moscow_watcher

I've got the impression that, contrary to the title "No Future For You" future belongs to Faith. The issue screams "Faith spinoff".

Summary:

Faith the Vampire Slayer arc starts with Faith slaying in Cleveland. She gets a phone call from her ex, former director Wood, who asks her to take care of the kids whose mother has become a vampire. Turns out the kids have also been sired so Faith has to dust them. She returns into her small and dilapidated apartment utterly frustrated and miserable to find Giles waiting for her.

Faith informs him wants to retire, but she can't do it because she hasn't a passport or any other papers. Giles proposes her a job after which she could call it quits forever. She has to kill a rogue slayer, Lady Genevieve Savidge, "wealthiest and most-protected heiress in the British Isles" because Giles' sources predicted that if the girl won't be stopped, there will be another end of the world.

Seems that Genevieve also has a watcher (well, kind of): wizard Roden, who encourages her darkness and provokes Genevieve to kill a slayer. Genevieve is genuinely shocked when she sees that the girl is dead, but Roden tells her not to worry: "his boys" (flying demons) will take care of the body. Roden seems to be a mighty wizard, and he is carrying a book with New!Initiative logo on the cover.

Giles explains that there is no way to attack Genevieve directly so Faith has to impersonate an aristocratic debutante and infiltrate Genevieve's inner circle. Giles teaches Faith the rules of etiquette. She has a weird gallucination of a man (a vamp) calling her a whore and she stabs Giles in the arm with a fork (weird moment; hopefully it will be explained later on).

Meanwhile Buffy and Xander have a funny interlude in their Scottish castle. Muscled, fit and manly Xander punches a bag while Buffy ogles him. He mentions his sparring sessions with Renee but quickly adds that he and Renee are just pals. He mentions that Giles in "incommunicado" for several weeks now. Buffy tells him that she has nightmares of "things" chasing her and, before swallowing her, declaring "The queen is dead".

"Long live the queen" - echoes the beast at the background.

Faith and Giles arrive in London (which, for a change, is identified not by Big Ben but by Doctor Who and Rose in front of their phone booth). Obviously, Faith has mastered her English manners as she now speaks like Spike, using the word "sodding". Then again, Giles, seeing Faith in the designer dress, suddenly starts to talk like Faith, saying that she looks "five by five"...

Analysis:

The fish-out-of-the-water set-up is classic and is considered better suited for comedic purposes. The analogy with My Fair Lady is obvious. But No Future For You strives for a dramatic storytelling. Faith-Giles banter is huge fun, but the story is grim and controversial. Two mentors set their respective charges to kill Slayers. Will the darkness of the material clash with whimsical mood of the set-up? So far, fun and darkness go hand in hand without becoming jarring.

Obviously writers "rewound" Faith the way they rewound Spike for AtS season 5. In 2003 Spike turned into a "BtVS season 4 character" as soon as he has crossed over to "Angel". Today Faith is rewritten in a very similar manner, as a "BtVS season 4 character" - bitter, lonely escaped convict who doesn't have a purpose in life.

stormwreath has interesting meta dedicated to Faith's character development. I basically agree with him - Faith's current problems are nothing but a plot device. Lonely, desperate hero is much more compelling than a character who has everything under control. Problem is, Faith has always been more compelling than Buffy - for that exact reason. And I suppose Vaughn has a reason to enhance her status.

The first thought I had when I finished the issue was about the possibility of Faith spinoff. I can't shake off the impression that Vaughn is using this arc as a "test-screening" of a possible long-running franchise.

Faith is clearly positioned as a Campbellian Hero at the beginning of the Journey. Her voyage from Cleveland to London and her current mission could be the Crossing of the First Threshold; at least all requisite elements - The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Supernatural Aid - are present. Faith's hallucinations might be another indication: they may be introduced as a convenient plot device (similar to Buffy's dreamspace) and, at the same time, a mystery she has to comprehend. The theme of slayed family (OK, vampire family, but still) may be a prologue to Faith's psychological journey of self-discovery and, maybe, partial re-establishment of family bonds with Scoobies. I remember reading a spoiler that Faith will face her mother's past; her first lines in the issue obviously confirm it.

Could spinoff potential be the reason Faith's isolation from the Scoobies? I suppose so. After all, writers could make Faith accept this mission even if she wasn't that desperate and lonely. But if Vaughn was zeroing in on possible spin-off when he was writing this mini-arc then he had to keep Faith more or less apart from other characters.

Vaughn could be a good writer of Faith spinoff. He confessed that he loves Faith more than Buffy and it shows: Buffy's presence in the issue boils down to expository stuff and Xander-ogling.

Speaking of ogling, Bander vibes become louder with every issue. The Buffy\Xander scene screams "shippy". They may talk about Renee and Giles, but it's not talk, it's set-up that matters. Buffy and Xander could discuss their problems in the library or armury or anywhere else where the writer doesn't have a chance to disrobe the character.

Seasonal arc development is frustratingly absent in this issue too. Of course, the secret of good storytelling is story being a bit ahead of the reader to make him gasp in amazement. But in this case the story is too much ahead. Or behind. Obviously the events of issue 6 happen after the events of the first arc which has ended with a lot of questions; yet nobody mention (even in passing) anything related to The Long Way Home. Does Buffy keep general Voll a prisoner in her castle or she has let him go and continue his nefarious deeds? Did she and her friends researched the archives of the New!Initiative and found out who they are and what they conspire? Does Giles know about the events of the first 4 issues? Is Dawn still a giant? What happened between Willow and Kennedy?

Obviously something kept happening to the characters all this time, but we're not allowed to know. Then again, it's "comics timeline", which means that time doesn't exist. It could be a month that has passed between issue 4 and 6. It could be a day. I wonder how many issues later we'll find out what happened after Buffy's "Oh... kay" and if we'll find it out at all.

Curiously, with each issue Buffy looks younger and younger. On the latest panel she has pigtails and she looks like a 16-years old girl. Will she reach kindergarten age by the end of the season? But formally she's the Big Boss. In Giles' absence she runs everything (although she never bothers with legal and financial matters... OK, I agree to suspend my disbelief). Faith's panels are very uneven: some close-ups are beautiful and inspired, some are plain ugly. As to Genevieve, on her full-face panels she looks like Renee's twin. Seriously, when I saw the first panel with Genevieve, my first thought was "Renee and Xander are having a very good time, but why is Xander wearing a red jacket?"

Bottom line: I like the issue. But I still like fic Ransomed by

anaross better (it's a story about Faith, Spike, Giles, Xander and Andrew running a Slayer school in California).