Now that it's over, I can see that Tales of the Vampires yielded a very mixed crop of stories. All of them were at least capable, but few of them jumped out as really great, or even as memorable as the stories in Tales of the Slayers, let alone the best stories told by Whedon and company on the Buffy and Angel television series. Fortunately, some of the best stories told are in these last two issues, and even more fortunately, these issues feature the finale of Joss Whedon's framing story, which when gathered in one place makes up one of the best stories of the entire series. Overall, Tales of the Vampires isn't the best salve for those stinging from the end of the Buffy series or the impending finale of Angel, but it has its moments, and many of them are packed into these last two issues.
Joss Whedon's tale, "Tales of the Vampires," was in fact one story that could have filled a single comic, but was divided into chapters across all five issues. The good news is, this means there was a Joss Whedon story in every issue. The bad news is, you couldn't see that it was up to Whedon's usual standards until issue four or five, when you realized it was all going somewhere. Where it goes has a couple of patented Whedon twists, one presented in the first part of issue five and one in the second, and the resulting tale is the only one in the series that's really important to Buffy canon in any way, as well as one that has the perfect mixture of horror and humor that made me fall in love with Buffy in the first place. Artist Alex Sanchez has been good, if not great, for Whedon's work, disappointingly low in terms of backgrounds or clear action but exceptionally solid in terms of detailed faces and expressions, where most of the story really takes place.
There are some terrific art performances in these last couple of issues, though. Tim Sale, as always, does a terrific job on artwork, portraying the transformation of a vampire into something more different with just the right amount of macabre blood and Victorian machinery and exquisite coloring that portrays the dual sensual/horrific nature of blood in the Buffy vampire mythos. Jeff Parker's portrayal of the Dust Bowl in Espenson's story likewise has excellent color and atmosphere, really giving a feel for the desolation that is essential to the story and featuring more than one outright creepy scene. And it's nice to see Edlund return to drawing, albeit with inks by Derek Fridolfs, delivering a style that reminds me somewhat of the work of Matt Wagner.
What I was really happy about in these final issues, though, was to find some of the stories striking just the right place. Jane Espenson is an extremely hit and miss writer for me in TV and comics, but her "Dust Bowl" story is legitimately horrific, and it also tells an interesting story of a vampire with no guide to things vampiric. It's not entirely consistent with the instinctual vampirism we've seen in Buffy canon, but it doesn't contradict anything major, and it makes for a really good story. Edlund turns in a story that seems darker than you're used to from him, but comes with a very humorous and ironic twist in the end, and is probably all told one of the best stories of the entire series. And Sam Loeb (son of Jeph) builds on a character from Buffy/Angel mythos who removed one of the vampiric weaknesses to tell a story that plays into that eternal notion of never being satisfied with what you are, resulting in a very funny ending to a very intriguing story. About the only story that really disappointed me in these last two issues was Brett Matthews doing a story of Angel being tormented by his conscience, one of those things we've seen almost as many times as we've seen Spider-Man deciding to give up his costumed identity again.
All in all, I suspect that, like Hellboy Weird Tales, this multi-creator anthology will read better as a trade paperback with a remixed order, and would probably have come off better if released as a graphic novel in the first place. However, while there were some big misses for me in Tales of the Vampires, and few stories that really grabbed me the way the best Buffy and Angel episodes have, this exploration of the main bad guys of the Buffyverse has provided some laughs, some horror and some interesting insights for fans of the television series.
