During the time of “Buffy” Season 11, Giles is off at high school in Los Angeles in the clunky four-issue series “Girl Blue” (February-May 2018). It’s credited to Joss Whedon and Erika Alexander (also an actress, who has a role in “Get Out”), but since I get no sense whatsoever that this is a Whedon script, I’m tempted to see it as Alexander’s work.
So many things about “Girl Blue” don’t line up. Let’s start with Jon Lam’s art. He draws Giles well enough, but the drawings don’t match up with Giles’ portrayal in the main Season 11 comic. In those issues, he’s more like a high school freshman who would visually fit in with the geeks from “Freaks and Geeks.” Here, he’s more like a high school freshman who would fit in with the 30-something actors of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
Then there’s Roux, Giles’ love interest. She’s a vampire who behaves as if she has a soul, but we get her whole backstory (which is admittedly tragic and compelling) and it includes no soul-getting. She also dies in a fashion we’ve never seen before for a vampire. Her behavior is a decent mystery, but with no resolution, it comes off as more of a mistake.
As much as “Girl Blue” aims for edginess and style – with soundtrack suggestions so you can imagine this being a TV episode – it ultimately plays it safe with Giles’ love interest. She’s a century older than he is, so Alexander doesn’t have to dig into the implications of Giles’ girlfriend being an actual high schooler.
The plot is more confusing than it needs to be. A demon near the school is draining people’s life essences. The title character, Blue, is a student who has been manipulated by the demon and whom Roux has vowed to protect – which, again, could be interesting given the fact that Roux is a vampire. But the writers don’t dig into this fascinating contradiction.
Another angle Alexander and Whedon aren’t really interested in is the contrast between Giles’ original stint in high school and this one. To Giles, it’s pretty much the same thing, and he even admits to himself that he enjoys school. But 1970s British schooling and 2010s inner-city LA schooling should be wildly different, right? Or perhaps the ways they are similar could be ironically emphasized.
While “Girl Blue” does give us one link to Giles’ past, it’s just a guy he used to know who is now a teacher. We’re still waiting for that epic exploration of Giles’ formative years, with some flashbacks in “Angel & Faith” Season 9 being the closest we’ve gotten.
I can’t be totally dismissive of “Girl Blue.” It’s the only “Giles” series Dark Horse put out (there was also a one-shot) during its time with the “Buffy” license. And if Whedon and Alexander’s storytelling here is a failure, it’s an interesting failure, at least. Giles in love with a vampire is definitely not something I expected to see. And I admit that I never connected with the flow of the story, and that might partially be my fault. “Girl Blue” fails by being weird and confusing, not by being familiar and boring.
Click here for an index of all of John’s “Buffy” and “Angel” reviews.