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moscow_watcherSummary:
Brian K Vaughan uses any opportunity to delve into Faith's past and into her head. This issue starts - again! - with a flashback, this time dedicated to Faith's relationship with Mayor. Obviously he wants to draw a parallel to Gigi's relationship with Roden who now orders her to kill Faith. But Gigi, who has already swung her axe, conveniently hits Faith with its helve. She is mad at Faith at lying to her about her name, her goals, but most of all, about her nationality: "You're not even English?"
Is it written as a joke? I'm at loss here.
Gigi's rage is so devastating that she conveniently plunges her axe into a stone statue. Um, mister Vaughan... have you ever had an axe in your hands? I'm a woman, but even I occasionally hack twigs and branches for campfires. And I know that a metallic blade can't go into a stone.
OK, I accept it as a "suspension of disbelief" moment. Statue looks prettier. And it beautifully constrasts with the dynamics of the fight.
Meanwhile, Willow, following Buffy's order, phones Giles who is still trying to penetrate the mystical barrier around Gigi's estate. Buffy, furious, tells Giles that Faith tried to kill her. Giles has no time to explain - he has to save Faith, so he cuts Buffy short and asks her to put Willow on the line. Buffy feels betrayed.
Meanwhile, Faith-Gigi fight goes on, Gigi conveniently flies through the air and runs herself on her own axe. And, before she dies, she conveniently absolves Faith when the latter says she never meant to kill her - "Yeah. But it's like the song goes..."
Roden immediately tries to recruit Faith to kill Buffy, but, naturally, she rejects his offer and hits him with a Twilight's guidebook he offers her. Furious, Roden tries to kill Faith with a stone fist he conjures up from the earth, but cavalry in the person of Giles arrives in time and saves her. The battle between Roden and Giles is short and ridiculous: while Roden is conveniently standing there and posturing, Faith throws Roden's Twilight's guidebook to Giles, he immediately finds the necessary spell, puts the "mystic field" inside his opponent and Roden's head bursts.
Cut to the next morning. Back in Giles' apartment, Faith declares that she has decided not to quit. She has got her Big Moral Lesson and she wants "to play social worker to the slayers. Maybe I could help walk a few bad girls back from the brink". They decide to work together.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the jungle, a military helicopter lands on a tiny stone plateau. A woman in a military uniform with a Twilight sign on her palm requests the audience. A creature whose boots we saw back in issue 1 descends from above.
According to the woman, whose name is Lt. Molter, "their man on the inside" has reported that Buffy Summers was still alive. Flying Boots, who looks like Terminator in an iron mask, tells her that actually, Gigi and Roden were his targets. He plans to manipulate his enemies "into waging this ugly war, a tactic crucial for bringing the age of magic to a close".
"Night falls soon enough", he promises.
Analysis:
The second arc, as well as the first one, works OK as long as the reader doesn't overthink and overanalyse it. Analysis is a tricky thing here: a reviewer may easily turn into a whiner who complains about the lack of Shakespearean depth in a Shreck movie.
Well...
Brian K Vaughan loves Faith and this story is clearly her show. She's the star and everything else exists to showcase her ability to fight, quip and demonstrate the generosity of her spirit. I read comments from people who disliked her on the show but started to like her after this comic, and it's understandable: Faith really shines here.
But, unfortunately, Faith's greatness comes at the expence of everything else. Other characters's dialogs are either bland or sound like badfic snippets, like "Buffy's narrow ass lives to fight another day".
Vaughan's attempts to spice up Buffy's dialogues end up in some weird choices - "Faith and her droogs", for example. Buffy doesn't strike me as a girl who reads Burgess or watches Kubrick. (Well, she could hear that word from Spike - after all, his chip was a Clockwork Orange rip-off) :)
OTOH, Faith's culturological references sound spot-on ("Conan the librarian" - hee!) while Giles' "maybe I could be the Steed to your Peel" works mainly as an opening to Faith's priceless reply "I hope it's not as gross as it sounds". Have I mentioned that Vaughan loves Faith? I hope Joss will give him the spinoff rights.
Jeanty demonstrates some improvement - his Mayor looks great and Giles has several good panels. Faith is drawn better than in the previous issues, but Jeanty's alternate cover is incredibly ugly! Still there are some inspiring visual decisions in the issue, like Faith-Gigi fight taking place at sunset, with the blood-red sky as a backdrop.
