Style: 5 Substance: 5

Joss Whedon knows titles. Where Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a girl and her duty and a B-movie spoof and Angel and his allies are champions defending the innocent, Fray is a crazy huge battle. There's not only one story inside its strong binding but two and, in a way, three.

Fray revolves around Melaka Fray and her fractured family. Melaka had a twin brother Harth, killed by a powerful "lurk"; now she only has her sister Erin, a cop. When Harth shows up as a traditional Buffyverse archetype, his story tweaks the Slayer mythos. Of course, the comic book is sprinkled with minor characters: Urkonn the sarcastic demon, Loo the cute little girl with one arm; Gunther the mutant; the cops in Erin's car.

The trade paperback includes eight issues and their covers. The first issue - "Big City Girl" - describes Fray's setting. It's a typical futuristic world with mutated "radies", electric stun guns and flying cars. Its backstory wreaks havoc with UPN-aired Buffy canon, but doesn't make much difference. Just ignore the discrepancy or suspend some disbelief. It's well worth it.

In the second chapter - "The Calling" - Melaka meets Urkonn, her Watcher-of-a-sort. In the third chapter Melaka begins her Slayer training. Fray's plotline shuttles along with the speed an eight-issue comic book should. Condensed to avoid spoilers: Melaka meets the Big Bad, makes an enemy a friend, loses a few friends, starts a war, and duels with a big worm.

Fray is a comic book, and its strengths are used wonderfully. Whedon writes an exciting story and the artists know the comic book format: the drawings have a mix between frenetic and gritty, and there's varied color assortments everywhere. This bright coloring includes a tavern in the fifth chapter and the battle concluding the series. I love bright colors and as Fray does in limitless ways, in this matter it does not disappoint.

All said, Fray is a distinct, if short, futuristic universe of its own. Buffy and Angel and the other Buffyverse comics describe their own settings, and Fray adds another to the mix. I don't think it could support a roleplaying game yet, but that isn't necessary. Fray, with its characters and its slums and its flying cars, is currently a good story.

I wouldn't mind meeting a live-action Erin, though.