moscow_watcher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-08-13 06:56 pm
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-08-13 06:56 pm
Buffy #17 and Spike After the Fall #2 (kinda) reviews
Buffy #17
... in which Buffy and Fray recognize each other as slayers; Fray's brother' Garth, conspires with Evil!Willow to do something evil; and Xander rides Dawn.
Honestly, I couldn't figure out so many visuals in this issue it was embarrassing. The first panels open with Fray and her sister Erin ambushing vamps' flying van in the vicinity of a gigantic statue surrounded by force field reflecting bullets and firing laser beams. First, I was sure that Erin was Buffy - they look like twin sisters. Second, I didn't figure out that the gigantic old man who raises his hand like he makes a spell is actually a statue. I thought it was somebody (something) similar to "elemental creatures" who helped Willow in issue 4.
Then I read other reviews and asked questions and people explained me and when I read the issue for the third time, I was able to follow the plot. And after reading in
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stormwreath's review "It took me a while to figure out that image" - I felt a little better. He's one of the cleverest people in the fandom, and it took him a while to figure it out!And now I wonder why Joss decided to make such a strange experiment and plunge readers who aren't acquainted with Fray story into a completely different universe. Was it an intentional shock, one more declaration that this is not the show we used to watch on TV - or Joss has just miscalculated the level of disorientation?
The comparison to Chain is inevitable but superficial. In Chain we had all new characters and a pretty simple storyline told in a non-chronological order. Here we have a girl with Buffy face - who turns out to be Fray's sister; we have a girl with Drusilla's characteristics - who turns out to be Willow; and we have a complex plot full of riddles, vague hints and blatant misleads.
Talking about riddles.
-- Erin looks like Buffy's twin sister. A hack work or a set-up for a future plot twist?
-- All sources describe evil!Willow as "madwoman". A mislead (to make the audience think of Dru) or a future important plot point?
-- "Gates. The last great watcher. Sacrificed himself at the battle of Starbucks." Gates = Giles?
-- "What happens in your time will cause your time to come" (Evil!Willow). Is she another Willow, from a previous timeline? Or she's got trapped in a time-loop and is forced to repeat the same ritual ad aeternam? And how could she know what will happen if she's not a time-traveller? I remember only one instance of an event being chronicled before it happened and, curiously, that moment is closely connected to Willow and events of season 8: Willow "zips up" Warren's mouth and skins him on the last minute of Villains, but the depiction of her tortures appear on Lloyd's wall at least 10 minutes earlier (29-th minute of the episode).
OTOH, maybe "your time" just means "vampire kingdom on Earth". And, since we know from spoilers, that in the next arc "Buffy's world goes public" and "vampires become common knowledge", maybe evil!Willow's actions are destined to trigger these events by doing something to Buffy before she sends her back. Or maybe she sends her into the animated universe of issue 20.
But I'm nurturing a theory that Willow (from a previous timeline) somehow found out in advance about Giles' untimely death and developed a complex plan to prevent it. Don't ask me how. Joss' stories are always full of gigantic plot holes and so far the only way to predict the plot developments was to look at it from the emotional standpoint. And emotionally I can't see Willow turning to dark side permanently. First of all - been there, done that, bored now. Second, it just don't feel right. But maybe this new season has new rules regarding the characters.
Last, but not least: these two days I'm reading a discussion about season 8 and if it feels like season 1. A year ago when I read the first issues I used to think that season 8 feels like season 1. Now I think it feels like season 1... of another show. Kinda Alias-cum-Dr.Who-cum-good old BtVS.
I hope that people who dismiss critical approach to season 8 as "whining and bitching" won't get me wrong. Yes, it does feel as a reboot to me. Yes, maybe it's the only way BtVS could survive in another medium. And I like reading it, but the passion is gone. I'm a Spike fan and maybe his absence is one of the reasons of my tepid attitude to season 8.
So, Spike: After the Fall, issue 2
... in which our boy meets the dragon, gets touched by a mysterious glowing man in a cocoon and fights an evil pixie who sucks life force out of her victims.
I enjoyed it. It's a transitional issue of a transitional arc, but dialogs are stellar and Spike's voice is spot-on.
"Sorry, Puff". Does it mean that dragon's actual name is Puff? And the person who named him was Spike? If that's the case, no wonder Angel was so embarrassed to tell dragon's name to Connor!
Spike's strategizing about slaying the dragon is hysterical ("Plug up nostrils. Tries to blow smoke. Head explodes. Effective and entertaining") as is Spike's "Penthouse letter" in the middle of his fight with furious Amazons.
Evil pixie is fun and her minion who is preoccupied with regulating everything, including humor, are priceless.
As usual, Urru excels at drawing movements, especially fights. Pity we don't get a big damn panel of Spike riding the dragon. I hope this is not their last encounter. Spike riding Puff - that would be quite a sight! :)
But, instead we get another scene with hysterically funny sexual subtext: when Spike meets Spider, she bristles up with eight spider legs and he, in response, aims his knife at her. Talk about the battle of sexes.
The only panel that got me confused was the one with a glowing man in a cocoon. My first thought was that it was a fiery portal to hell. Then, after reading other peoples' reviews, I realized that I was wrong and the glowing entity is a man, probably Angel, slowly convalescing after the battle. Upon second reading I appreciated fully the powerful metaphor of Angel's moral suffering after he inadvertently sent LA to hell. Later in the issue Spike endures similar moral torture when evil pixie harms people he protects.