About the story. *le sigh*
The story works great as long as you don't search something deep and significant in it. It's good entertainment, well-paced and provided with a requisite Valuable Moral Lesson. But it's a story of convenient situations, easy choices and artificial conflicts.
I already pointed out at multiple convenient situations in the summary. The ultimale convenience is Vaughan's decision to make Gigi's death accidental. He saves Faith from a hard choice - either kill Gigi or let her go knowing that she may strike again. Obviously, writer is too attached to the character to put her in a no-win situation.
Maybe my problem is measuring up comics by TV show standards. Onscreen Faith (as well as all the other characters) had been constantly put in no-win situations and had to make hard and unpleasant choices. Compared to them this watered down resolution is a shameful cop-out that highlights the very nature of comic-vs-TVshow dichotomy.
There are two types of conflicts between characters in fiction - real and artificial. Real ones are based on characters' different worldviews. Artificial ones are based on misunderstandings. This is the latter kind of conflict, when good guys are angry at each other because of unlucky circumstances. Giles doesn't want to cooperate with Buffy or anybody else in the castle either because he suspects there is a mole there or because he's overprotective. So he chooses Faith. Buffy finds out about his undercover operation in the worst possible situation and snaps at him, demanding the explanation. He can't waste time on explanations when Faith's life is in danger, so he snaps at Buffy, etc.
The problem with artificial conflicts is that they produce artificial resolutions. In the person of Gigi Faith killed her own metaphorical dark side and obsession with Buffy. What has changed? Instead of killing baby vampires she will be mentoring girls who kill baby vampires? I'd rather see her actively fighting.
Spoilery speculations.
1. So, there is a spy in Buffy's inner circle. If I were trying to figure him out using logic and common sense, my prime candidate would be Giles, because during his battle with Roden he acted as a person who knows the Twilight guidebook by heart. But logic and common sense are hardly applicable to BtVS (using logic and common sense I can easily prove that the real Doctor in As You Were is Riley). I'm pretty sure that Core Four are immune. Dear Xander fans, don't sweat and relax - this is a story of convenient situations, easy choices and artificial conflicts. The spy is either inadvertent (for example, New!Initiative managed to hide a bug in Xander's eyepatch) or an extra nobody cares about. Or he hasn't been introduced yet. (Just like the kiss of true love from a character who wasn't there in the room?) :)
2. Is Flying Boots the Big Bad of the season? Joss says he is. Anyway, by now the hierarchy of seasonal villains is already quite complicated to add another one. First we saw Amy and Warren; then we discovered New!Initiative; then we met Roden; now it looks like they are just pawns in Flying Boots's game. His official goal - to get rid of the magic - sounds as a trick to lull military's vigilance. After all, he's able to levitate! Could he be somebody we know? Easily. Military subplot and the promise of Riley return make Adam the best candidate.
3. Curiously, the detail that tortures me the most is the red demon on Faith's t-shirt on the last panels. It looks like the last-minute addition because it's obvious that it wasn't drawed but was copy-pasted from somewhere. The picture of demon doesn't follow the folds of the fabric of the t-shirt. I wonder if it was added to make the panels more vivid or the red demon is a foreshadowing of something sinister happening to Faith?
Bottom line: Interesting albeit not completely successful attempt to bring a bit of Avengers cool to Charlie's Angels universe.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 06:16 pm (UTC)Ah, but this brings up all the problems a lot of people had with the story from the start - Faith's willingness to be a ruthless killer (again). Yes, the eventual death was accidental, but that does not change the fact that she fully intended to kill Gigi when she first arrived, and probably would have if it wasn't for the gargoyle. All the ending does is stop her from dealing with the problem (even though, yes, I can see the coming-full-circle thing, and it's very nice. But it more parallels her fight with Buffy, than her killing of the deputy mayor).
The conflict between Buffy and Giles is fueled by misunderstandings.
