Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life (Season 8, #4)

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #4)

by Joss Whedon, Jeph Loeb, Karl Moline (Artist), Eric Wight (Goodreads Author) (Artist)

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 · rating details · 3,721 ratings · 213 reviews

Willow and Buffy head to New York City to unlock the secrets of Buffy's mysterious scythe, when something goes terribly awry. Buffy is propelled into a dystopian future where there's only one Slayer -- Fray, the title character of Joss Whedon's 2001 series, the first comic he ever wrote. Their uneasy alliance falls apart, leading to the death of a major character from the...more

Paperback, 136 pages

Published May 6th 2009 by Dark Horse (first published January 1st 2009)

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Dec 04, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: female-protagonist, fantasy-contemporary, fantasy, vampires, urban-fantasy

These "Season Eight" trade paperbacks/episodes are entertaining and capture a little of the old feel of the series, but so far they've all been good but not great. In book four, Buffy goes to the future and meets Fray, the sole surviving Slayer. In the grand tradition of every time traveling superhero comic book story ever, the two of them have to fight each other. Also, we meet Dark Willow (again). Normally I'd say this entire subplot seemed a little bit pointless, though entertaining, but Whed...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Mike Jozic rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay. This is the storyline that originally 'broke' me on Season 8. I am a huge fan of FRAY and when I heard that Melaka was going to make an appearance, illustrated by Karl Moline, no less, I was ecstatic. It came out, I read it, disliked it and stopped reading. Always assumed I'd pick it up again (hell, I continued to buy all the issues - both covers, mind you) but I felt the character was mishandled and the story was not a good successor to the original mini-series.

Flash-forward to now and I'...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Tanabrus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

Quarto volume dell’ottava stagione della cacciatrice creata da Whedon.
Un volume nel quale ricompare un’altra creatura di Whedon, Melaka, la Cacciatrice del futuro creata da Whedon nel 2001 per la Dark Horse.

Willow ha ricevuto una dritta dall’entità rettiloide che l’ha già aiutata in passato, e per questo si reca a New York con Buffy lasciando Xander alla base con le cacciatrici.
Xander si troverà bersagliato dall’ennesimo attacco di Warren e Amy, con il castello colpito da missile e poi invaso da...more Quarto volume dell’ottava stagione della cacciatrice creata da Whedon.
Un volume nel quale ricompare un’altra creatura di Whedon, Melaka, la Cacciatrice del futuro creata da Whedon nel 2001 per la Dark Horse.

Willow ha ricevuto una dritta dall’entità rettiloide che l’ha già aiutata in passato, e per questo si reca a New York con Buffy lasciando Xander alla base con le cacciatrici.
Xander si troverà bersagliato dall’ennesimo attacco di Warren e Amy, con il castello colpito da missile e poi invaso da guerrieri di fiamme verdi. Con lui però ci sarà Dawn, che ha subito una nuova metamorfosi passando dallo stadio di gigantessa a quello di centaura. Materiale per innumerevoli gag, grazie ai dialoghi di Joss…

Tornando alle due prime donne, invece, quella che sembrava tanto essere una trappola si rivelerà essere proprio questo. E Buffy finirà catapultata nel futuro di Melaka, attirata dalle macchinazioni di una misteriosa persona che sembra avercela con lei e che sembra fare il doppio gioco tanto con Melaka quanto con il suo fratello vampiro.
Chi è La folle, la persona che sta sconvolgendo l’epoca futura? Perché ha attirato Buffy lì, e perché vuole che combatta con Melaka?

La risposta sarà abbastanza sconvolgente, e porterà a chiedersi in che modo si arriverà a quel futuro, a quella situazione. Cosa succederà di catastrofico per distruggere quanto fatto da Buffy? C’entrerà qualcosa Twilight?

Dei dialoghi davvero superbi, una bella storia anche se un poco falsata dal fatto che Buffy e Willow si siano gettate in bocca al nemico senza prendere precauzioni, quando era ovvia la trappola.

