Fray #1
Big City Girl

Timeline

200 years after Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

The Sitch

"Bad day." "Started bad, stayed that way." - the first seven words that we hear from Melaka Fray, Vampire Slayer. Over the next eight issues (and, incidentally, 18 months), we get taken for an amazing ride with the call and training of the first slayer in hundreds of years. Though not very present in Fray's dimension, time has not dulled the activities of dark forces. Fray opens up insidously with a plot being hatched in a hell dimension, resulting in the dispatch of Urkonn, to intercept Fray, who, like Buffy, doesn't know she's a slayer.

And there's really no one there to tell her. With no purpose over the years, the Watcher council has become a group of babbling madmen and women. And, if you have the potential to be a slayer but can't, where has this led Fray? Is she a cop? A protector of some sort? Not at all. Borrowing a page of bad from another slayer whose name started with F, Fray is a thief. Our first look at Fray comes about five pages into the book. She utters the words above while being tossed from a building on a scale straight out of Blade Runner or the Fifth Element.

The remainder of this first chapter is an introduction to Fray's world. We met Gunther, her radiation-mutated fish-boss. Lurks, who look similar to 21st-century fanged creatures we know from the Whedon-verse, stalk down a back alley. Dropping from the sky in a flying cop-car comes Erin, the cop with a close tie to Fray's past and allusions of an event that separated them. Back in Versi, a place that would could have made Seymour and Audrey proud, we meet Fray's people, including Loo, a little girl who idolizes Fray.

At the start of the story, the forces of darkness state that this will be Fray's last normal day of life. By story's end, that becomes a reality. A Watcher, no more than a madman, lights himself up in front of Fray, declaring that she will cleanse them all with fire. After a snatch and grab, a run-in with Erin and the flaming Watcher, a frazzled Fray decides to go home. As Fray switches on the light to her apartment in the final panel, we see the final goodbye to normal in her life hiding behind the door.
Thoughts

Issue #1 is an origin story, a setup to introduce to Melaka's world. In classic Whedon style, though, we don't get all the facts up front and are left to wonder where the story is headed. To be honest, I've read all 8 issues as I write this review, so I know where it's all going. The purpose of any origin story is to hook you. If you don't know the world and get engaged fast, a comic book doesn't stand a chance.

Fray #1 did it for me. In the 22 pages of the first issue, we get what breaks down to 6 distinct acts. Little is wasted in these panels and there are moments of genius in these panels. For example, when Mel is confronted by the cop Erin (who incidentally is her sister), four panels with almost nothing but faces communicates an entire story. The use of black and white in one of the panels lets us know that a boy came between them in their past. Who the boy is remains a mystery, though it will be unfolded in future issues.

Another superb panel in the book comes immediately after Mel's escape with her booty. Mel simply jumps two stories straight up to latch onto a flying bus, catching a ride to her boss. She thinks nothing of why she would have the ability to do this. And the flying bus isn't the only future-tense Jossverse we see, either. Firefly fans will catch the use of a dialect similar to the one used on Captain Mal's ship. Irradiated humans dot the world, blurring the line between monster and human. Mel's boss is amphibious. And, the children of her section of the city have severe deformities. We are drawn into an entire world and not just a story of one person.

The artwork in Fray is briliant. To mirror the multilayered world that Fray lives in, we get a multi-layered art that is beautiful to behold. I keep some of the pictures as backgrounds on my PC.

Rating:

3.5 of 5 (The ride is just getting started, and the stories peak as we go, so start at a good number and work our way up).

What's My Line? (Just a few lines of vintage Whedon dialogue)

I don't have a stand-off...
You're Late. You're Fat.
And I wish, just once, that you would come to see me...in a skirt...

Main Credits

Created and Written by Joss Whedon
Penciller - Karl Moline
Inker - Andy Owens
Colorist - Dave Stewart
Letterer - Michelle Madsden