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Apart (of Me), Part One is the eighth issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine comic book series. Written by Andrew Chambliss with Scott Allie and illustrated by Cliff Richards, it was originally published on April 11, 2012 by Dark Horse Comics.

Synopsis[]

There is something seriously wrong with Buffy! She and Spike discover that the one person who can help her is actually... Andrew? Buffy's situation becomes even more dire as she discovers that Simone, the Slayer with an enormous grudge, has been targeting her.

  • Buffy, the one-armed Slayer of San Francisco!

Summary[]

Andrew is sleeping in his room, when suddenly he sees two figures coming in from his window. Excited, he thinks they are aliens coming for him. The figures reveal themselves to be Buffy and Spike coming from his ship. Angry, Buffy demands to know what did he do with her body. Andrew tries to act like he doesn't know anything about it, so Buffy is ready to hit him.

In a morgue, Detective Dowling identifies the dead body of Cheung. The forensic coroner tells him that her injuries are consistent with the recent zompire attacks. He has to perform an autopsy to determine if her death was because of neck trauma.

Buffy talks about believing to be pregnant. Andrew says it probably was a problem in the Ph balance of the blood inside the robotic body. He also didn't think to program a period on the robot, which made Buffy take the pregnancy test. Additionally, the reason that Buffy was feeling sick and vomiting was because he didn't program the robotic body on how to process food eating. Andrew offers Buffy a new arm, if she doesn't mind having two left arms. Angry again, Buffy wants to know why she's a robot. Andrew tells her that Spike asked him to help, who defends himself explaining that he had no idea and no intention of going down that road again with a Buffybot. Andrew explains that he was asked to find information about the threat and who was after Buffy, but he's not good at that.

At Buffy's housewarming party, Andrew and Buffy are talking and he gives her a spiked drink. Spike helps Buffy getting into her bedroom, who is very "drunk." She openly flirts with Spike and takes off her blouse, but she then passes out on her bed. Spike covers her with a bed-sheet and leaves. Andrew, who was watching Buffy from across the hall, enters the room with a Buffybot. It takes off its clothes and gets naked like Buffy, so Andrew uses a device to transfer Buffy's mind into the robot and vice-versa.

After hearing Andrew's revelation, Buffy believes that she's not real. Andrew explains that only her body isn't real, she's Buffy just in a robotic body. He adds that all this technology he stole from Warren's lab, but Buffy should feel lucky that the only problem she had was that she thought she was pregnant. Since the mind swap thing could have left her permanently drunk, she should be happy bigger problems didn’t arise. Spike is ready to attack Andrew for what he's put Buffy through. Andrew tries to explain that he was only trying to help, to which Buffy responds telling him that, if that was his intention, then he should have talked to her about it, not act on his own. Andrew justifies that, in witness protection, people can't know anything; he did a lot of bad things in with the Trio, but now he's changed and he uses all that knowledge to help, that's why he's now a part of the Scooby Gang. Buffy replies: "No, Andrew, this is how you screw it up!" Spike steps in, saying that the threat was gone, the Siphon was stopped, so why was Andrew still hiding her real body.

In a suburbia area, a very well dressed Buffybot, in Buffy's body, gets out of a car, driver's place, and goes inside one of the houses. She changes her clothes, goes out for some gardening, uses the washing machine, starts cooking. She accidentally breaks a wooden spoon, then stares at the broken wood in her hand.

Buffy looks out of the window of Spike's ship, crying. Spike comes by to check on her, not sure what to say as to not upset her. She asks him to say something - even creepy - to make her forget about the current situation. She is crushed - for the first time in her life, she was facing a real life decision, being responsible about it and making hard decisions. Turns out she was wrong; it was nothing more than another Slayer thing - magical and mystical, so all her ”normal” problems were fake. Buffy then adds that the only thing that was real for her was Spike himself, who showed up when she needed him once again. She touches Spike's shoulder and thanks him. Spike takes her hand inside his and they smile at each other. Spike then leaves her alone, looking happy about it.

Meanwhile, Andrew is with the bugs. He wants them to turn on the cloaking device so that nobody can follow them to Buffy's body, but the bugs have no idea what he's talking about. Spike comes, he puts on his vamp face and threatens Andrew. Spike angrily tells him if he wasn’t such a rational vampire, he could throw Andrew off the ship, killing him for the thrill alone. Spike asks if he had any idea what this was like for Buffy and then adds: "If you don't fix this, you and I will have problems... with one decisive solution!"