We leave our boy battered, bloodied, chained and desperate. We already know that he "stepped up" and evil pixie's minions "began following" him (Angel: AtF, issue 4). Still, even if the outcome is already known, it's interesting to find out how Spike managed to become their leader. He has always been good with women and to women. Even when he was unsouled. Funnily, characters' attitude to Spike reflects fandom's attitude. They either love to torture him or revel in nurturing and loving him. Looks like the next issue will be thrilling.
Interestingly, at one point evil pixie repeats Buffy's phrase in Potential: "You're all gonna die". In the next issue we'll see if she adopted other Buffyisms. ;-)
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Maybe because 250-year-old Willow remembers Buffy coming back from the future and telling 25-year-old Willow what happens? ;-) Based on everything that's said in the issue, I'm not sure there's any more to Willow being there than simply that she's become either immortal or very long-lived and simply lived through it all. It would make sense of why she's dressed like Drusilla: something went very wrong in her past - Buffy's present - and Willow has been in mourning for 200 years. No wonder she'd go mad. Of course, whether she's there to prevent that happening or make it happen remains to be seen...
Willow "zips up" Warren's mouth and skins him on the last minute of Villains, but the depiction of her tortures appear on Lloyd's wall at least 10 minutes earlier (29-th minute of the episode).
How do you figure that? D'Hoffryn mentions it in "Selfless."
emotionally I can't see Willow turning to dark side permanently
Agreed, though a) we still don't know if that's what's happened, and b) even if she does in this timeline, that's not necessarily saying she WILL go permanently dark. I still think this is Season 8's version of "The Wish" or "Hell's Bells"; here's where they could end up if they do something wrong.
I'm reading a discussion about season 8 and if it feels like season 1.
That thread confuses me. I must say I can't remember seeing a single review - at least not in the last year - that says Season 8 is like season 1 of BtVS; there might have been the odd one that I've missed, but "almost all"? Where? Why make up criticisms only to refute them?
"Sorry, Puff". Does it mean that dragon's actual name is Puff?
Reference to the children's song "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
Upon second reading I appreciated fully the powerful metaphor of Angel's moral suffering after he inadvertently sent LA to hell.
Purgatory?
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Thank you! That just made my day.
Why yes, I am occasionally silly.
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I think the events in Villains are supposed to happen in chronological order. If we're shown on 29-th min. the pictures of the events that will happen onscreen in 10 minutes it means these pics appeared before the actual events happened.
Or maybe it was just a continuity error *shrugs*
Reference to the children's song "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
Thanks for the link - very educative! Still, I can imagine that upon hearing Spike's words, the dragon decided that Puff is his real name. He may be new to human civilization; he may try to adapt to human standards by accepting the first name he's called. :)
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You may be right.
It must have taken him quite a long time to get to Uganda - if his statement to Angel in 'A Hole In The World' that he'd never flown before is correct then it must have taken him a very long time indeed!
Unless he sold his motorcycle to a shaman who in exchange teleported him to Uganga... :)
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You know, I was 99.9% sure there was absolutely no reference to that drawing around the 29th minute or anywhere in "Villains" - hell, anywhere other than in "Selfless". But I dug the episode out and hmmmm... one of the cave paintings in Africa does depict a man who's naked and bleeding - not skinned, I think, but definitely gutted. It doesn't look much like what Willow does to Warren, and I seriously doubt that that demon is called "Lloyd" - I don't see any watercoolers around either. ;-) But... interesting idea. Thanks for pointing that out.
But like s2c says, I've always assumed that the Spike scenes in "Villains" take place a lot later. So even if that is Lloyd and his drawing of Warren, it wouldn't be foreshadowing.
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The villager's voice fades in the distance as Spike comes to an open area deep in the cave. It is nearly PITCH BLACK. We can just barely make out Spike in the darkness.
Spike flicks his lighter - and we see, briefly, ancient paintings that line the walls. They all depict scenes of CARNAGE and TORTURE. Horrible sights. Spike examines them.
No mention of one of them being supposed to foreshadow Warren. Of course that idea might have been added after the script was written, but...
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Frankly, I suspect that "Lloyd" line in Selfless was Goddard's personal insider joke. I remember reading his interview about him coming to the set for a jod interview when the last episodes of season 6 have been shot. Being a big BtVS fan, Goddard was thouroughly shocked by the scenes they were shooting - Willow's turning bad, killing Warren etc. I suppose he could see the decorations of the African cave, notice the pic of a man with a sewn mouth and maybe even make a joke about the pic looking like Warren. Maybe these impressions from his first visit on the movie set had inspired him to write the "Lloyd" line.
But today Goddard is one of the writers of the show. Could he add another touch to his obscure joke about dererminism and free will? Who knows.
(Yes, I realise that it's total wank :) Or, rather My Big Wank To Sustain My Hope That Willow Hasn't Turned Evil Permanently. :))))
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The current storyline, however, is obviously going to play around with those questions a lot - is this what Willow will become or what she may become, is Fray's world the future or a future? I keep thinking back to the Doctor Who mini-episode Time Crash, in which the Doctor gets duplicated and his older self knows how to save the universe because he remembers being his younger self watching his older self saving the universe, even though it hadn't happened until he actually did it. Timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly...
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Because the person who started the thread got her facts slightly wrong. Someone said something along those lines, but not the way she was putting it.
I'm glad that you didn't remember anyone saying that either. I thought I was going mad myself. *g*
There's a lot of 'born again' season 8 folk on there aren't there. :0
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Or: She's turned Vampire. :-) But I guess then we'd see her in her goth-leather-outfit Vamp!Willow wore in "Doppelgangland" :-)
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Then again, I'm always way off on Season 8, so... I guess she's a vampire. ;-)
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