Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #14

The strength of this issue, and to be honest all of Drew Goddard’s issues, lies in the ways that it feels like a natural extension of the show.

The issue opens with the death of a slayer, a really horrific display and we are reminded that while many share the power, Buffy is still the first and thus the leader. While Buffy generally irritates me, I totally sympathize with her as she is shocked and yet she can’t be consumed with it because she has to deal with it. She has to cut her down and take her back to headquarters and figure out a way to keep more girls from dying. And of course she broods and thinks that she has to do everything herself and then here comes Willow to smack her and say, “Hey remember me? You’re friend with powers? Let me make you a blanket.”

I love the inclusion of Dracula in this storyline. This is such a great thread to pick up from previous seasons. At the time when he appeared in the show, it was really a great device to drive more of a wedge between Buffy and Capt. Cardboard but Goddard is totally exploiting the awesomeness of his power over Xander. Oh funny Xander. How I love you.

For the record, Billy thinks that Xander’s girlfriend looks like a guy and the more I look at the picture, the more I disagree. I think I tend to agree with Billy in person because it’s easier than dissent. However, I dissent here, on the intarwebs. She looks like a girl.

So the Big Bad wants to take back the power of the slayers…HA! And yet, I wonder…because obviously, eventually, they go away? Or they all die off? Or they don’t create more slayers? Or another slayer isn’t called? Because, I mean, Fray lives in a world with no slayers or something right? OOOH CONTINUITY AND FUTURENESS. I don’t even know.

Possibly my favorite aspect of this issue was the conversation between Buffy and Satsu. As I’ve said, Buffy annoys the hell out of me. She’s whiny and self-righteous and as far as Buffy-verse characters go, I don’t think she grew as much across seven seasons as other characters. That being said, Goddard is nailing the intricacies of her emotional retardedness. The girl is an emotional terrorist. She’s incapable of participating in a romantic relationship that isn’t a function of or a reaction against her power. (This all goes into my argument about why Buffy isn’t actually a new action hero but rather just the same old action hero played by a girl this time.) While it annoys me, I have truly appreciated the development of this “relationship” and Goddard’s faithfulness to Buffy’s dysfunction.

And now to contrast, some Xander sweetness. This too has been a nice reminder of things past. The “let’s get this out of the way” kiss was sweet. Oh Xander…will you ever learn to not be a spaz when you’re dealing with girls? No? Oh good. I wouldn’t know what to do with suave manly Xander. (Unfortunately, sweetness and light are not often rewarded in the Buffyverse so I think we know where this is headed.)

Alright, so Billy was complaining about Goddard ripping off himself in this issue and warned me that there was some Cloverfield action and so fine, maybe there is, but you know what? I’m okay with Giant Dawnie tramping through the streets of Tokyo. You know why? Because I’m tired of seeing her sitting in a barn like Alice in Wonderland after she ate that stupid cupcake and popped out the window with her black Mary-Jane’s. And I mean, Dawn hardly ever gets to help. And here she is helping…awkwardly. “Hi…or, I mean. Roar.” Ha. I just remember how completely awkward she was in that last season episode when she thought she might be a potential.

The final image is a sad one and I have to wonder if Xander will ever catch a break. At the same time, it rings true. This is just the sort of thing that would happen to him…and just the motivation that Buffy needs. While she’s nearly incapable of surrendering herself to a romantic relationship, she’s nothing if not fiercely loyal and protective of her friends. Things are not going to end well for our shapeshifting vampire friends.

And I’m excited to be truly excited about Season Eight again.

Review: Joss Whedon’s “Fray”

I read Joss Whedon’s Fray this week and really liked it a lot. Sometimes Joss Whedon breaks my heart and then sometimes he doesn’t. This was one of those times.

His tale of a futuristic Slayer was entertaining and funny. I found myself fumbling to get each next comic out of it’s bag…cliffhangers are best when they last less than thirty seconds.

It wasn’t perfect…mostly because I think it’s the same story that Joss is really good at telling: young girl is misunderstood or cut off from her family, Chosen to fight against the forces of evil – totally reluctant at first – but of course she eventually acquiesces to the reality of her identity and saves the day just in time. There were points at which I was reminded of Buffy but for the most part I wasn’t or didn’t care.

Three Things That Really Worked For Me:

**A believable introduction to a slightly familiar (but not quite) universe: The first issue does a great job of linking the storyline to Slayer lore without spelling out in huge letters THIS IS BUFFYVERSE CANON. Code words like “called” and “Watchers” were enough to center my brain and then, of course, the beasties. The futuristic lingo isn’t heavy handed. Words like “grab”, “Pump” and “lurk” were introduced with just enough context that I could easily figure out what they meant without the characters reading like a glossary of hip! new! lingo!

