Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Issue 10 – “Anywhere But Here”

by Teresa Jusino

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Issue 10 - “Anywhere But Here” The long-awaited return of Joss Whedon to writing Buffy: Season Eight, along with guest penciller, Cliff Richards, comes in a special standalone issue. When promotion began for this book a year ago, Dark Horse had a contest on MySpace asking fans to write in and explain why Buffy meant so much to them. The winner would be drawn into an upcoming issue. Issue #10, “Anywhere But Here”, is the beautiful, heartbreaking result.

The issue opens with Buffy soaking up the sun on a beach in a rare moment of total relaxation. Someone calls her name, to which Buffy’s response is, “If you’re anyone other than Daniel Craig, then no, never heard of her.” Lucky for her, it is Daniel Craig, and he just so happens to have sunscreen to keep her from turning red…

In a not-so-lucky turn of events, we see that this isn’t actually happening. Buffy is with Willow, who seems a bit bored with Buffy’s telling of a sexual fantasy. Not that Daniel Craig hasn’t “got a thing”, but “the beach? Rubbing oil? It’s a little generic.” Perhaps Buffy would be able to come up with something better if she weren’t thousands of feet in the air. She is on Willow’s back and has her arms wrapped tightly around her neck as Willow flies over open countryside. They are looking for something. Willow doesn’t know exactly where it is, but she knows it is close.

Meanwhile, back at Slayer Army headquarters, Xander has a surprise for Dawn. Since they haven’t been able to shrink Dawn, Xander had the Wiccan Squad make Dawn’s clothing big. She is thrilled.

Suddenly, we are in a cabin in the alps as Willow convinces “Television’s Tina Fey” that they must forgo skiing down the treacherous mountains and instead “find a way to keep warm.” Another fantasy. Buffy asks about Kennedy in the context of the dream, to which Willow replies, “It’s a fantasy game, Buf. No significant others.”

The young women come down for a landing in front of their destination, the lair of Sephrilian, a being that walks between dimensions in an unstable reality field watched over by a “minder.” They meet the minder, Robin, whom Willow says she’s never met before, but then addresses by name as though she has. Willow explains that they haven’t met yet, but they will, and Buffy is confused. Robin lays down the main rule of entering the lair: No big mojo in the field, even if things get dicey. As they converse with Robin, she mentions things that don’t make much sense; something about there being a chance they’ll wish they hadn’t come to talk and needing to save the prince. Buffy goes over what Giles explained to them – being a minder means that one contains the reality field. Meaning that “time and logic and everything’s just bendy in the brain.” She wonders why on Earth someone would choose that job, but as Willow reminds her, minders don’t volunteer. They are chosen.

[nms:buffy the vampire slayer,1,0]

Xander sits back and watches Dawn enjoy her newly embiggened belongings. As he expresses discomfort when he realizes he’s standing in what could potentially be Dawn’s giant, frilly underwear, he discovers something else…a framed photo of Dawn and Kenny.

Back at the Sephrilian’s lair, Buffy and Willow are descending a seemingly endless staircase, and Buffy is revealing another fantasy that includes both “Little Women Christian Bale” and “Reign of Fire Christian Bale.” She then makes another attempt to bring up Kennedy, trying to get Willow to explain why she never brings Kennedy to headquarters, or why she’s been cryptic about everything since she’s been back. Buffy is saved from her own rambling by a swipe from a large demon’s claws…

The Sephrilian doesn’t like visitors.

Buffy stands her ground, explaining that they need the Sephrilian’s help in the fight against Twilight. Willow asks the Sephrilian if it knows what Twilight’s fight truly means, and the Sephrilian explains Twilight’s mission to rid the human dimension of all magic. Or, as he puts it, “The final triumph of the base humans over the demons. It’s your life’s goal achieved, Slayer. The death of magic.”

Dawn, meanwhile, is expressing guilt about her situation with Kenny. Xander tries to make Dawn feel better by telling her that even though Willow is having trouble figuring out what spell will work to shrink her, she shouldn’t feel guilty about her “natural…person…urges.” Dawn, however, explains that she lied to Willow when they talked. She didn’t sleep with Kenny. She slept with his roommate.

The Sephrilian continues enlightening Buffy and Willow by giving his impressions on humanity. That they live on lies. That they couldn’t handle the “horrible beauty of total awareness”, so they lie, hiding from the truth and from each other. He then shows them secrets they’ve been keeping from each other. He shows them Buffy and the Slayer Army robbing the vault of a Swiss bank to bankroll their efforts. He shows them a naked Willow wrapped in the tentacles of a beautiful, female demon, getting her to “lay bare all her secrets.”

