Buffy Reveals The Slayer’s Strongest Secret Weapon (And It’s Horrible)

Buffy’s ongoing comic series reveals that Slayers have a twisted magic inside that works as an antidepressant, and it could be their strongest power.

Warning: SPOILERS for The Vampire Slayer #11BOOM! Studios’ The Vampire Slayer series reveals that a Slayer’s strongest weapon is more horrible and twisted than any monster. After Buffy lost her Slayer powers due to a spell gone haywire, these were inherited by Willow, who discovered an ancient and dark magic that was put in place to “protect” Slayers from the worst aspects of their mission.

The Vampire Slayer is the latest installment in the Slayerverse, the multiversal franchise that gathers all the adventures of Buffy and her friends. In this series, Willow and Giles concocted a spell meant to take away from Buffy the pain and anguish that come with being a monster hunter. However, the spell transferred not only Buffy’s trauma to Willow, but also the magic that makes a Slayer who she is. This interacted badly with the girl’s own magic, corrupting Willow and turning her into a powerful, evil witch, who is now planning to destroy reality itself.

Related: Buffy Just Transformed Willow Into the Franchise’s Ultimate Villain

A Slayer’s Most Powerful Weapon Is Her Suffering, Literally

The extent of Willow’s new powers was shown when she destroyed Hungrus, a demon who eats Slayers. This confrontation gave Giles the clues he needed to understand more about what went wrong with his spell. In The Vampire Slayer #11, by Sarah Gailey, Hannah Templer, and Valentina Pinto, Giles reveals that each Slayer has inside of her “an ancient and powerful magic that allows her to survive the trauma of her duties“. This magic, then, contains the suffering of generations of Slayers, an incredibly powerful force that has twisted Willow and her own magic into something even more powerful and terrible.

This revelation means that, in essence, every Slayer has inside of her a magical antidepressant system, meant to keep her functioning despite all the trauma endured during her job. Even by Buffy the Vampire Slayer standards, this is incredibly twisted, and it confirms that the ancient magicians who created the first Slayer saw her (and all her successors) as little more than disposable tools. However, it turns out that this dark magic is also incredibly strong, having absorbed centuries of pain and suffering from the Slayers. In fact, it made Willow so powerful that she can now destroy the multiverse by herself.

The Dark Spell That Makes Slayers “Function” Is Incredibly Powerful, And Dangerous Too

One of the key themes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that being “the chosen one” comes with an incredible amount of suffering, and the value of a Slayer comes from enduring that suffering for the sake of her duties. Now, The Vampire Slayer reveals that this strength comes from a twisted magic put in place by the Slayer’s creators. This dark spell has created a wellspring of power that could be a Slayer’s greatest weapon, but its origins are so horrible that it’s bound to corrupt everyone who uses it.

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The Vampire Slayer #11 is available now from BOOM! Studios.