In their apartment, Xander asks Dawn to get him his eyepatch, but she doesn't reply. Angry, he hits the wall tile and breaks it. Dawn comes in and sees it, telling him to relax. Relieved, Xander replies: "Sorry, I just didn't know where you..." only to get interrupted by the doorbell. It's detective Dowling. Dawn tells him that they still haven't heard anything from Buffy, but the detective tells her that he knows the truth; he's just seen Buffy and she's a robot now, he just wants to talk about it. There was a zompire attack, dead officers everywhere, and his partner was killed, drained. He is shocked and surprised that a girl in Dawn's age can deal with that so easily. Meanwhile at the morgue, Cheung's body rises as a zompire, attacking and killing the coroner.

In the spaceship, Spike, Buffy, Andrew, and the bugs are heading to Mill Valley, a town near San Francisco. Andrew keeps talking but the bugs can't understand him. There are cameras inside the safe house where Buffy's body is, so Andrew uses them to see how's Buffy's body is doing. Buffy and Spike look at it and see Buffy's body cooking in what Buffy considers an "awesome" kitchen. Spike asks Buffy if this is what she had in mind if they run away, but she just answers: "It wasn't..." Suddenly, the silent alarm starts in the safe house. Somebody wearing a mask with a gun attacks Buffy's body, telling her that she's going to liberate her from "this Betty Crocker bullshit," then hits her on the head and knocks her unconscious. Buffy's body is kidnapped and placed inside a van. The person takes off the mask, revealing to be Simone Doffler.

Continuity[]

  • Buffy raises her fist to Andrew and he reacts in pain, causing Buffy to retort: "I haven't hit you yet!" A similar situation happened between her and Willy in "Goodbye Iowa."
  • Spike protests that he had no intention of going down the "tin-slayer road again," a reference to Spike's short-lived sexual relationship with the first Buffybot, in "Intervention."
  • The flashbacks of Buffy's housewarming reveals Andrew's process of putting her mind into a Buffybot in Freefall, Part One.
  • Buffy actually being a robot was foreshadowed in Freefall, Part Three by showing Andrew with a robot arm, and the fairy's statement in Slayer, Interrupted that she was "not the Slayer."

Appearances[]

Individuals[]

Organizations and titles[]

Species[]

Events[]

Locations[]

Weapons and objects[]

Death count[]

  • Unidentified coroner, bitten by Miranda Cheung.

Behind the scenes[]

Production[]

B9-08-01b bogus

The bogus cover with blood instead of sparks.

  • In order to avoid revealing the major plot twist that Buffy's mind is in Buffybot, it was released a bogus preview for Georges Jeanty's alternate cover, in which actual blood drops from the severed arm instead of sparks and electric wire.

Distribution[]

  • Apart (of Me), Part One was the 74th best selling comic issue in its publishing month, with 28,830 sales in April 2012 at comic specialty stores.[2]

Collections[]

Pop culture references[]

Gallery[]

Covers[]

Cover artwork[]

Preview[]

Quotes[]

Andrew: "Whoa, Whoa, Spike asked me to help... !"
Spike: "I bloody well didn't! No interest in going down the tin-slayer road again!"
Buffy: "Everywhere I step, sploosh, sploosh, sploosh!"
Spike: "'S what you get for playing horsey in the pool with your flatmate and Andrew."
Buffy: "He gave me a drink!"
Spike: "Don't think he was the only one, love."
Buffy: "Love... ?"
Spike: "Figure of speech."
Andrew: "Oh boy, no, no, no, I just took a left turn into Spike's fantasyland."
Spike: "Hey Buffy."
Buffy: "Spike. I don't need you coming in here walking on eggshells. Do me a favor. Say something stupid. Or needy. Or creepy. Anything to make me forget... that none of what I went through was real."
Spike: "Well, it's not over yet, slayer. Not until the little man--"
Buffy: "I thought for once I was facing something normal. Something a person deals with. And I was handling it like an adult, Spike. Right? I was being realistic, responsible, making the hard choices. But turns out it's just more bizarre slayer crap. I'm a robot with one arm. A walking, talking slot machine. But fake as my problems were, you know what was real? You showed up when I needed someone. Thanks."
Spike: "If I wasn't possessed of such a rational nature, I could succumb to a fit of rage. Pitch you off this ant trap for the baby scare if nothing else. Any idea what that was like for her? If you don't fix this, you and I will have some problems... with one decisive solution."

References[]

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