Andrew Chambliss, who is writing the Buffy portion of season 9, is a good writer. I like his stuff on "Once Upon a Time." But his style of writing (especially dialogue) doesn't have the same "sound" that we're used to in Whedon stories.
Also, a LOT of new characters have been introduced in season 9 and given very prominent roles, while the Scoobies are pretty much broken up at the moment. That's rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way.
I don't know if he is a good writer outside of "Buffy" or no, all I know is that his run on Buffy is rather terrible and it's the worse thing that happened to this character. Actually I think that only thing that Chambliss can do is to write good dialogues. Usually Buffy sound like Buffy, Xander sound like Xander, and Andrew sound like Andrew. Usually dialogues are believable. Except from Illyria - she sound like complete stranger. I also like Chambliss's sense of humour and his pop culture references - "Star Trek IV" reference in newest 18 issue was indeed funny.
🙂 But rest of his work? Bad.
Characters? As Buffy Summers fan - yes, I'm a guy and I'm Buffy's fan, bite me if you don't like this!
😉 - I'm greatly disappointed how this character is written. It's funny because I recently rewatched season 7 and there Buffy asked Anya certain question that now can be directed to her:
Why are you here? Aside from getting rescued, what is it that you do? Nothing. Buffy is essentially damsel in distress, or more exactly dumbass in distress. She is carrying idiot ball with her for entire time. Instead of girl who would kick ass and take names, we have girl who constantly need rescue. She is not heroic, proactive or even funny. There is nothing admirable about her.
Supporting cast... Scoobies are not there, they are just absent. Willow left...Spike left... Giles is of course dead... Xander and Dawn are barely there. Let's now talk about new characters. I propose a little game:
describe the following season 9 character WITHOUT saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the comic was: Billy, Dowling, Koh. I bet that you can't describe them because they are absolutely generic, they have no personality. And the fact that those new characters almost completely replaced old ones, mean that this comic no longer feel like
BTVS, those new characters have nothing to do with the series. Also concept of character development and growth is completly alien to Mr. Chambliss. There is character stagnation and even character regression but not growth.
Plot... oh, here fun real begins. What happened in this season so far? Nothing. At least nothing consequential. We are going from one meaningless, unconnected story to another. Buffy is pregnant... no, wait she is a robot... no, wait she is a bodyguard... oh, and some boy who noone care about want to be a Slayer... It's hardly narratively coherent story. What also comes to mind is that there are no goals, no stakes and no consequences - only very recently we been introduced with Dawn's sickness and with potential consequences of that illness. But for the most of the season we don't know what Buffy wants, what are her goals - she wander aimlessly form one story to another. So why should I care about her and her misadventures? Also there is noticeable lack of antagonists - big bads of the season Simone and Severin are barely in this book. And withouth big bads there is no conflict, withouth conflict there is no tension and withouth all those things there is no urge to continue reading. Oh, and plot holes, big and numerous, for example: how Simone can know that Buffy's body was in suburbs, how Severin could suck Buffy's energy when Buffy was in artificial body - he can only feed on mystical energy, why D'Hoffryn send three mystical warriors to fight guy who feed on mystical powers, why Buffy didn't took a gun with her when she was going to confront Severin - only weapon which hurted him, how Buffy or Spike didn't know that Buffy was trapped inside of BuffyBot, how changes in PH levels can give positive result on pregnancy test??? And list go on, and on...
So, no I don't think that Chambliss is particularly good writer.
