Opinion

(Joss Whedon's) Fray

Writer: Joss Whedon, Artists: Karl Moline, Andy Owens
Published by Dark Horse

In the future, 'ordinary' humans share the world with a range of bizarre mutants and, whether they realise it or not, demons and vampires. In this world, survival is dependent on making the best of a bad situation, and as Melaka Fray has learned, that can mean living on the wrong side of the law. What Mel doesn't know, and what is going to change her life beyond recognition, is that she is the first Slayer for several hundred years....

Loudly and repeatedly trumpeted by Dark Horse as Joss Whedon's first comic book writing assignment, Fray has a lot to live up to. Needing to appeal to comic fans and Buffy fans alike, while at the same time encouraging both to cross over into the other's world, the comic stood every chance of failing to satisfy anyone at all.

An eight-part series, Fray benefits from the fact that it will have a beginning, a middle, and an end, which maximises the non-comic fraternity's chances of staying with it, rather than asking them to commit to an open-ended run. Conversely, knowing that Whedon needs to deliver all the information required to understand what's going on relatively quickly, helps the non-Buffy types to be reassured that they're not going to be missing relevant background from five years of TV.

So Fray can stand or fall on its own merits, and fortunately, it seems to be satisfying the majority of those reading and reviewing it. It helps that the world in which it's set is so radically different from both the familiar Buffyverse and our own world that preconceptions never have the chance to be take root. Likewise, where Buffy the TV series (and of course the film first) were obliged by the strictures of their media to throw all the exposition out in the first twenty minutes or so, because a comic can take its time, by the end of the first issue, neither the reader nor Melaka are really any the wiser as to what the hell is going on. Indeed, it's only now, after four issues, that the major players are taking their places, and the full potential of the latter half of the series is starting to show.

Whedon, in many people's eyes, can simply do no wrong. Screenwriter, director, creator of all things Buffy, wit, raconteur and genius, (I exaggerate a little), he has added an instinctive understanding of comic plotting and characterisation to his resumé. This should come as no surprise - he's a self-confessed addict and passing references to them litter his work in other media.

He's ably assisted by his art team, who create everything from mutant crimelords, to future cityscapes to tiny human touches with equal skill. The art has a sparseness about it at odds with many of the super-detailed styles seen in mainstream titles. Many panels have no backgrounds, or only the barest detail, giving more emphasis to the action in the foreground, but where the backgrounds are important, Moline and Owens do them more than justice.

This is not your everyday comicbook, and it won't be to everyone's taste, but if you're looking to try something that isn't 'everyday' you could do a lot worse than look this one out.