Dawn continues to explain what happened with Kenny…and with his roommate, Nick. How she met Nick at a house party, was drawn to him being a brooding bad boy in a band, slept with him, Kenny got angry and turned her into “acres of skank”, and it’s just what she deserves. Xander comforts her, reminding her that the only thing of which she’s guilty is “being a cliché.” Now that they know exactly what happened, it will make it easier for Willow to figure out how to counteract the spell.

Back at the Sephrilian’s lair, Buffy and Willow are having more truth laid on them as the Sephrilian shows them a future vision of Buffy laying on the floor, clothing ripped, covered in blood and bruises. She is crying hysterically. Just above her floats a large, cracked, red egg that has a large bit of its shell missing and nothing inside. Robin appears at this point, and she says that what they see is the result of a “Betrayal. The closest, the most unexpected.” Buffy asks Willow if she will be her betrayer, and Willow denies this, telling her that she would never betray her “any more than [she has].”

[nms:buffy the vampire slayer,1,1]

We then see a flashback of Willow and Kennedy. Kennedy is upset that Willow keeps her from the other slayers and Buffy, and is afraid that Willow is ashamed of her. Willow then admits that she has been purposely keeping Kennedy from Buffy, but not for the reasons she suspects. When Buffy died (the second time), she and Tara were happy, and apparently, so was Buffy. Yet, she had to bring Buffy back, and in doing so, doomed Tara to getting shot. She chose Buffy over Tara, and it got Tara killed. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Kennedy, so she has tried to keep her away from danger…

…and Willow repeats all this to Buffy, who is visibly troubled by it. The Sephrilian cites this as yet another example of human weakness, and welcomes the coming war. Buffy, enraged, attacks the Sephrilian, and with Willow’s mystical help, slices him at the neck (if one can call it that). The use of magic causes the reality field to explode, throwing Buffy and Willow out of the lair and onto the ground where Robin stands. Robin is grateful, as this has stabilized the field and frees her, at least until she is reassigned. Buffy and Willow walk away from her, and each other, troubled and uncertain.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Issue 10 - “Anywhere But Here” REVIEW (Issue #10): The best issue in the series so far. From Jo Chen’s gorgeous cover, to Joss Whedon’s lovely examination of the ways we lie to each other and why, to Cliff Richards’ beautiful interior artwork, which gave the characters an air of maturity and gravity that I haven’t yet seen in the series, “Anywhere But Here” has brilliance on every page. This issue is successful for a number of reasons. First, it clearly sets up what is at stake in the war with Twilight by having the Sephrilian outline why human beings can’t handle having access to the magical realm. He calls the death of magic in the Earthly dimension Buffy’s “life goal achieved”, and it is. But as he speaks of the death of magic, we see a close-up of Willow’s concerned face. What will this mean for someone like her, who has become her strongest, most assured self through the use of her magic? Who is the Sephrilian to say that humans can’t handle magic, the truth, the “horrible beauty of total awareness” in the face of someone like Willow, who has overcome so much? A fascinating debate is being set up, as is an interesting tension between Buffy and Willow.

Secondly, this issue opens up the characters to each other in a way that hasn’t happened before. Buffy and Willow, Willow and Kennedy, Dawn and Xander – everyone has been forced to lay their secrets bare in a way that recalls the brilliant musical episode, “Once More With Feeling”, with similarly heartrending results. The revelation of Dawn’s truth wasn’t particularly thrilling – certainly not as thrilling as one might expect from a romantic dalliance with a thricewise – but the scene between her and Xander was touching. Watching Buffy and Willow wrestle with the ethically questionable choices they have made was fascinating.

Lastly, the use of the Robin character was wonderful. This character was based on an entry received in that Dark Horse/MySpace contest. A gentleman wrote in on behalf of his wife, Robin, who suffers from schizophrenia. They both love Joss Whedon’s work, Buffy in particular, and it is the thing that allows her to keep focus when she has bad episodes. The way that Whedon writes her condition, her ability to contain a bent reality, as a power was both admirable and beautiful. It is in moments like these that Whedon demonstrates that he is not only a brilliant writer, but a brilliant human being, which is far more important.

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS

TERESA JUSINO entered the world kicking and screaming in 1979 and hasn’t stopped screaming since. An actress, writer, and producer, Teresa’s work has been seen in several venues and mediums. As an actress, she has appeared at various venues in NYC and regional theater. As a writer, her work has appeared in Elmont Life newspaper, and on the sadly defunct website, CentralBooking.com. She is also Associate Producer for a New York theater company, Stone Soup Theater Arts, and is producing a reading series for them that runs through January. As a geek, Teresa loves Star Trek, Lost, comics, and anything Joss Whedon ever touched. Also, she has a fangirl *squee-ing* crush on Brian K. Vaughan. Yes, she knows he’s married.