In chiusura Torniamo subito… dopo la pubblicità, un episodio scritto da Loeb.
Che con Whedon avrebbe dovuto sceneggiare una serie animata, che purtroppo per ben due volte è fallita prima ancora di partire. Una serie ambientata al tempo del liceo, di cui in questo episodio ci fornisce qualche assaggio grazie a un sogno che Buffy fa nel presente, ritrovandosi a vivere un’avventura ai tempi delle prime stagioni, quando Giles istruiva Buffy e i suoi due amici nel cimitero di notte, quando Buffy si incontrava di nascosto con Angel durante le ronde, quando Cordelia era una stronza acida e la mamma di Buffy non sapeva niente della natura della figlia. L’unica differenza rispetto alla continuity è che è già presente Dawn.

Amo questa serie.(less)

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Jun 17, 2011 Andrew Shuping rated it 3 of 5 stars

Buffy and Willow head to NYC to find out the story behind the scythe's power and what it can really do. And Dawn has now shrunk down to normal size, kinda of. Down to centaur size at least. But as soon as Buffy and Willow are gone the missiles hit the land and the castle is destroyed and alien shapes come out to play. Meanwhile Buffy has been sucked into the future, having exchanged places with a demon. And she must battle her way back to the present against an old friend.

Remember how at least o...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Lisa MH rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, urban-fantasy

Favorite Quotes:
Melaka Fray, “I fig we stake some lush haunt, lurks come out, we skin 'em for stories. Yeah?”
Buffy, “Does any part of that sentence involve me beating something up?”

Tree person-thing, “Let us show these abominations the forest's rage!”
Xander, “Followed quickly by the forest's denial, bargaining, and then short, painful acceptance.”

I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as the previous three. I can't connect to a lot of shows or books that jump into the near future (flying car...more

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Sep 02, 2010 The Flooze rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic_novel, urban-fantasy-paranormal, vanquished_2010

I'm not feeling this volume at all. Plot lines are a jumble, the dialogue is off, and there is no sense of urgency. For now, I'm at a loss for why it was included.

Beginning with an attempt to regroup after recent tragedies, Time of Your Life quickly shifts to a trip to New York complete with temporal anomalies. The result is Buffy suddenly finding herself in a future version of Manhattan.

Fray, the slayer of the future, is an interesting character. She's funky and much edgier than Buffy, with h...more

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Aug 18, 2009 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Joss Whedon takes an opportunity to merge his popular vampire slayer show with the futuristic graphic novel he wrote a few years ago with Fray. This is the fourth volume (or episode) in the eighth season, though it is only in comic form, of Whedon's show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In a bizarre mix-up involving magical time travel, Buffy is thrown forward into he future where she finds herself working with the slayer Fray, who is trying to stand alone as against the vampires with only her police o...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, graphic-novel

The more I read this series, the more I wonder if I'm missing something. It's been like that since the beginning, me wondering if maybe having not watched the last (two?) seasons of Buffy I was missing out on background that made the whole storyline make sense. Like, why does Xander have an eyepatch? And why does Dawn seem to be at the mercy of some sort of curse, judging by the fact that she's suddenly gigantic? Did I miss something? Or did this series just start out in media res, and we're jus...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

The theme of the fourth installment is most definitely time travel. The main arc of this volume has Buffy traveling two hundred years into the future, traded for a demon by some mysterious force. She has to find her way back and decide what to make of her vision of the future. The last chapter in the volume is the equivalent of one of the silly episodes of Buffy; it does nothing to move the plot along, is largely inane, and good for a couple of laughs. In that one, Buffy, in more traditional com...more

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Nov 12, 2009 The_Mad_Swede rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, buffy-angel, 2009

This fourth volume of Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic collects # 16–20 of the title and returns to four issue story arc plus a single issue story format. It also sees the return of Whedon himself on the writing on the four issue arc (i.e. The Time of Your Life) in collaboration with Karl Moline, with whom he apparently did the Fray: Future Slayer mini series (which I, unfortunately haven't read).

