say anything else? I mean her name is enough to inform us that the story is amazing. There is nothing this woman can't write. I would kill for half her talent.
Anyways, enough about the master that is Espenson. Now on to the Dust Bowl. It is a heartbreaking tell about a boy who lives with his mother and works on their farm. A bad dust storm hits and they have to bring all the animals into the barn. His mother invites a stranger into his home to protect him from the dust. He promises that he will be gone by morning. So he is. But something isn't right with his mother. She asks for a hug and bites him. Without thinking he bites her back. The next day he wakes up and his mother comes to talk to him, he thinks her crazy and stabs her. She turns to dust. It is then that the hunger sets in. He goes to his neighbors house, just as the sun comes up, catching him on fire. His friend puts him out and he tells her that he wants to make her like him. He bites her but she never wakes up. He never figured out that she has to feed on him in return in order for her to become another vampire. The dust starts to clear up and he knows that he will soon need food. What to do? He opens up his mothers room as a guest room. Making his house into a kind of bed and breakfast. He dumps the dead bodies in the barn. It is a sad tale but one that is well told. It has just enough heart and irony in it to make even this short a tale so memorable. The tale to end all tales, well the tale about other tales. That's the one! All the other stories in Tales of the Vampires is just a tale being told by the vampire Roche. But he is not the center of this story. That would be Giles Mother. Joss Whedon wrote this tale full of twists and turns. The watchers take these young soon to be watchers to go and learn the tales of vampires from this vamp. She just feels something is wrong but can't figure it out. No one else there seems to think that anything is out of place. As Edna, Giles mom, listens to Roche's story she figures out that the other little girl is in fact his sire. She slays the sire and is knocked out. When she wakes up everything is under control and she blows up at the watchers, pointing out how pathetic they all our. She leaves and makes her way to a nearby Bakery, a bakery run by a family with surname Giles. Where she has a crush on the oldest son. It's a great story that serves as a kind of origin story for Giles, kind of. |
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