Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV show) had me from the opening. It’s a scene in a school hallway after hours, where two B-movie horny-teenage rejects have broken in to make out on the gym roof when—they hear a noise. She’s paranoid. “What was that?” she whispers nervously. “It’s nothing!” Creepy mood music cues. She’s unconvinced, but he does some more cajoling and finagling to finally convince them they’re alone. “Are you sure?” His hormones reply, “Yes, I’m sure.” “OK,” she says, turns into a vampire, and starts feasting on his neck.

Is there a thesis statement of a scene like that in the opening of Fray, Joss Whedon’s first foray into comicdom and his continuation of the Slayer mythos? Not really. It’s two hundred years in the future, and apparently at the beginning of the 21st century, all the Slayers (one woman in every generation to kill vampires and demons) and demons (general baddies) were wiped out, thusly rendering the Watchers (those who…well, “watch” over their Slayer protégés) a pointless occupation. Whedon presents us with a lazy generalized dystopian landscape, and a typical post-punk anime waif, Melaka Fray (and in post-apocalyptic tradition, she’s got a scar; it’s supposed to hint at a close-one she let die). The book starts off with a stellar action-sequence, and Whedon’s pop-culture references are played out with subtly (Say Anything…, Andy Warhol), but his writing prowess isn’t exactly hit-you-over-the-head. Which may not strike you as odd, because Fray is a stellar first issue, and an exemplary comic. When Whedon’s editor Scott Allie says, “I’d put Joss up against any comics writer, with the exception of Alan Moore (and I don't think he’d mind that caveat),” I’m inclined indubitably. But—well, Whedon, for me, is possibly the greatest multi-medium writer we have; he’s the best argument for irony and sincerity co-existing in drama. Maybe it’s because he’s taken out of the “real” world (or at least, current world), and a clever pop-culture crack is out-of-the-question—but Fray is sub-par for him. 

If anything, Fray has strong insight into Whedon’s writing—i.e. why he’s such a genius television writer, and why his movies (Speed, Waterworld, Alien: Resurrection, Titan A.E.) suck. Having a good entrenching in comics and some mild experience with them (he wrote a mostly unused draft of the X-Men film script), it’s easy to see that Whedon gets his writing rhythms from comics. He loves episodic thriller shorts and vignettes (take the cliff-hanger preceding every Buffy commercial break and transpose it to the end of page layout), and complex continuity threads to intertwine. Essentially, he’s not necessarily a profoundly good television writer (though I still think he is)—he’s taken comic book writing an served it into television. But when he must shorten his characterization, witty retorts seem to take more credence. Luckily, Fray’s eight full issues; hopefully, that’s enough.

Naturally, Whedon’s a nice fit as a comic writer, and there’s a few exchanges where he’s shown an adept ability to play around with layouts and the medium. But despite what the PR says, Fray doesn’t stray all that far from Buffy—technically, it’s still in the Buffy-verse. His first comic seems like bits of leg-stretching, and he’d be better served if he attempted something more meaningful (like the recent Buffy episode “The Body”) instead of something less genial and safe (like the Angel mini-series he’s co-writing). Though the highlights of Whedon’s writing has been translated better than the general god-awful Buffy Dark Horse books, is there anything special about Fray’s first issue? Or is this just Blasé-First-Issue-Syndrome at work? Hopefully, there’s time to answer.