Yes... but. He went behind her back once, to kill someone, and we saw how she hated that. And how she was ready to let Spike kill Robin. Buffy has every right to be pissed off - it's the sudden moping *I* can't make fit with anything. If she'd angrily said 'Fine! But we're not done!' and handed him back to Willow, that I could have understood.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 06:39 pm (UTC)Faith didn't sign on to be a ruthless killer. She signed on to stop an apocalypse. There's a lot going on here: trust in Giles, perhaps an acceptance of his judgment about Gigi as reflecting on her own judgments of herself, etc. etc. So, not a simple break with character at all. Rather a rich stew that builds on everything that goes into making Faith Faith. And as the arc develops we see that she's not so OK with the gray aspect of having to kill another human being in order to save the world. She hesitated in line. And yes, she might have gone through with it before the gargoyles came, but we really don't know. The fact that she gets to revisit both big events from season 3: her accidental killing of the mayor, Buffy's entirely non-accidental attempt on her life adds layers to what's going on -- basically pointing out that the original construction of Faith as the 'bad' slayer was more complicated than everyone took it to be in season 3, an ambiguity which has now remarkably given way to an unambiguous contrast between Faith and Buffy where Buffy looks much darker. How ironic that it is Buffy who comes closest to deliberately killing Gigi? I'd have to ponder to sort out all the meta -- but this was all very rich, IMO. Though too neatly wrapped up in the end.
Yes... but. He went behind her back once, to kill someone, and we saw how she hated that. And how she was ready to let Spike kill Robin. Buffy has every right to be pissed off - it's the sudden moping *I* can't make fit with anything. If she'd angrily said 'Fine! But we're not done!' and handed him back to Willow, that I could have understood.
Agree that what we saw makes little sense without more backstory. There is some emotional sore spot that triggers Buffy's sudden mope. I'm just expecting that we ARE going to get that backstory. Aycheb's remarks below give us a sense of how that story might flesh out. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were other things in the mix as well, including Giles' handling of the LA branch of the 'team'. Lots of people are assuming that what we see is all we are going to get. And if that's right, the comics really are monumentally disappointing. But I can't wrap my brain around the idea that Joss would be bothering with the comics at all in order to present a story that is entirely lacking in everything that made the series great in the first place. So right now I'm holding out for Stormwreath's optimistic take which is that Joss really does have a very big picture in mind, and that everything that doesn't make sense now will make sense further down the road. We'll see!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 07:34 pm (UTC)Faith in S4 of ATS was to the point, and took charge easily. Faith in S7 of BtVS was quieter, but focussed on the mission and willing to reach out and open up to those around her - including Buffy. I don't see that reflected in the comics.
There is some emotional sore spot that triggers Buffy's sudden mope. I'm just expecting that we ARE going to get that backstory.
Dear lord I hope so, because I've totally lost interest in her now. She's so un-Buffy-esque, that I'm sure she's just a decoy, and the one in Rome is the real one.
Oh and I meant to comment on this also:
The easy solution for Faith tells us that this really wasn't Faith's story after all. It's Buffy's. Faith is shown as having learned and grown. Faith made the wise decisions. Faith's instincts were spot on. Buffy hasn't grown much. Her instincts are way off. Buffy is the one with more story.
This is what I have a problem with. This Buffy is not one I recognise - Buffy on the show had moved past all that. It feels like we're re-treading the same ground we've already covered, just more simplistically.
(Sorry about the rantiness. I hope issue 10 will clear up a lot of this. But I'm not really expecting it to. [/it's been a long weekend w. poorly children, so I'm kinda down])
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 07:49 pm (UTC)But this Faith did reach out to Gigi, all the way through to the bitter end. So I'm not quite sure what you're referring to here.
I've had my share of rantiness about the comics! And at the end of LWH I really was unimpressed. And the fact that the positive reactions were mostly coming from the crowd that just wants to go back to the beginning didn't improve my mood at all. But as we move on, things start opening up and connecting in intriguing ways -- and that's restoring my hope that Joss really does know what he's doing. All of a sudden we are getting the mirroring and echoing of themes that made BtVS so rich. (Roden/Giles/Willow) (Gigi/Buffy/Faith). Earlier lines take on new resonance ("I still have my watcher" -- which we now understand is entirely bitter; and makes us wonder what tone underlies "I still have my demons"). That's the kind of stuff that made me love the 'verse. So I'm more hopeful than I was four months ago.
Something is up with Buffy. No doubt at all about that. My hopeful self says we'll definitely get a much clearer picture of this as we go along... that she will turn out to be organically connected to the Buffy we saw 18 months ago. But as the girl said, the funny thing about changing the world is that when you do everything is different. I'm pretty sure that's exactly the story we are going to get... a BSG-style reveal on exactly what has gone on to make the world so different.
Sorry about the poorly children. Hope all is better soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:24 pm (UTC)I meant the Buffy/Faith interactions in S7, which this story apparently does not take into account at all (as far as I can see).
