Buffy, season 8, issue 2. Summary and analysis

[moscow_watcher]

Summary
The second issue starts with Giles apparently trying to train several dozens of slayers. It's unclear where the scene takes place. There is an Orthodox temple in and the monument of a horseman on a horse at the background so there is a certain possibility Giles is in Saint-Petersburg. OTOH, half of the girls are clad in ninja outfits and all of then understand Giles' English. Giles praises their combat skills but notes that these skills are useless because every girl fights alone.

On the next panel Giles' monologue is continued by Buffy, who is explaining the same principles the group of slayers in her Scottish castle. "One slayer fighting alone is formidable. Two is formidabler. Three? Mega-formidable. And after mage it goes to mondo then super, hyper, beaucoup d', crazy, stupid... It gets exponentially prefixy." Buffy invites three girls to attack her and easily defeats them. "The first clue it was going downhill? Clearly..."

"Lando Calrissian's outfit..." continues Andrew on the next panel as he has a Q&A session with about 30 slayers outdoors at what looks like the outskirts of some small Mediterranean town with a big snowy mountain in the distance. Instead of slayer stuff he talks about Star Wars. Girls ask him if they could use modern weapons instead of "medieval junk". "No slayer carries a gun. Ever. End of talk," Andrew answers.

Meanwhile, Giant!Dawn is having a bath in a pond while Xander, sitting nearby, his back to her, tries to convince her that Buffy doesn't hate her. "She just wishes I'd go away", Dawn says. "Did you make yourself big on purpose?" Xander asks, in a bout of illumination. Furious, Dawn splashes him with a torrent of water.

Somewhere in a desert there is a one-storey building with a signpost Drextalcorp Recycling Technologies. One military type and one civilian enter the building talking about the spy who "should be in and out by tonight". They find themselves in the enormous Initiative-type underground facility. Military type demands to nuke "that bitch", civilian says it will draw attention to them. "We're dealing with magic, leave it to magicians, OK?", civilian asks and adds that their spy, Amy, is the best they have. And if she fails they'll send "that monstruosity she calls a boyfriend".

"He got no idea what's at stake here" military type thinks as he undresses in his private quarters - revealing the same mysterious symbol on his chest Buffy discovered on the victims chests in the temple in the first issue.

The next page features panels on the black background (which means it's Buffy's nightmare?) It starts with her conversation with Xander about Dawn, that she feels neglected, "manifesting her internal blah de blah". - "I'm sorry, I'm tired", Buffy says. "Just tell me now so we don't have to do a whole awkward dance... are you coming to bed?" "Buffy we both know what a horrible mistake that is". "I'll be gentle this time. I can be gentle". Buffy stars to kiss Xander and his head falls off. Thankfully bloodlessly. The window breaks and the whirlwind takes Buffy outside. She falls into the red abyss with Barlog-like creature catching her there. "I know you" Dream!Buffy says.

...While Real!Buffy is spread-eagled on her bed, hands and feet tied to bedposts. Amy raises her dagger. Xander and his team of slayers appear in the doorway. Amy's dagger goes down, Xander shoots his crossbow. Amy's wounded in the shoulder. Buffy... it's unclear if Buffy's wounded, we only see her face full of pain and maybe rapture.

Xander demonstrates Amy her broken dagger. "You really think we let Buffy sleep without mystical protection?" he asks. Amy points out that Buffy's still asleep. Obviously Amy's magic worked. "She's living a nightmare, genius, and the only thing that can wake her up is the kiss of true love". She elaborates that it's not someone she's in love with but someone who is passionate about her.

Meanwhile two slayers who are on watch notice the army of zombies crawling up the walls. Xander leaves one slayer to guard Amy who has already miraculously got rid of her wound and asks another slayer to "get our witches working on true love crap". The battle erupts. Renee (the slayer who flirts with Xander) gets stabbed by a zombie.

"... You can't give up that easily, Buffy..." Dream!Buffy hears. "I have so much I need to show you, my love". We don't see the face of a man who talks, but he has a whitish shirt, black tie, reddish waistcoat and dark coat (it's hard to figure out exact colors as he's extending his helping hand to Buffy from the red abyss.

The battle continues. The forces of darkness are winning. "A hundred slayers and there's not one person here who can take me on," Amy says.

"As a friend of mine once said..." the voiceover starts.

And - the last page:

"I'd like to to test that theory" Willow says. She soars in the air. And, believe it or not, but she's clad in Tara's costume from Once More With Feeling!

And - a bonus: answering the letters, Dark Horse writes

Oh, Spike and Angel won't just be mentioned—next issue you're gonna get an image burned into your head that I suspect many of you are not gonna want to get rid of. IDW doesn't own those guys any more than we own Buffy—the whole kit and kaboodle is owned by 20th Century Fox, and we just rent 'em out. And we all tend to try to play nice with their creator, Joss Whedon.


Critique

The look:
The male characters have definitely benefited from changing the medium. Giles looks very young and sexy. Xander looks like Spike and Angel's love child. Both are very shipworthy and droolworthy.

OTOH, Buffy... On the majority of panels she looks either bland or plain ugly. SMG has a very unusual face - it's beautiful in motion, and it's hard to imagine her features still. But here we don't need to imagine. Look at that. Just - ugh!



Damn, I miss SMG!

The story:
So far, pretty derivative. A good girl accidentally stumbles upon evil conspiracy, represented by guys with cryptic symbols on their chests. At least one of these evil guys is a big military boss. Now he wants her dead and sends her former classmate-turned-black-witch to kill her.

I can't figure out if we should assess the events from RL logic or from that artificial logic of soap operas. For example: Amy tries to kill Buffy and immediately after that she explains how to save her. Why she says that Buffy needs the kiss of true love? From RL logic her behavior is very suspicious and makes one wonder if her real goal is setting a trap for that "true love" whoever he is. But from artificial "soapy" logic it's OK: "I'll kill you Mr. Bond, but not before I'll tell you everything about my evil plans".

I'm intended to think that Amy's inexplicable desire to reveal immediately the way to save Buffy is the result of soapy logic, not an indication of some elaborate plan. After all the whole scene of her attack is totally illogical. If Buffy has "magical protection" when she sleeps how could Amy tie her hands to bedposts? And if Amy is such strong witch why couldn't she stop one single arrow or send it back at Xander? And how could she heal her wound and reconstruct her clothes in a minute's time?

Of course, Joss can subvert the situation and horrify us. The kiss of true love is traditional romantic plot twist. Like the love that saves Prince Charming from the curse. In season 2 Joss has brilliantly reimagined this idea by making Buffy "save" Angelus from gipsy curse. Theoretically he could make this "kiss of true love" also trigger something truly horrible.

We'll see.

Dialogues: funny, inventive, pure Joss. The only moment I cringed was when Buffy said "exponentially".

Unintentional fanfiction references:
Kiss of true love features in Of Frogs and True Love by Etoile
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2836914/1/