The story is good and offers a crossover with the aforementioned Fray. But once...more This fourth volume of Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic collects # 16–20 of the title and returns to four issue story arc plus a single issue story format. It also sees the return of Whedon himself on the writing on the four issue arc (i.e. The Time of Your Life) in collaboration with Karl Moline, with whom he apparently did the Fray: Future Slayer mini series (which I, unfortunately haven't read).

The story is good and offers a crossover with the aforementioned Fray. But once again (see my review of volume one), the story falls short on occasion in the art department. Moline manages to draw Melaka Fray's sister in a manner which is looking pretty much the same as the way he draws Buffy. This lead to a significant problem in my reading issue/chapter two as the opening features Fray and someone who, while differently dressed from Buffy, nevertheless looks like her. And since the captions or dialogue doesn't really spell out that this isn't Buffy (and I, as stated, haven't read Fray: Future Slayer), I consequently read most of this issue/chapter as if this character was Buffy, as if the story had jumped ahead, and I was eagerly waiting for a flash back to see how they ended up together... only when the "flash back" scene arrived it didn't read as a flash back scene and I had to go back, still not making much sense of it until I read ahead and noticed that the girl in a red body stocking kinda thing and Buffy, still in her dress, meet and the former is referred to as Fray's sister. Still, this is a little bit too late in the game for that and it is very confusing as written. I hope you will have an easier time knowing this when going in (if you haven't already read it), but still think Whedon need to take a look at this problem. It's not even that I by default require that the characters are the spitting photorealistic image of the actors (though good likenesses certainly don't hurt), but for goodness sake: make the characters visually distinctive (and not just by uniform, thank you).

Still, Time of Your Life is a good Buffy story and it offers further insights into this season's über plot: that concerning Twilight (no not the vampire books and films series).

The volume ends with the single issue story "After These Messages ... We'll Be Right Back", written by Jeph Loeb and with Georges Jeanty back on pencils. It is an aftermath issue to the main arc of the volume and a long dream sequence providing us with some old time Buffy and the Scoobies action; a comparison of what has gone before to what is going down in the present.

All in all, despite its problem in issue 17, this volume tells good Buffy stories and I'm staying with the series. (less)

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Jun 10, 2011 Emily Northcutt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-fiction, graphic-novel, grown-up-stuff, horror-fiction

One of my favorite television series of all time was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The mix of humor, horror and real human stories grabbed me from the beginning and I cried like a big goon when I watched the series finale. Thank goodness Joss Whedon decided to continue the story of these much-loved characters in another format. I own the first three volumes of Season 8, but I couldn't resist jumping back into the story when I saw that NetGalley was now offering Dark Horse titles. One of the stories...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Dufour rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

I may need to reread this volume again to see if I missed something, but it seems to me that Whedon totally dropped the ball on this episode of BUFFY SEASON 8. What should have been an awesome story -- Buffy's crossover into the world of Whedon's first comic work, FRAY -- is poorly executed, poorly explained, and nonsensical plotwise.

The overall goal of the story seems to show a dark future for Willow and a foreboding sense that the Slayer Army will ultimately fade away. But there's no tension...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was a bit confused, since I've never read the Fray series, but I still enjoyed seeing Buffy in the future. Dark Willow making an appearance was also awesome, but I was left wondering what lead to her going “Dark” again. The main storyline is a bit hard to believe when comparing it to the television series. As much as I try to vision it, I just cant see Dawn ever being a centaur if the show had continued into season eight, but that doesn’t mean the graphic novels are less entertaining. They sti...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Michael Cairns rated it 4 of 5 stars

