Welcome back to This Week in Comics, my reviews of whichever comics I’ve bought for the week. As always, reviews contain SPOILERS. If that makes you uncomfortable, then can you at least show me on the doll where the spoilers touched you?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 # 25 | Exiles #2 | New Mutants #1 | Power Girl #1 | X-Men First Class Finals #4 OF 4

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON 8 #25
Writer: Doug Petrie
Penciler: Georges Jeanty
Publisher: Dark Horse

Rumors have it that a big bad vampire named Cradle is coming to town, and he’s bringing an army of his friends. Buffy and Xander are assembling the slayers to defend the base, but Buffy is preoccupied with other thoughts. Dawn (who has taken the form of a centaur due to a curse her ex-boyfriend placed on her) has run off, and hasn’t been home in days. It turns out the spell has transformed her once again– this time into a living doll. She’s currently being held captive (or protected) by an old man in the woods who creates his own magical living dolls. Buffy and team decide that this has gone on long enough, and Andrew & Willow trick Dawn’s ex into being teleported to the slayers’ castle. Eventually, they all track Dawn down to the old man’s house in the woods, and Dawn finds that she would’ve transformed back to her normal self if she had just apologized to her boyfriend for sleeping with his roommate. In the end, Dawn and her ex part ways on better terms, and Dawn and Buffy discuss their relationship as sisters.

Jeanty returns to art duties in this issue, and he’s in normal form. Jeanty (as well on Jo Chen in the cover art) rendered a thricewise creature that looked like something out of a Lovecraft tale. Make of that what you will. Anyway, this issue was basically the conclusion to Dawn’s character arc for the eighth season. She’s not only back to normal, but we learn the motivations she had for getting herself into that mess, and it appears she’s moved past them. Andrew’s appearance was as humorous as usual, while Xander continues his role as the slayers’ general and den mother. Willow was barely present for someone who played a pivotal role in moving the plot forward. My only real complaint was the house of living dolls. Where did they come from? Why include them in this issue at all? Overall, this was another decent single issue story as the comic starts to wind down to its season finale.

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EXILES #2
Writer: Jeff Parker
Penciler: Salva Espin
Publisher: Marvel

The new Exiles have been assembled, and their first task is to travel to a world where Magneto rules his own kingdom, and kill him. Using the fact that their counterparts in this world are royalty, the Witch and Polaris distract city officials while Forge gathers intel on that particular dimension via the internet. The team decides to infiltrate a party at Magneto’s, with Polaris and Witch taking the places on their counterparts. All seems to be going well until Phoenix casually reads some of their minds, and figures out who they really are. With the exception of Panther, who is off somewhere with that world’s Kitty Pryde, all of the Exiles are captured by the X-Men.

This issue answered one mystery, but let another build. It turns out Panther is the son of Storm and T’Challa, but may possibly be human. However, nothing has been revealed about Blink’s past. She appears to share some of the traits of the previous Blink, and immediately took the leadership role in the team, but she’s the only one who hasn’t talked about her past, and we haven’t seen any glimpses of her home dimension. Exiles is off to a good start, though I do miss the days when each issue had a self-contained story.

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NEW MUTANTS #1
Writer: Zeb Wells
Penciler: Diogenes Neves
Publisher: Marvel

The issue opens with Karma walking into a little girl’s room, only for the room to suddenly be attacked by an unseen monster. That was two weeks ago. Today, Magik teleports onto the X-Center’s grounds, clearly having been in a battle. She immediately captures the attention of the students, who still hate her for the things she did to them while she was a soulless demon. Cannonball and Sunspot immediately come to her defense, and a fight nearly erupts between the different generations of X-Men. Sunspot and Cannonball instead take her to the infirmary, where Beast notes that all of her wounds have been magically healing themselves. Magik, who seems to have come from the near future, warns the others that Dani and Karma may be dead, and their lives are all in danger. Cannonball, Sunspot, Magik, and Magma then assemble new costumes for themselves, hop in a jet, and fly to Dani and Karma’s last know whereabouts in Colorado. Upon arrival, they’re immediately attacked by the locals, and are apparently tricked into releasing Legion, who seems to have Karma’s mind trapped among his many personalities.

