Variant Cover For Buffy Comic Might Be Teasing Another Slayer

In 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer rebooted an otherwise forgettable cheesy teen flick into one of the most influential television series of the era. Now even as there's a revamp (ha!) of the television show currently in the works, BOOM! Studios has also announced a reboot of the franchise's comic book incarnation.

Much like the television show, the new comic will be a full blown modern reboot. While it will still center around Buffy Summers coming to Sunnydale and combating the evils that spawn from the local Hellmouth alongside her friends, it will kick off with a teenage Buffy in the modern day, with an eye towards accurately reflecting the current world.

The comic, which is being helmed by Joss Whedon, Jordie Bellaire and Dan Mora, has released four covers for the upcoming first issue. While two of them show off a familiar looking version of Buffy, and a third focuses on the Hellmoth under SUnnydale High School, the fourth variant (by Royal Dunlap) features a decidedly different looking Slayer.

Is this variant cover just that, a cool looking take on the premise and nothing more? Or does the cover hint at a new take on a classic character from the original series?

Is It Buffy?

One theory suggests that it’s just a variant cover, that it’s simply a different look at Buffy Summers. Of course, it would stand to reason that BOOM! would be making a bigger deal out of recasting Buffy as a young African-American woman, which isn't part of the initial announcement.

The other two character covers suggest we’ll be seeing a Buffy that more resembles Sarah Michelle Geller in the comic. Thus, the variant might just be that: A one-off alternate cover by a talented artist that wonders how the character could look, not how they will look. It’s worth noting, though, that characters created for variant covers sometimes take on a life of their own, though, like Marvel's Gwenpool.

Is It Kendra?

The stake in the character’s hand suggests that this is probably a Slayer, or at least someone who knows how to handle themselves like one. If you eliminate Buffy as a candidate, the next logical guess would be to suggest that it’s a new take on Kendra, perhaps hinting at a larger role in the rebooted comic's mythology.

Trained from her youth in case she was ever called upon to be the Slayer, Kendra arrived in Sunnydale, having been empowered after Buffy’s brief death while fighting the Master. She doesn’t last long, though, as she’s pretty quickly killed by Drusilla.

The comics could be looking to explore and expand Kendra in a way the original show never could, which would explain her prominence in the variants. But we’re not sure. The Slayer on the variant cover has an edge of grunge to her that the proper Kendra never exhibited. It could just be a character change, but we’ll see.

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Is It Faith? (Please Let It Be Faith)

Another idea suggests that this could be our first glimpse not at Buffy or Kendra, but at another Slayer: Faith. The third Slayer on the series was introduced after Kendra was killed. Rough around the edges, Faith made for a compelling anti-hero and complicated piece of the show's over-arching story, alternating between hero and villain over the course of the series' eight seasons.

Faith, a dark reflection of what Buffy could become if she lost control of herself, eventually found redemption thanks to help from Angel and Buffy during the spin-off series Angel and the final season of Buffy, respectively.

Little things about the character introduced on the variant suggest it might be Faith. The Florida license plate on her car suggests she’s been on the run, which is how Faith is introduced in the original series. Mind you, she comes from Boston in the original continuity, but shifting her to Florida for this reboot would be easy enough. The general aura of toughness and confidence the character exudes on the cover fits more in with Faith than the friendly and strong-willed Buffy, or the precise and sheltered Kendra.

And to be honest? This would actually be a really good design for Faith. It’s confident and cool without trying too hard. She’s battered in the kind of way that a real brawler would be. If it is Faith, it also suggests that recasting and rebooting the series for a more modern audience is being seen to fruition. This could indicate that they’re diversifying the original show's otherwise completely Caucasian cast, which today is for the best.

The only other character who it could really be is India Cohen, a character who has only appeared in comics and was the immediate predecessor to Buffy in the Slayer line. But we hope it's not, because that would likely mean she isn't long for this world before Buffy takes over for her.

In the end, this is probably just a variant cover. But there’s so much personality to this character design, especially if applied to it being Faith, that we hope it instead speaks to the direction the comic is going in moving forward. This is too cool of a Slayer look to waste on a throwaway image.