Fray
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Fray is an eight-issue comic book limited series about Melaka Fray, a Slayer in the future, written by Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and drawn by Karl Moline (pencils) and Andy Owens (inks).
The series was published by Dark Horse Comics beginning in 2001, with delays between the first six and the final two issues caused by Whedon's TV commitments, during which Moline illustrated Route 666 for CrossGen Comics. After the series' conclusion in August 2003, a trade paperback collecting the whole series was also published by Dark Horse.
Melaka Fray also appears in the story "Tales", by the same creative team as the series, in the anthology comic book Tales of the Slayers.
Characters
- Melaka "Mel" Fray - A 19-year-old thief and Vampire Slayer. Unlike other Slayers she has had no prophetic dreams of her destiny or of the Slayers before her. She holds herself responsible for what happened to her brother, and is now trying to figure out what her destiny as the Slayer entails.
- Urkonn - A Fyarl demon who trains Mel as a Slayer in lieu of her actual Watcher (Her Watcher had instead chosen to immolate himself). Serving as her guide and confidante, a budding friendship grows from the previously harsh mentor-student relationship, but he ultimately betrays her in order to harden her resolve and kills Loo. After defeating her brother, Mel discovers Urkonn's betrayal and lures him into a trap, killing him.
- Loo - A mutated girl who is friends with Mel, and ends up murdered by Urkonn in order to motivate Melaka in confronting her brother.
- Icarus - The vampire that killed Harth four years ago.
- Harth - Mel's twin brother, who was attacked by a vampire during a theft with Mel. To save his life, Harth deliberately drank the vampire's blood, thereby becoming a vampire himself. It is unprecedented for a Slayer to have a twin and, as an odd side-effect of this, Harth possesses the prophetic dreams and visions of past Slayers that Mel lacks.
- Erin - Mel's older sister. On opposing sides already because of her job as a cop and Melaka's thieving, Erin also blamed Mel for the death of their brother for a long time. Eventually, in the big battle against their vampire brother, the two reconciled.
Plot synopsis
Bad day. Started bad, stayed that way.The story is about a Vampire Slayer of the future named Melaka Fray and her discovery of what being a Slayer means.
It has been centuries since the last Slayer was called. Demons were banished from the Earth at some point in the 21st century by an unnamed Slayer and her friends (presumably tied to the events of the Buffy finale, "Chosen"), and the Watchers' Council has descended into a group of crazed fanatics. The vampires however, now dubbed lurks, have returned and haunt the city. In order to combat this threat a new Slayer is called: Melaka Fray. With the Watchers' Council ineffective, a group of "neutral" demons send the demon Urkonn to prepare Melaka Fray for the war that is to surely come.
Although training hard and feeling confident, when Mel is confronted by Icarus, she cannot overpower him. Urkonn manages to save her, but not before Melaka Fray finds out that her presumed-dead brother Harth has actually become a vampire and plans on causing the Apocalypse. In order to prepare her, Urkonn snaps the neck of Loo and blames it on lurks. So when the vampires, led by her crazed twin, Harth, start a war that will end all humanity, Mel unites the people of the "lowers" to fight and leads them to victory.
Fray soon deduces Urkonn's actions, however. Having discerned that Urkonn is deathly afraid of water, she lures him to her former boss' hideout (largely an aquarium), nearly drowns him, and in the ensuing fight kills him "quick" out of respect for his training.
Connections to Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Fray's scythe was featured prominently in the final three episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the television show which shares the same fictional 'Buffyverse' as Fray. Buffy Summers, also a vampire Slayer and one of the most accomplished Slayers at that, found the scythe embedded in rock in Sunnydale. The scythe was later used to channel power into creating fully developed Slayers of the many Potential Slayers (it is possible that only the Potentials that were alive at the time were affected, since Melaka is apparently the one and only Slayer in her era). It has never been stated as to how the scythe travelled from Sunnydale, California to New York City through the centuries, or who had it during the interim (or how they got it), since it was not the Watchers who gave Melaka the weapon, but Urkonn.
In Fray it is also explained that somewhere in the twenty-first century, "a Slayer, possibly with some mystical allies, faced an apocalyptic army of demons. And when it was done, they were gone. All demons, all magicks, banished from this dimension" along with the Slayer in question herself. Although never stated, many fans believe the Slayer in question was Buffy. If such a theory is true, though, the event in question would had to have happened after both BtVS and Angel, as neither series showed anything that would seem to relate to such an event. Although some fans theorized that this apocalyptic battle begins during the final scene of the Angel series finale, no canonical media have been released set after "Not Fade Away", leaving the aftermath undetermined for now.
In addition to these, the traditional Slayer line, "You remember other lives. A slave, a princess..." has been modified in the future to include "a girl in a sunlit school", a possible reference to either California native Buffy Summers or to one of the Potentials whose power Willow awakened during the BtVS finale.
Collected editions
- Fray: Future Slayer (softcover trade paperback collecting the miniseries, ISBN 1569717516, published November 26 2003)
- Fray: Future Slayer (hardcover edition of the above trade paperback, ISBN 1569719926, published November 26 2003)
- Fray (British reprint of the softcover collection, ISBN 1840234482, published December 19 2003)
See also
- Buffyverse Slayer Mythology
- Tales of the Slayers - Fray makes an appearance in Tales
External links
- [Article about the miniseries] from Dark Horse Comics' official website
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