Recent events in Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12 have definitely gotten people talking.

Rich from Comic By Comic isn’t a fan of the development:

I’m all for gay and lesbian characters in comics and TV. There should probably be more. And I get that Buffy particularly has always been a show about growing up.

But there’s no way that this feels like a natural development, no matter what Joss Whedon says, especially after the last issue where Satsu’s feelings for Buffy were actually dealt with in a mature manner.

And frankly in a show/comic where one of the main characters was gay it feels like overkill.

And yes, I know that Buffy isn’t gay, I know she’s just apparently experimenting, but it still feels like a forced move to grab attention - a ratings grab, if it were TV.

Scout of About Womyn doesn’t agree that it’s a marketing tactic.:

Some people assert that this latest plot twist is no more than a marketing tactic to boost the comics’ sales. A one-shot experiment to get people talking then Buffy goes back to boys. While it certainly got people talking in an “Oh my god” moment, I don’t think it was a gimmick (feel free to disagree with me here).

One, the actual sex was not shown, only the aftermath. The comics does away with the “juicy part”, because we really didn’t need to see that (tough luck to the people who would like to). It delves directly on the repercussions of what they did. In fact, among the first things Satsu said was, “How do we handle tomorrow?” That’s the real context of the scene. Another is that, like I pointed out, the writers have planted many things along the way to lead us up to this point. Satsu’s role in Buffy’s life will be very important, whether or not they pursue a relationship.

Chris Sims’s reaction is somewhat positive:

Me, I think it’s a bit of an eye-roller, but I will say that I wasn’t expecting it to go in the direction that it did, with a very funny escalation of people intruding on the afterglow until the whole cast shows up. It’s a great moment of farce that defuses the moment–at least until the issue’s over–and by the time Dawn shows up, I was laughing aloud while I read it. It’s a great bit, and while the implications of the relationship don’t do a whole lot for me (for reasons seen above), it’s part and parcel of what you’re going to get from Buffy in the first place, and there’s enough there that I actually do like to keep me reading.

So what did you think?

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