THE CURSE OF BUFFY

MONSTERS HUNTING MONSTERS

The history of the ghostbreaker changed on March 10, 1997 when Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired for the first time. (The movie doesn't count.) Whedon's popular character Angel split from the cast for his own show on October 5, 1999 to begin his own campaign against the darkness. And ever since then most ghostbreakers have been supernatural beings. Now, let's be fair. Whedon wasn't the first. Even Blade, created by Marv Wolfman predates Angel. But Joss made them big business. The current "paranormal romance" trend starts with Buffy. (What I call 'Kissy Vampires'.) By the end of the Buffy run they had dozens of slayers, two vampires, a werewolf, an ex-demon, a lounge-lizard demon and a witch all pursuing evil. Despite this, the best characters (in my opinion) were Xander, Giles, Fred (pre-transformation) and Wesley. The humans.

A current comic book that shows just how far this monster-busters thing has gone is Casper and the Spectrals. (Arden Entertainment, written by Todd Dezago and drawn by Pedro Delgad). Imagine cute little Casper who never had any friends because people always ran away saying "A g-g-g-ghost!", is now teamed up with Wendy and Hot Stuff as a monster-fighting team. It's well done but, really?

I have to admit I'm old school. Call me a Kolchakian traditionalist. I don't like my vamps to be good guys (see my "Vampire as Lothario" ) I like my Scully and Mulders to be human. I have enjoyed Buffy, Angel and Blade (I'm not slagging these shows, only pointing out a trend I don't care for.) But the over-all effect of this type of ghostbreaker is too akin to a superhero showdown rather than a more Mystery approach ala Carnacki, John Silence or even Jules deGrandin. This isn't surprising when you consider Blade was a comic first and Whedon is a huge comic fan and even writes some comics.

A show I really enjoy these days is Supernatural with its culture of Hunters, humans who prowl the night, protecting humanity. This is more my speed, rather than someone trying to hook up with a vampire. (My favorite line is when Dean says, "Suck this, Twilight" and blows away a vamp.) The story lines I have enjoyed the most are those when the boys hunt, rather than consort with Satan and angels, and save/destroy the world. (The curse of Buffy lurks in Sam's tainted blood. With luck that story line is finished for good.) I wish the producer McG would create a spin-off show called Tales of the Hunters (or something better) in which we don't go off to save the world each week but just hunt. Kind of a CSI-Supernatural. This is something X-Files might have done if it hadn't turned into a soap opera about UFOs. The Kolchak remake and The Dresden Files tried but both were met with cancellation. Perhaps my dream is simply too uncommercial?

This may show my "raised in rural Canada" background but all I can say is - Let's hunt!