Buffy #20, Angel: AtF #15

[moscow_watcher]

Buffy #20

I read hundreds of fics about Buffy traveling back in time to earlier seasons.

In the majority of fics Buffy's time-travel is connected with a mission. In some fics it happens without explanation and she initially doesn't know why she's there, but later discovers that it's about changing the timeline or learning more about her Slayer power or about some other plot twist. Funnily I don't remember a single fic that ends with "it was just a dream" denouement. Either such fics aren't memorable or all ficwriters subconsciously reject the idea as cheating.

I also don't remember plotty fics about time-travel back to season 1. Usually Buffy travels back to seasons 2-6. Of course, the reason may be my preference of Spike-oriented fanfiction. But (in my opinion) there is another reason: it's much harder to find a plot twist that would make Buffy's return to season 1 worthy a new story. There are no situations writer desperately wants to fix in season 1 - the way you want to avoid Angel turning into Angelus, Jenny's death, Buffy and Faith's confrontation, Joyce' death, Tara's death. There are no problems in season 1 that aren't canonically resolved within the very episode they are presented.

That's why I was surprised to find out that issue 20 will be about Buffy being back in season 1. My only guess was about Dawn being there as a hint that somebody manipulates Buffy by using her false memories. I posted my specs about it here - and I was wrong. It wasn't about a plot. At all. It was about... I don't know what - walking down the memory lane? a tribute to school years? an attempt to resuscitate the Buffy Animated project? All of the above?

What's curious, the issue not only brings us back to season 1. Its first panels bring us back to point A in season 8 mythology. Buffy lives in a castle (another one). Buffy fights evil. The fight is hard, she is tired, she falls asleep and wakes up in season 1. She meets her friends, destroys a token monster-of-the-week (a dragon), makes funny quips and finally wakes up. Her lesson: you can't change the past. That's all, folks.

This is the opinion of a person who never read comics before BtVS season 8, but I have the impression that the style of "animated season 1" works better than the style of the first 19 issues. All these gaping mouths, goggled eyes, exaggerated gesticulation - this style looks inherent to the medium and the story about a teenage superhero. Jeanty's "realistic" Buffy often looks grotesque, while "animated" Buffy looks exactly how a comic superhero should look.

Judging by the response I see on different forums, the majority of comics fans love issue #20 more than the previous ones. Whether it's the simplicity of the situation, the expressive visual style or cheer nostalgia that attracts the audience - hard to say. Or maybe another chunk of the audience has quit after the Fray arc and the ones who stayed are true aficionados. According to icv2 BtVS lost 8,000 readers during Time of Your Life arc (Buffy #16 - Rank #10 - Sales 82,031; Buffy #19 - Rank #8 - Sales 74,202); the data about issue 20 isn't available yet. Maybe the simplicity is the key to luring comics audience back.

I wanted to finish my mini-review with the phrase that at least now we know what happened to Xander's skate-board, but then I realised that it wasn't real. Damn!

"Angel #15"

Yes, I was spoiled: the news about Connor's death have spread immediately and I knew what would happen. Yet I wasn't prepared to the emotional intensity of the scene and I cried like a baby. The issue features many powerful scenes: Angel's time-slip, when he sees the future and realises that W&H plans to use him for a final apocalypse; Groo's death; Angel's decision to spare Gunn. Yet the final panel with dying Connor is the focal point of the issue and maybe the whole season. Powerful, gut-wrenching scene.

But, of course, in season 6 Connor was too happy and well-adjusted to survive in Jossverse. To live long in this universe you have to be dysfunctional and unhappy and tormented and desperate. Otherwise you get offed.

*deep breath* OK, I try to think positively. I hope soon we'll get a new batch of post-AtF fics in which Angel and his friends fight to bring Connor back.

Or maybe the next mini-season will be dedicated to bringing him back. Or, as lynnenne suggests here, Angel will trade his shanshu for Connor's life. In that case, he will manage to kill two birds with one stone: he will resurrect his son and avert the final apocalypse. The mechanism and the connection between the shanshu and the apocalypse are very vague, but I've got the impression that we're supposed to think that this "ultimate" apocalypse may be averted by reversing Angel's shanshu. Many lines of Angel's inner monologue in issue 15 are about the shanshu, his humanity, his personal journey being the trigger of apocalypse. So, it's quite a possibility.

Another possibility, often mentioned in discussions is a reset. Gunn's plan was about using Illyria's powers for going back in time. So far he didn't succeed (or so it seems) but it's not finished yet. Another argument in favor of the reset is the number of characters killed in current issue: Connor, Groo, the dragon, probably Illyria and Spider. The cast is radically thinned out. OTOH, in the beginning AtF was very overcrowded. Even after all these deaths the main cast is pretty big: Angel, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, Lorne, Nina. Also Betta George. And I remember that Lynch asked recently what other comics characters from Asylum and Shadow Puppets we'd like to see on AtF.

And there is another interesting thing I almost missed; only BA shippers' enthusiastic comments made me pay closer attention to this part of Angel's inner monologue:

"Gunns slayer prisoners, they were trapped in a loop, used for training. They must have died a 1000 times in the last couple months. For all they know it's only five minutes after they were kidnapped. Since then, they've had a building dropped on them and are face to face with Illyria, but they're hardly fazed. She's trained them well, they can handle the lackeys".

The "she" in question (bolded in the original!) may be only Buffy. Huh? Buffy trained the slayers in LA before they were kidnapped by Gunn? Angel knew about Buffy's training them there, in his city? Or maybe Buffy trained them in her Scottish castle and then has sent them in LA in the short period between TGIQ and NFA and Angel found out about it? Or maybe she even informed him?

OTOH, maybe Angel just doesn't know that Buffy hasn't trained ALL slayers in the world. Maybe he even doesn't know how many of them exist. Maybe he thinks there is only a dozen of them and all were trained under Buffy's tutelage.

Anyway, the very appearance of the slayers looked as a set-up for the crossover, and Angel's cryptic line makes the possibility even stronger.

Of course, there is always a chance that the phrase was totally random and Lynch doesn't think it's important.

But the next BtVS issue features Angel's former secretary on the cover. Curious, n'est-ce pas?

Well, that's practically all... WAAAAHHHH! THEY KILLED CONNOR, BASTARDS!