"In my early days trying to figure out how to be a writer and what stories mattered to me and why — no heroine quite broke through for me like Buffy Summers," Thompson said in a statement accompanying the announcement. "She was somehow everything my young geek heart had always wanted but hadn’t known to ask for. Something about that delicate alchemy of horror, fantasy, and comedy paired with a hero so pure of heart and yet flawed and relatable was… impossible to deny. I fell deeply in love with Buffy, and following that, her whole world. Her ex-boyfriend is now a supernatural detective in Los Angeles you say? Inject it directly into my veins! But unlike a lot of other worlds I loved, the world of Buffy and Angel somehow never fell to the wayside. I could always come back to it and find something new, or something I’d missed, or something I needed. And I hope this new story we’re telling can do the same for old and new fans everywhere.”
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, created by Joss Whedon, ran from 1997 to 2003, and the spinoff Angel ran from 1999 to 2004. Dark Horse Comics published Buffy comics from 1998-2004, then returned to the series in 2007 with new “seasons” as well as spin-offs (see "Whedon Pens New Buffy Comic"). Dark Horse also published Angel comics from 1999 to 2005, when IDW picked up the license (see “IDW Launches Angel Comics”). Dark Horse reacquired the Angel license in 2011; at the time, Buffy Season Eight was Dark Horse’s best-selling comic (see “The Whedonverse Expands at Dark Horse”). BOOM! Studios got the license in 2018 (see “‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Finds New Publishing Home”) but has not published any new Buffy titles since 2023.
The rights holder for the Buffy franchise is Disney’s 20th Television. Dynamite’s announcement made no mention of Whedon, who was accused of abusive behavior on the set of Justice League in 2020 (see “‘Justice League’”), as well as by the Buffy cast in 2021.
