This guide tells you in what order to read them, what to expect from each season and how good (or bad) each one is according to readers and specialized critics, without spoiling the important twists for you. At the end I tell you where to get them without any piracy involved, because Norma Editorial still sells them and I’d rather send you there than to a stolen scan.
Canon reading order
It goes in this order:
- Season 8 (2007-2011)
- Angel & Faith / Season 9 (2011-2014) — read in parallel, they share a timeline
- Season 10 (2014-2016)
- Season 11 (2016-2018)
- Season 12: The Reckoning (2018) — the final ending
Besides these six, there are extras: crossovers, anniversary specials like Buffy ’97, and loose one-shots. They’re optional; read them once you’re already hooked on the main line, not before.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1 to 7: watch them here
Season 8: the most ambitious and the most debated
It picks up the story right where the series ended, with Buffy in charge of a global army of activated Slayers, no longer the last survivor but the general of a supernatural force spread across the world. You can tell Whedon wanted to take advantage of the fact that comics have no effects or casting budget: here Buffy flies, there are secret bases, there’s real war scale.
The problem is in the final arc, where it’s revealed who’s behind the masked villain who gives this stage its name. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you what specialized critics say almost unanimously: it’s the riskiest moment in the whole canon, and also the most divisive. Some defend it as a brave decision. Some point to it as the biggest stumble of the comics saga. I read it knowing that in advance and the twist still left me thrown for a good while. It’s worth reading anyway, because without this you don’t understand anything that comes after.
Season 9 and Angel & Faith: feet back on the ground
After the cosmic disaster at the end of Season 8, magic disappears from the whole world. That forces the story to shrink in a good way: less planetary apocalypse, more human and personal consequences for each character. Buffy feels like an underdog again instead of a general, which is the register where the character always worked best.
Running in parallel is Angel & Faith, centered on two characters left with blood on their hands after Season 8 who have to deal with that without the excuse of the apocalypse of the day. Of the two lines, this is the one that made me feel most like I was reading Buffy again, not a stretched-out franchise.
Season 10: magic returns, and with it, room to breathe
Magic returns to the world, and with it a relationship between Buffy and Spike that finally feels adult and healthy, not the toxic roller coaster it was in the original series. It’s the lightest season to read, with more humor and less accumulated tragedy on top. If you come from Season 9 wanting to breathe, here you breathe.
Season 11: the shortest, and for many readers the best
Only twelve issues, and still much of the comics criticism points to it as one of the most solid stages of the whole run. It brings in themes of institutional discrimination and government abuse of power without losing the humor or the heart the series always had. The writer Christos Gage understood the tone better than anyone in this part of the canon, and you can tell he arrived with the story already worked out in his head, not improvising as he went.
Season 12: The Reckoning, the ending
Only four issues. It feels more like an ending than a full season, and it brings decisions about the couples and the characters’ future that divided readers again, as tends to happen with any real ending. It’s bittersweet, which is exactly what a Buffy ending had to be. Don’t expect everything to close in a perfect bow, because it was never that kind of story.
Why is this my territory too?
I’ve been writing paranormal romance since 2012, and the creatures that populate the Buffyverse (vampires with a divided soul, witches with pacts that get out of hand, demons that aren’t completely evil nor completely anything else) are the same material I work with in my own books.
In Children of the Night, the protagonists are a hybrid species between vampires, angels, werewolves and demons, so if the Buffyverse’s vampire mythology hooked you, there’s a different take on the same kind of creature there.
In the Invocation Series, the engine of the story is literally a pact with a witch that spirals out of control, very much in line with what happens to Willow, with angels and demons fighting over the same ground.
And in Immortal Princesses, a spin-off of that same series, the war between angels and demons has the direct backing of archangels like Michael and Gabriel, with vampires also involved in the conflict.
You can see the complete catalog at MY STORE.
Where to get the Buffy comics legally
In Spanish, Norma Editorial has published most of these volumes in Spain, available in its catalog and in stores like Amazon. Some older volumes are out of print, so sometimes you have to look for them second-hand on Amazon, IberLibro or your local comic shop. For the original English edition, Dark Horse Digital and comiXology have the complete collection in digital.
Frequently asked questions about the Buffy comics
Are the Buffy comics official canon?
Yes. Dark Horse Comics published Season 8 onward with the direct participation of Joss Whedon, and they are considered the official continuation of the series after the 2003 finale.
In what order do you read the Buffy comics?
Season 8, then Angel & Faith in parallel with Season 9, followed by Seasons 10, 11 and 12: The Reckoning, which closes the story.
Do I need to have watched the whole series to understand the comics?
Yes, ideally you should have watched all seven seasons, because the comics assume you know all the characters and the relationships the series left behind.
How many comics does the Buffy canon have in total?
Five complete seasons (8 to 12) plus the parallel series Angel & Faith and several optional extras and crossovers.