What's Your Opinion with the Lack of New Characters?

[vellavu]

In the TV show, each season would introduce some new people who becomes recurring characters or main casts in the same season or later seasons.

Ms Calendar
Faith
Spike
Anya
Dawn
Clem

No matter if they are killed off or not, in their lifespan they provide something new and give each season a distinct overall feeling.

Even S8 kept Kennedy and Andrew while introduced Renee and Satsu.

They cut off a lot of characters without introducing anyone new in S10. Dowling was a less recurring character than Snyder. Koh, Kennedy and Anaheed were almost gone for good. In a forseeable future Satsu won't join the Scoobies as well.

S7 level of neglecting main character in favor of a bunch of new kids is not a good choice. But the old Scoobies Scooby-ing forever is also not good IMO. And I think I found one of the reason why I don't like Firefly as much Buffy though Firefly's more polished. It's the same reason: I prefer a dynamic open team to a static closed one.

 

[Wildfly]

firefly had only one season, we can't judge :'(

 

[thetopher]

They cut off a lot of characters without introducing anyone new in S10. Dowling was a less recurring character than Snyder. Koh, Kennedy and Anaheed were almost gone for good. In a forseeable future Satsu won't join the Scoobies as well.

I think S9 of Buffy proved that introducing new, distinctive characters in the comics Buffyverse is much harder than the TV show (unless you're Joss). None of the new characters were that memorable. Remember Billy? Two whole issues to himself Billy? Me neither. I can't even remember the guy he fancied.

So in S10 the first thing they do is dismiss all these new characters to focus on the score Scoobie dynamic-which is now Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Dawn, Spike and...Andrew (said through gritted teeth).
Billy, Anaheed and co are left in the zompire infested town and promptly forgotten, Dowling is quickly friend-zoned in a fairly none-dramatic way, and everyone else is in on the seasonal arc- the Book.
That shows the priority of the new writing team in trying to reinvigorate the 'classic' Scoobies and not bringing in any new characters for a while. At least until the end of the season.

A&F- which handled characters a lot better in the comics- kept Giles Aunts, Alistair, Nadira from the previous season and reintroduced Koh more successfully. They also brought back Illyria/Fred. They're pretty much a new Fang Gang.

 

[vellavu]

I think S9 of Buffy proved that introducing new, distinctive characters in the comics Buffyverse is much harder than the TV show (unless you're Joss). None of the new characters were that memorable. Remember Billy? Two whole issues to himself Billy? Me neither. I can't even remember the guy he fancied.

Both Dowling and Koh introduced in S9 are fine characters. But Koh went to A&F...

A&F- which handled characters a lot better in the comics- kept Giles Aunts, Alistair, Nadira from the previous season and reintroduced Koh more successfully. They also brought back Illyria/Fred. They're pretty much a new Fang Gang.

A&F S9 was awesome. But A&F S10 already screwed up Nadira, and made Giles Aunts many times less interesting.

Maybe Gage does better in A&F kind of stories than Buffy. I don't know.

 

[gite63]

A&F S9 was awesome. But A&F S10 already screwed up Nadira, and made Giles Aunts many times less interesting.

Maybe Gage does better in A&F kind of stories than Buffy. I don't know.

Gage does better than Victor Grishler. His aunts and Alasdair were just perfect - new characters and I always wanted to see them more.

 

[vellavu]

Gage does better than Victor Grishler. His aunts and Alasdair were just perfect - new characters and I always wanted to see them more.

Some irrelevant stuff:

Edna (Giles grandma) in "Tales of the Vampires" is my favorite non-show character in all Buffyverse comics. Sorry Melaka and Renee.
There should be more of her really.

 

[thetopher]

Both Dowling and Koh introduced in S9 are fine characters. But Koh went to A&F...

Exactly. Where he was utilized because the S9 Buffy writers had no clue where to take his character.
And Dowling...he's basically 'a cop'. That's all I know about his character. Not a great success there.

A&F S9 was awesome. But A&F S10 already screwed up Nadira, and made Giles Aunts many times less interesting.

The point isn't that you like them, the point is that the writer introduced them and knows how to use them. Giles aunts and Nadira are still utilized for the purposes of the story of the season, wheras Billy, Anaheed and co are promptly forgotten about and shunted offstage.
Seem to me that Angel fits the more ensemble cast wheras Buffy wants to focus on the Scoobies.

 

[Samuel Reyes]

Buffy should only focus on the established Scooby Gang. A&F could use a few new characters, so long as they don't hog the spotlight from Angel and Faith. I really like Fred coming back, though, that was a nice turn of events!

 

[EVIL UU]

I'm OK with it. At this point, there are two issues with introducing new characters in my opinion.

1. They need to serve a purpose and fill a role no existing characters can. For example, we don't need another witch - we have Turbo-Willow and Rupert, the mighty boy-witch sorry man! or another vampire for that matter, captain peroxide still does the job, right? For example, Billy and...what's the name of that guy? Those two, along with Koh and Illyria to an extent filled the roles of the scoobies when the real scoobies were dead/questing/sick of Buffy and now that they're not anymore Billy and what's his name are not needed.

2. They need to be cool, alright? Entertaining. They need to be on a similar level as the scoobies, the incredibly resilient monster hunters. Example. Koh, an ancient, badass warrior dude with energy blades and shit. Yeah, he's cool enough, definitely. Aluwyn, an immortal witch demon whatever snake. OK, she makes the cut. Tumble, he uh...uh, likes pot, I guess and...and.... Yeah, no, go away you waste of page space!

So yeah, bringing new characters so far into the story cannot be easy and anyway, scoobies are kinda doing fine on their own, I think. Reading this season, I never felt, like, man, we could use some new characters! We could use some less characters but that's another discussion.

 

[gite63]

We could use some new stories with Aluwyn... they really hit the mark with this new character.

 

[EVIL UU]

@thetopher
Yeah.

You live with someone named Tumble?!​

​

By the way, I love that cover. Only you could lose your own body - it's perfect!

We could use some new stories with Aluwyn... they really hit the mark with this new character.

I kinda expected Aluwyn to become the new Anya - incredibly knowledgeable, doesn't quite get the human world, kind of a bitch ( always lies ) and consistently funny because, hey, snake. Oh well. At least Satsu's back!

 

[weaker slayer]

Buffy should only focus on the established Scooby Gang. A&F could use a few new characters, so long as they don't hog the spotlight from Angel and Faith. I really like Fred coming back, though, that was a nice turn of events!

True, Faith and Buffy should focus on the established Scooby Gang. Still, you do need new blood from time to time.

 

[Lyri]

I think it's harder to introduce new characters in the comic medium. All we're seeing is the drawing on the page and the words that are supposedly coming out of their mouth. We don't know how they act, how they think, how they speak, their inflection, accent, mannerisms. All of that makes up the characters we love.

For the most part, we can imagine the words on the page as being spoken by Buffy or Dawn or any of them. We can imagine Buffy's inflection and the way she moves her hands, because we've been watching her for so long.

But Billy, or Dowling or, hell, even Naderia, though she's slightly better, we don't see any of that. We're just seeing a pretty picture on a page and we're told that these are the words they're speaking.

It's hard to love or even like a 2-dimensional character when we're so used to seeing those around them in 3-dimensional.

 

[gite63]

I think it's harder to introduce new characters in the comic medium.

It really is - because of that I praise C. Golden for the aunts and Alasdair Coames, three new interesting characters. And they didn't take time from Angel or Faith.