One Year Later

One Year Later
Publication	June 20, 2018
Length	22 pages
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Twelve #1
← Previous	Buffy Season 11 – One Girl in All the World
Next →	Future Shock
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics
Writer(s)	Christos Gage & Joss Whedon
Penciller(s)	Georges Jeanty
Editor(s)	Freddye Miller
Cover artist(s)	Stephanie Hans Variant cover: Georges Jeanty, Karl Story & Dan Jackson Ultra variant: Karl Moline
Inker(s)	Karl Story
Colorist(s)	Dan Jackson
Letterer(s)	Richard Starkings & ComiCraft’s Jimmy Betancourt

One Year Later is the first issue of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Twelve" comic book miniseries. It was written by Christos Gage and Joss Whedon, and illustrated by Georges Jeanty.

Synopsis

It’s one year later, and the lives of Buffy and the Scoobies haven’t been too eventful for a while — at least as far as fighting demons and the forces of darkness are concerned. But that’s all about to change when Dawn and Xander’s housewarming party is interrupted by some familiar faces bringing news of familiar foes from the future. Can you say Harth… and Fray?

• The return of Fray!
• The Reckoning will be the culmination of all the Buffy seasons!

Continuity

• A same flashback from Ready, Steady... appears, of the last Slayer facing the last demons.
• A flashback includes one of the fights between Buffy and Melaka, from Time of Your Life, Part One–Part Four arc.
• Harth explains that, by the 23rd century, hardly anyone remembers lurks can assume a human visage, themselves included, which explains why he was the only vampire with human face throughout the whole Fray series.
• The Watcher publication refers to Buffy’s quote in The Long Way Home, Part One, slightly modified from the original “The thing about changing the world… Once you do it, the world’s all different.”
• The story takes place a year after the events from One Girl in All the World.
• It’s determined that the events from Buffy Season 8 take place four years before, therefore matching a season by year of the Scooby Gang. Although, Buffy declares herself as 30 years old, which means that either there was an hiatus of three years between Angel season 5 and "The Long Way Home", or she just rounded her actual age of 28 years old.
• Buffy and Spike have broken up; they’d began their relationship two years earlier, in Love Dares You, Part Two.
• Spike quotes to Buffy his own words from "No Place Like Home".
• Giles has his adult form again, as he briefly had in Freaky Giles Day, as consequence of his resurrection in What You Want, Not What You Need, Part Two.
• Willow mentions her worry on the government seeing Slayer as a threat again, as they did with the Slayer Organization in Season Eight.
• Willow recalls Buffy having her vocational test in "What's My Line, Part One" suggesting her law enforcement.
• Andrew is apparently still in Italy, as he left in In Time of Crisis.
• Angel tries to not look smug with the news on Buffy and Spike break up, as he told Willow in Old Demons, Part Three: “It’s not like it’ll ever last.”
• Buffy recalls Richard Wilkins being blow up in "Graduation Day, Part Two".
• Faith blames Wilkins for making her a killer, as he assigned her an assassination mission in "Graduation Day, Part One".
• Buffy describes reading the Watchers Diaries from the future (Time of Your Life, Part Three).
• Angel recalls his last time travel with Illyria, likely in reference to the events of Angel Season Eleven.
• Melaka and Erin threatens Buffy at first sight, and mention their last fight in Time of Your Life, Part Four.

Appearances

Individuals

• Angel
• Barbatos
• Winifred Burkle (Only mentioned)
• Riley Finn (Only mentioned)
• Erin Fray
• Harth Fray
• Melaka Fray
• Rupert Giles
• Alexander Harris
• Joyce Harris
• Illyria
• Faith Lehane
• Ocypete
• Willow Rosenberg
• Spike
• Buffy Summers
• Dawn Summers
• Joyce Summers (Only in a picture)
• Tauron
• Andrew Wells (Only mentioned)
• Richard Wilkins
• Unidentified sorcerer

Organizations and titles

• Big Bad (Only mentioned)
• The Key
• San Francisco Police Department (Only mentioned)
• Slayer
• Slayer Organization (Only mentioned)
• United States Government (Only mentioned)
• Warlock
• Watcher
• Witch
• Wolfram & Hart (Only mentioned)

Species

• Demon
• Human
• Old One
  • Olvikan
• Vampire

Weapons and objects

• Mr. Gordo
• Mʔ
• Ray gun
• Scepter of the Veils
• “Tales of the Slayers“
• Vampy Cat

Events

• Apocalypse (Only mentioned)
• The Reckoning (Only in flashbacks)

Locations

• England (Only mentioned)
• United States
  • Haddyn
  • New York City (Only mentioned)
  • San Francisco
    • Dawn and Xander's residence
  • Silicon Valley
  • Sunnydale (Only mentioned)

Death Count

• Unidentified sorcerer, speared then bitten by several lurks.
• Unidentified lurk, staked by Angel.
• Unidentified demon, decapitated by Faith Lehane.
• Unidentified lurk, decapitated by Spike.
• Unknown number of demons and lurks, killed in battle by the Scooby Gang.

Behind the Scenes

Production

• In Haddyn, a billboard reads “コカ・コーラ”, which is Japanese for Coca-Cola.

Distribution

• One Year Later was the 160º best selling comic issue in its publishing month, with 12,225 sales in June 2018 at comic specialty stores.

Collections

• "The Reckoning"

Pop culture references

• Xander and Dawn’s home has a poster of fictional character Hellboy on the wall.
• Richard Wilkins mimics a scene from horror film The Shinning (1980).
• A billboard in Haddyn advertises for Coca-Cola.

Gallery

Cover artwork

Stephanie Hans main cover

Georges Jeanty variant

Karl Moline ultravariant

Preview