**Melaka Fray: Winningest slayer past present or future? I say yes. Fierce hair? Check. Ass-kicking wardrobe? Check. Smart mouth? Check. Family drama? Check. So pretty much all the things we’ve come to expect from a slayer. I like Fray because as Slayers go, she’s a little more Faith than Buffy - more ass-kicking and less sniveling. Obv, her life sucks but she rarely makes me want to punch her in the stomach. She’s not crying constantly and throwing herself infinite pity parties because HER life is so much HARDER than everyone else’s. She genuinely cares about the people in her community and manages to act selflessly despite the fact that she could blow it all off and continue in her life of crime.

**Hey there canon story about the first slayer. OH ALSO, hai scythe from Buffy season seven…it was nice to see you here in this comic, widening the scope of Buffyverse canon. I appreciated the way this was woven into canon without being woefully self-reflexive. I didn’t feel like I was being winked at. It wasn’t heavy-handed.

Also, did I mention that her hair is fierce?

webcomic awesomeness: xkcd

I love xkcd because it’s nerdy. I don’t get all the jokes but he plays with language and it speaks to my English major’s heart. There are new ones every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and they are usually always one offs so it’s easy to jump in whenever…the site has a random button that occupies me for hours at a time. Ha.

Haha. I just laugh at the idea of rick rolling…and am sad that the Snap link previews make it nearly impossible for me to do it to you right now.

Dinosaur Comics: Also known as my favorite thing on the internet.

 

Does anyone read Dinosaur Comics? NO? Oh. Okay.

Well let me tell you why I do. It’s a comic STRIP rather than a comic BOOK and is therefore less intimidating to the likes of ME.

Also, THE FRAMES ARE ALWAYS THE SAME! Here, LET ME SHOW YOU! See.

See…in that first box? T-Rex is always posing like he is asking a very important question or presenting a HYPOTHESIS. And there in the third box? ALWAYS STOMPING ON A HOUSE. And in the fourth? Stomping a little woman.

I like this predictability because I am a person who thinks in words. Dinosaur Comics requires very little from me. I appreciate this.

DINOSAUR COMICS IS AMAZING. (This is my general review. AMAZING.)

In other news, yesterdays Dinocomic was ESPECIALLY AWESOME because it addresses T-Rex’s tendency to fetishize the Other. Oh that silly T-Rex!

But never fear, he always has the last word!

Review - Angel: After The Fall #1-4

Puppet-Angel and his friends are not amused. TRUTH.

I’ll start by saying I love/hate Joss Whedon. When I say that I mean that I have obsessively watched and re-watched episodes of Angel and Buffy…that given less than ten seconds of any episode I can place it in the correct season, contextualize the action, probably paraphrase the dialogue and give you a general idea of how that particular storyline will arc in coming episodes. There are episodes from both shows that make me ACTUALLY CRY every time I watch them.

I also know that Joss is a hack sometimes whose high opinion of himself has often poisoned his work with self-indulgent wank and too many *winkwinknudge* injokes aimed solely at fanboys and girls who worship at the altar of Joss.

HOWEVER. I’m not going to lie. Like any other fan who felt that Buffy and more recently Angel could have gone on for seasons and seasons, I was excited to hear that the Angel storyline would be continued in comic book form.

So…the question to be answered is simple. Can Angel: After the Fall live up to the expectations of a fan with uber-high expectations?

The answer: a world of NO.

First off, I’ll just say that on nearly every page the art and the dialogue are competing to be most awful. I get that Angel was a visually dark show but the comic offers page after page of muddled colors, like a child’s watercolor left out in the rain. The characters are expressionless. They look about as connected to the action in each panel as I feel.

Dialogue-wise, each issue’s script suffers from overly-wordy and/or clever dialogue. The villains in the first issue are funny? This doesn’t scan with me at all…Angel was never about that. The humor in Angel was insanely subtle, reliant on the delivery of actors who had fleshed out the nuances of their characters’ personalities. Without the actors to deliver the humor, the words fall flat on the page.

Also, Angel is canonically broody and quiet…and yet I’m slogging through dialogue on every page.

WTF at Spike in a smoking jacket and satin pants. WTF at Gunn the vampire. WTF at Illyria? Seriously, she was barely comprehensible on the show…she’s not doing anything for the convoluted action here.

I’m not clear on whether these people are STUCK in hell-A or if they WANT to be here. I’m not a stupid person. I honestly cannot figure out what the hell is going. IT’S WORSE THAN BAD FANFIC YOU GUYS. WORSE. Joss Whedon sat down and plotted this out and then handed it off to a fan boy and that fan boy is writing BADFIC.