That's the kind of stuff that made me love the 'verse. So I'm more hopeful than I was four months ago.
If 'No Future For You' were a fic I'd probably say that the Faith stuff was nicely done (if somewhat simplistic in places), but the Buffy parts might be enough to stop me reading. (This has happened frequently when I read fic. If the characters don't ring true - or are OOC - I just can't read it. I stopped reading one otherwise brilliant fic because Buffy was a total bitch for no reason whatsoever.)
that she will turn out to be organically connected to the Buffy we saw 18 months ago.
I don't know how, but I'd love to see it. Stranger things have happened.
a BSG-style reveal on exactly what has gone on to make the world so different.
Hmmm. I don't know if BtVS is any good for that kind of story. Guess we'll see in... 3 years time?
Sorry about the poorly children. Hope all is better soon.
Thank you. I should be writing fic, but it takes too much effort and concentration. Ergo grumbling.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:47 pm (UTC)Gotcha. Though, I still think this showed development. Faith asks Buffy to chill so she can explain, and Buffy really doesn't. Not surprising that Faith still has Buffy-related issues to tap into when she melts down -- we can make steps towards reconciliation but still have a lot of ugly emotion still not paid off underneath. The growth showed when Faith stopped herself from drowning Buffy. And she's so shattered after -- one of my favorite moments in the comics to date.
The rest awaits further development. I do agree that the slow reveal style (if that's what we're getting) might not work so well when we have to wait years (as opposed to weeks or months) to get a real idea of what's going on. And with that kind of delay -- well, the pay off really has to be something. So it's risky, what Joss is doing.
Your fic-writing efforts are always much appreciated.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 11:02 pm (UTC)Yes she does!!!! How can everyone have seen a different scene to me? The scene isn't there for Faith's sake - it's there for Buffy. For Buffy to realise that Faith truly understands what Buffy is going through and how she feels - that she isn't alone. It sets up Buffy's epiphany the night when the First talks to her in 'Chosen' - all the talk of 'there's a burden we can't share'. Except they do! And they know it and acknowledge it. I love that scene with a passion - love S7 generally for the way it delves into the loneliness of the Slayer, and then in the end turns it upside down.
Your fic-writing efforts are always much appreciated.
Aw, thank you. Although at the moment I'm slower than Joss - at least I'm not posting until it's all finished. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:41 pm (UTC)Faith on release from prison had a fairly simplistic, black and white view about right and wrong - and was completely shocked at Wesley's ruthlessness. I think she'd have either refused outright to kill Gigi - as some people around here would have preferred - or done it with no moral qualms whatsoever, because Gigi was as evil as she used to be. She was also still very low on self-esteem: perfectly willing to sacrifice her own life if it would bring Angel back. I can't see her wanting to try to reach out and help Gigi.
She's so un-Buffy-esque
Because Buffy never mopes? :-)
Actually, though, while interpreting her mood from three panels of Jeanty's artwork isn't the easiest job in the world, I don't think she's simply upset... she's also angry and bitter. In a black mood, as shown by the literal device of shadowing her eyes in one of the pictures.
I won't go ove the same ground as to why I think she's got good reason to feel that way: but for me, it's recognisably the way the same Buffy would react in this new situation.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:50 pm (UTC)Maybe... I dunno. I'm too tired to think clearly right now. Mostly what I meant was that her development/story post S4 appears to have been ignored.
Because Buffy never mopes? :-)
Oh she can mope for America. It's the reason I can't get to fit. See this comment.
And now I'm going to go snuggle up with my lovely husband before *he* starts moping... ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 10:02 pm (UTC)Great set-up for a fic! :)))
At least it explains why Angel and Spike hadn't smelt the decoy...
[/it's been a long weekend w. poorly children, so I'm kinda down])
*hugs Elisi*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:55 pm (UTC)I also think that Joss has already written the ending of season 8 and now is connecting the dots on his Big Board. But I'm not sure he's going to connect some dots I'd love to see connected. I hoped for a BSG-structured narrative, with richly subversive flashbacks but we've got 9 issues without any revelation regarding missing months and I'm losing my hope.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 10:29 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, I doubt that anybody can guarantee that *every* dot will end up connected. Some things there just won't be room for: and some things, sadly but inevitably, Joss won't see as necessary to the big picture even though they're really important to at least some of the fans.