25 Greatest Characters Across The Entire Whedonverse

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Film-goers and kids growing up today know Joss Whedon as the director behind one of the biggest comic book blockbuster franchises to date: The Avengers. Without question, Whedon has taken his extensive knowledge of the world of comic books (he has written a number of them, including Fray, set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and also created The Astonishing X-Men for Marvel) and translated it to major success on the big screen.

What came before, however, is what made Joss Whedon a pop culture legend and cult superstar: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Angel. Firefly.

Those three shows had an impact on pop culture like no other, and none more so than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, an unlikely cult hit for the W.B. (Warner Brothers) network in the 90s/early 2000s (it would move to UPN in its final seasons). Originally something of a failed movie that Whedon had the displeasure of seeing taken out of his hands and turned into something more schlocky and by the numbers than he intended, Buffy turned into a pop culture phenomenon that would be discussed in the lecture halls of a number of universities during the peak of its popularity – and after.

It spawned a rabid online following (who often hung out at The Bronze, a website named for the local watering hole favoured by the show’s man characters), and its spin-off, Angel, ran for five seasons and made a star out of David Boreanz (Angel), who you can now find playing Booth on Bones. Buffy itself made stars of Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and Alyson Hannigan (Willow).

The success of Whedon’s shows was the result of well-crafted plots, well-written, snappy dialogue, and memorable, relatable characters who went through real-life experiences that, while fantastical, were also surprisingly relatable. In essence, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a bildungsroman (a coming of age tale), while Angel was a look at what happens after: once you’re of age, out on your own, working your first job, trying to make it in an adult world. Putting strong characters in these situations made for riveting, much watch TV, even with silly monsters wreaking havoc in the background. Like a good zombie movie, the focus wasn’t on the blood-thirsty creatures (at least not all the time) but on character development – and my how the characters of the “Whedonverse” (originally the Buffyverse, before shows like Firefly, a space western, and Doll House came along).

This is probably a refresher course for a lot of the folks reading this – so lets look back and remember just how good Whedon’s original characters really were, as we examine the twenty-five greatest characters of the Whedonverse. Warning – if you’re not familiar with Whedon’s shows, spoilers ahead!