Contributed by Mike McDermott
Billy Lane is the first male Vampire Slayer, although he is not part of the Slayer line of Chosen Ones.
Sixteen year old Billy moved to Santa Rosita to live with his grandmother, Sky, after his parents kicked him out for being gay. Billy spent his days hanging out with his best friend Katie, talking about his crush on popular classmate “cute Devon”, and dodging the homophobic jock bullies. Although the former hippie Sky does not approve of violence, Billy started working out and doing fight training in order to protect himself from bullies.
Billy’s skills were put to the test when a zompire (a strain of vampires that are mindless and zombie-like) infestation broke out in Santa Rosita. Devon, who is a fan of the Vampire Slayers, told Billy all about them and encouraged him to become a Slayer himself. Despite Billy’s lack of supernatural Slayer powers, Devon argued that with proper training he could learn to be a vampire slayer even without powers, and Devon offered to be his Watcher. The point was proven just moments later when Billy staked his first zompire, after one burst into the room and attacked Devon!
Billy began training regularly under Devon’s guidance, with Billy oblivious to the fact that Devon was attracted to him too. Devon revealed his feelings when the two of them rescued Sky from a zompire nest that had taken over the local library, and the two boys became boyfriends in addition to their Slayer-Watcher relationship.
Sometime later Billy travelled to San Francisco and joined the “Scooby Gang” of Buffy’s allies. While Buffy was mentoring him, Billy stayed at her apartment in San Francisco and maintained a long-distance relationship with Devon, Skypeing with him and Sky and Katie after every patrol.
When the zompire situation in Santa Rosita grew out of control, Billy returned along with Anaheed (Buffy’s roommate and a powered Slayer) to help. Although Billy was thrilled to see Devon in person again, their relationship suffered from a conversation Billy had with Buffy about whether it was possible to fight side-by-side with one’s romantic partner and Buffy’s opinion was that it wasn’t possible without putting innocent lives at risk. Due to this, Billy broke up with Devon but the break-up was short lived since Billy soon realized his mistake.
Despite being male and not one part of the line of “chosen one” Slayers, Billy displayed access to the Slayers’ psychic powers when he had a vision of the very first Slayer, The Primitive. The vision gave Billy the inspiration to use fire as a weapon against the zompires, and using that they were successfully able to hold their ground. Buffy and the other Scoobies soon arrived to help finish eliminating all the zompires out of Santa Rosita. When Giles, Buffy’s Watcher, heard about Billy’s vision from The Primitive he originally dismissed it as a delusion of wishful thinking until he learned that Billy had never heard of the Primitive beforehand. Giles began researching in the Vampyr Book of the history of the Slayer line, rules of magic and the supernatural, etc, and discovered that the rules had been re-written. Although men still could not be Slayers outright with the super-strength, agility, etc, the essence of the Slayer power had recognized and accepted Billy as an ally.
Once Santa Rosita had been cleared of zompires, Billy chose to remain, along with Devon and Anaheed, to assist in cleaning up the aftermath of the struggle. Billy’s current whereabouts and activities are unknown.
Billy first appeared in Buffy Season 9 #14. Created by Jane Espenson, Drew Z. Greenberg and Karl Moline.
Billy’s boyfriend Devon’s profile is here.
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