The New Mutants were possibly the best generation of teenage students to come out of Charles Xavier’s school, excluding the original five X-Men. This series relaunch was one I’ve been looking forward to since they announced it nigh simultaneously with the cancellation of Young X-Men. The New Mutants are a group of friends who have more or less stayed close over the years, despite their team having disbanded years ago. With nearly everyone living in the same city again, it only made sense for them to reunite when one of their own was put in danger. The only person missing from the cast, I feel, is Wolfsbane. Unfortunately, that character is currently being used (one could argue misused) by the writers of X-Force.

I’d say the art was decent, but it was much better in the first half of the issue than the second. The coloring, however, was a big problem for me. Sunspot, who is a Brazilian of African descent, appeared to have lighter skin than Karma, who is Vietnamese. Early promotional artwork and the first online glimpses of the opening scene with Karma had her eyes and hair colored inconsistently (at times, she was even drawn with blonde hair and blue eyes), which leads me to believe that colorist John Rauch had to do a few recolors before the issue’s final print. Even the cast page shows Karma with brown hair instead of the normal black hair she’s always had and has on the second page. Pixie appears for one panel with dark purple hair instead of the usual pink with black stripes.

I’m looking forward to the next issue, but the art team is the weak link on this title.

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POWER GIRL #1
Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti
Penciler: Amanda Conner
Publisher: DC

Power Girl is flying across New York City, reflecting on her life, when suddenly a storm erupts and an army of robots attack. Even worse, these robots appear to be behind some sort of psychic attack that has the people of New York killing one another in panic. This is intercut with scenes of Power Girl some time ago, deciding to put her life on New Earth back together. She has reopened her old tech company, Starrware Labs, and retaken the secret identity of Karen Starr. She’s hiring the best scientists she can find to research and develop new technology to help the human race, while also avoiding government military contracts. We get to see her turn down hiring a scientist named Belvin who wants to find a way to control the way people think to progress the human race. Cut to the present, and Power Girl has discovered the source of the robot attack is the Ultra-Humanite, and he wants to find a way to implant his brain into Power Girl’s super-powerful body.

This issue had quite a few good things going for it. Writers Palmiotti and Gray work best when their aim is to make a fun comic book rather than a complex character study or sci-fi epic, and this was a fun comic with a bit of humor and plenty of action. It’s clear that they’re aiming for some traditional superhero fare by re-establishing Power Girl’s long forgotten secret identity, creating a supporting cast, and not taking themselves too seriously. Artist Amanda Conner provides some solid art that compliments the writing, and provides cheesecake without going overboard.

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X-MEN FIRST CLASS FINALS #4 OF 4
Writer: Jeff Parker
Pencilers: Amilcar Pinna, Roger Cruz
Publisher: Marvel

Surprise twist: It was Jean Grey the whole time.

Professor X is home, and the team tells him about all of the old enemies who have been attacking them. They’ve come to the conclusion that the recent ambush was actually a part of Jean’s mind, and her budding telepathy is wreaking havoc on the team. The Professor takes them inside of Jean’s mind, where they encounter practically ever enemy they’ve defeated over the years. In most of these fights, a manifestation of Jean pops up and defeats the enemies herself, but doesn’t seem to notice her teammates roaming through her mind. Scott finally snaps her out of it, and Jean learns to overcome her fears. The issue ends with the X-Men finally graduating, and Professor X sending them on one final mission to an island named Krakoa.

I like Cruz’s art, but the combination of Cruz and Pinna proves to be… well, ugly. It’s like every character is making a face. Too much gum is showing, and everyone is either pouting or curling their bottom lips under their teeth. It’s incredibly distracting, especially if someone happens to be smiling. Other than that, this was a good conclusion to the original First Class series, and I’m cautiously looking forward to its continuation in Uncanny X-Men First Class.