As far as Buffy the Vampire Slayer stories go, nothing beats a good episode from the TV series. Failing that, the Dark Horse collection of graphic novels is a fair to middlin' substitute.

Set during the third season of the show, Pale Reflections finds our heroine still in high school, forced with her friends to build a clown float for Sunnydale's Mardi Gras parade. But a vampire chick, hopped up on designer blood, has a mad on for our girl, and she and her evil doctor sidekick have cloned a "dark Buffy" to take her place. Besides being evil, the Buffy clone also has a passion for fashion, which should have clued in the Scoobies right away that something was amiss.

The turning point of the plot is based on the weak assumption that an evil Buffy clone, having dispatched the real Buffy with a pointed kick to the chin, would assume the slayer was dead and dump her down a sewer. Stupid, stupid clone! Fortunately for Buffy, chin kicks are rarely fatal.

The book includes a short yarn called "Killing Time," which involves a very powerful, very slow-witted apocalyptic demon and some bug spray. It's cute.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
12 August 2006