This series goes from strength to strength and is a worthwhile addition to the Buffy canon.
To begin, a brief outline. Following the ending of Buffy on TV, Joss Whedon did a whole bunch of different things, including writing a comic called Fray, a futuristic take on the slayer. In this, the fourth volume of collected comics from season 8, Buffy gets sent through a portal and winds up in the future, first fighting against, then fighting with Melaka Fray, said future slayer.
It’s rare that the mag...more This series goes from strength to strength and is a worthwhile addition to the Buffy canon.
To begin, a brief outline. Following the ending of Buffy on TV, Joss Whedon did a whole bunch of different things, including writing a comic called Fray, a futuristic take on the slayer. In this, the fourth volume of collected comics from season 8, Buffy gets sent through a portal and winds up in the future, first fighting against, then fighting with Melaka Fray, said future slayer.
It’s rare that the magic created on TV through the combination of excellent scripts and perfect actors is successfully replicated in another format, as the plethora of Buffy books and comics that were released whilst the show was airing demonstrated. However, Whedon, along with Karl Moline, get it just right. The dialogue is as idiosyncratic and effective as ever, the fights are just as good, only bigger, and the funny is still brought in a big way.
I found myself reading it out loud, trying to impersonate the actors and finding it easy. The atmosphere and strongest points of the show are all present. The great artwork helps as well, Moline getting the characters just right. This is shown when old stars of the TV show appear and don’t need to be introduced for you to know exactly who they are. It’s a brave move that’s pulled off well.
The bonus story here, by comic guru and TV writer Jeph Loeb, takes Buffy back to school through some wonderfully Buffy-esque mojo. This gives Loeb the chance to have fun with all the original characters and tell a fun story at the same time. Once again the art, something entirely different, is great and adds another layer to the storytelling, as well as being perfect for the subject matter.
As you may have gathered, I’m a Buffy fan of old, but I would also recommend this series to anyone new to the world of the slayer. Whedon has developed his comic writing skills over time and now crafts a lean, gripping tale in this medium just as effectively as in TV or film.
If you enjoy comics with action, lots of emotion and lots of laughs, this is well worth a read.
(less)

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Sep 20, 2012 Shannon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, graphic-novel, television, vampire

The art in this volume is sub par compared to the rest of the series. I believe it's because there is a different artist doing the pencils. The story is decent enough (we go into a pretty bleak future...I guess because Buffy needs to change it, although we don't really see her go back with the idea "I must change my actions or this horrible future will come to pass"). The writing is decent (especially future English. I like the subtle commentary on the degeneration of the English language and on...more

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Jan 09, 2010 Punk rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, vampires

Graphic Novel. The main piece here, "Time of Your Life," involves time travel, painfully futuristic English, and a plot I couldn't follow with a GPS. Buffy's transported to the future (don't ask why or how) and meets Melaka Fray. Now, I've read Fray and I was still pretty lost. This story is four parts and I don't think the time travel sections told me anything I needed to know, but it did give me one good laugh: "Summers, you drive like a spaz." Oh, Joss, you know what we like.

Meanwhile, back a...more

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Mar 11, 2010 Jlawrence rated it 4 of 5 stars

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May 17, 2009 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, vampires, authors_i_have_met, tv_tie-in, distopian

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 05, 2010 Clay rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Any fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Season 8 just got better. I didn't like Vol 3 but Whedon takes over Vol 4 and bring in another Slayer from his Dark Horse series, Fray. If I were to have a problem with the book it would be the dialogue. Future speak just gets tired at times.
Jeph Loeb does a back up story that is dedicated to his son Sam. Art by Georges Jeanty. Just fantastic. It takes Buffy back to S1 in the animation style of the now dead, Animated Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. It really gives perspective on where the serie...more

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Sep 26, 2010 jess rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, graphic-novels, ladyish, whedonverse