Before I go any further, I’ll recognize the obvious. Comics are a new medium. It’s not the “same” as the show and as Billy brought up in a conversation we had earlier tonight, the comic is not called SEASON SIX. HOWEVER. It does have as its jumping off point the series finale. It picks up right after the show left off and Joss Whedon has put his name on it. While he isn’t writing it, he helped plot it out and as the creator has a responsibility to the fans.

Part of that responsibility is to remain faithful to the growth of characters. By taking half of their roster over to Angel: the Series, Joss and his team had the unique opportunity to explore the personal growth of some of their most interesting characters out of the shadow of the Chosen One. While his love affair with the Slayer made many a girl’s heart swoon, his own journey and search for redemption was a far more compelling storyline. Likewise, we saw massive growth in characters like Cordelia, Spike and Wesley.

By the time I started the fourth issue, I was massively annoyed. I was sitting outside McClain’s with Billy. I’m reading. He’s watching me read. True facts, watching him watch me react to the badness was more riveting than the actual comic itself. By the fourth issue, I just needed to get through it, to fully fan the fire of my rage.

I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED WHILE I WAS AHEAD.

I’ve been annoyed with the arcs of most of the characters but when Angel and Wes take a trip down to Silver Lake and I realize that the Lord of SilverLake is none other than Lorne, I literally threw the book at the table. THREW IT. People at surrounding tables looked at me in shock.

I can’t imagine a more disrespectful act than the inclusion of Lorne in this storyline. From the beginning of his tenure in the Buffyverse, Lorne has represented kindness. He LEFT LA because Angel asked him to kill Lindsey. He left because it violated his code of ethics. He left because he was morally opposed to killing - even killing bad guys. This is canon. Lorne left his home dimension because he was morally opposed to the standards of their community. The bar he ran, Caritas (love or charity), provided safety and sanctuary to all demons. To think that Lorne would return to LA at all reverses an important action on Lorne’s part but to suggest that he would serve as lord of a region and use mind control AGAINST other demons also violates his canonical morality code. I’m not buying it.

In light of the massive canon it attempts to be a part of, Angel: After the Fall is FAIL. For real, it should be dusted…but I guess even that isn’t an option any more.

Review: Runaways #29

Look at those tears. Her pain, I feel it - true facts though, I have no idea why she’s crying…or who she is - and that characterizes perfectly the problem I’m having with this comic.

Confession time…I was never really into comics but Billy gave me Runaways because he thought it would be a good starter comic for me…I love Whedon and the characters are teenagers and Billy’s pretty smart when it comes to picking things out that I will like. I was totally into it…

I just read Runaways #29 and I have to be honest…my enthusiasm is matched only by the massive amount of WTF that I feel as I turn each page.

First of all, I’m having a hard time keeping the characters straight…because they all look alike. The most helpful thing that EVER happens is when Xavin shapeshifts…because then at least I know who she is and then I can locate Karolina Dean. And of course there’s Molly. She’s easy to find because she’s tiny and she’s always got the Buffy-esque one-liners popping off. (Joss Whedon’s affinity for clever young girls, as evidenced by EVERYTHING he’s ever written, makes me think maybe he deserves a place on “To Catch a Predator” but whatever.)

As I read through this issue, I think about 50% of my brain was occupied with trying not only to keep the characters straight but to figure out who some of them were and the other 50% was occupied with trying to keep the convoluted plotlines straight. Whole scenes are devoted to new characters…characters whose names I’m not sure I ever learned…like the boygirl with the short hair and the tiny man on her shoulder…I wondered to myself if I was supposed to care about them…and then they died, killed by another character I either couldn’t remember or legitimately never met. Then there’s Klara - Whedon’s attempt to infuse his storyline with some sense of social commentary - which would be awesome except that for the most part, our culture has agreed that little girls shouldn’t be marrying dirty old men anymore. So mostly, I don’t care about her either. I can’t keep the gangs straight either…Street Arabs, the Sinners, the Upward Path…is this really necessary? It’s like Joss rolled up to the DayLaborers Center for Unemployed Comic Book Characters in a semi-truck, opened up the back and packed in as many as would fit. I don’t even want to talk about the multiple romantic plot lines…because I can’t figure them out. There are literally like seven threads in this one issue alone. I was relieved to arrive at the giant fight scene. It’s a clusterfuck that reflects perfectly my confusion at the preceding pages. THE CHAOS RESONATES WITH MY CONCERNS.

The convoluted storylines, the time travel plot and the parade of clones makes Runaways a whole lot of work…and yet, I sort of feel like I’ve waded halfway into an alligator pit…forward or backward, I’m screwed either way so I guess I’ll push on?