Somehow I lost track of where I was in Season Eight of the Buffyverse, but as soon as I picked up this book, it was very clear that this was where I had left off. I know there's various opinions on Season Eight, but I kind of love it. In this installment, Buffy meets Fray, Willow's future is sort of explained, and Kennedy expresses jealousy over Buffy & Willow's close friendship even though I really think if B&W had any chemistry, they would have boned a long time ago and Kennedy just so...more

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May 29, 2009 Don rated it 2 of 5 stars

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Jun 05, 2011 Danielle rated it 5 of 5 stars

I received e-book copies of these books through NetGalley. These books are are collections of comics that continue the story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer after the end of the television show in season 7. The books do an excellent job of keeping the tone of the show, and most of the drawings are really good likenesses of the characters translated from screen to page. In season 8 Buffy, the new slayers, and the scooby gang are fighting a big bad named Twilight. Apparently the name was totally coinc...more

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Jul 05, 2009 Stacey rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've read Fray, and I've wondered how Joss Whedon might rationalise going from a universe where all Slayer potentials were activated to one where there's not been a Slayer for centuries. I thought it was probably going to be one of those things that could be chalked up to inconsistent universe but it looks like he might actually thought of how he might reconcile the two.

I wasn't expecting time travel from Buffy. Time travel is always a tricky story. At least in Time of Your Life it's presented i...more

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Jan 28, 2010 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, horror, tv, vampires

Color me stupid, but I just realized while reading this fourth volume that the evil group Buffy has been facing in the comics is called 'Twilight'.

Hee....

Since Stephanie Meyer shamelessly ripped off countless ideas and concepts from Joss Whedon, I gotta assume that the man is taking a not-so subtle dig at She-Who-Writes-Sparkly-Vampires.

Whedon has been continuing the adventures of Buffy and her friends from where the finale of the series left off. And while it's been interesting, Whedon's comic...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Traci rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

For me, this volume of the Buffy comics just didn't live up to the others that I've read. Granted, more things happened that put Buffy and her friends back onto the path of saving the world, when it came down to the end, I felt like the last story in this section was very rushed.

I think one of the most interesting things in this volume however, is that we learn something interesting about Willow that I hadn't expected. Willow of course, is back and in action in the present as a good witch again....more

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Jan 19, 2013 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 01, 2010 Caroline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, urban-fantasy, read-in-2010

A much better entry in the series than the previous. Buffy gets transported 200 years into the future, which apparently is a cross-over to another Whedon graphic novel, Fray. I really enjoyed the story arc, and will definitely be checking out Fray at some point. And, not to give anything away about the story arc, but I did love the part Willow played in it all.

The standalone at the end was off-putting. I'd had plenty of "Buffy in high school" in the show itself, and rather than being nostalgic f...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, fantasy, own

I've been having a crappy couple of days, so it was really nice to get to read the best of the Season 8 bunch. I needed some Whedonesque snark. I'm disappointed in the lack of actual Robot Monkeys, though.

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Feb 13, 2011 Richard Wright rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

uffy creator and showrunner takes over the reigns of season one again... and more or less drops the ball, again. While the Buffy seen here is a better match for the screen version than his last attempt, it more or less ignores the character's progression through this season, and sticks out like a sore thumb because of it. As for the travelling to the future, and meeting the future slayer 'Fray'... why? It makes little sense, what explanation there is is badly passed over, and nothing is really g...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Anna added it

Definitely not as strong as the previous volumes. I don't love the whole Fray universe, and any plotline that involves the future and time travel is pretty much inherently annoying and prone to reader confusion. I'm also not a big fan of the dialect of the future. However! There was a bit of interesting character interaction--Dawn and Xander as a team is something I enjoy seeing--and one big reveal that makes me really want to read the next volume. I think it's about time they had some action on...more

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About Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon (born Joseph Hill Whedon) is an American screenwriter, executive producer, film and television director, comic book writer, occasional composer, and actor, and the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures.

He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)', 'Angel (1999–2004)', 'Firefly (2002)'...more

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #4)

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