Buffy season 10 no 27
May. 18th, 2016 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightI've read this today. Fairly extensive spoilers behind cut.
It will surprise none of you, I suspect, to read that Buffy and Spike 'go on a break' at the end of this issue. It certainly didn't surprise me, given that Buffy spends practically the entire issue screaming and ranting at her friends, and Spike, ending with her accusing Spike of never coming up with any solutions, and maybe they should call Angel, 'who is not the type to give up when things get tough.' Needless to say, Spike doesn't take this well, but the break up (or the break, it's not yet clear it'll be permanent) doesn't happen until they're back at the apartment and have had yet another argument, this time when Buffy says she wishes everything could just be solved by her killing a Big Bad like the Master, although she knows that killing D'Hoffryn 'wouldn't fix all this.' When Spike responds (the art makes clear not in an angry way) by saying that's just not how life works, 'killing the monster, the heroic quest fulfilling the prophecy. It's no wonder children like those sorts of stories', Buffy snaps back, "Oh, like your life has been a model of dealing with things in an adult way,' and that's when Spike suggests they take a break.
In-story, I can understand why, obviously. Buffy has become pretty much impossible to live with (earlier in the issue, she has a massive go at Willow and Giles, who both have a massive go back, then she goes all BtVS season 3 Faith on a demon queen they're interrogating, and Spike has to beg her to stop hitting the woman), but as I said in my review of the previous two issues, I don't really understand why Buffy is behaving the way she is (completely off the wall and permanently in a snit with everyone, I mean), except that making her incompetent and unlikeable seems to be a given in the comics right from the start of season 8.
Okay, being smacked in the face with the evidence of that incompetence, as she has been in the last couple of issues will make anyone feel bad, but I don't remember Show!Buffy dealing with her self-doubt by whaling on her friends and boyfriend (except maybe in When She Was Bad, and FFS she was only sixteen then!)
Elsewhere, Andrew meets up with Cyber!Jonathan, who has fallen into D'Hoffryn's clutches. D'Hoffryn has promised to make Jonathan the first ever male vengeance demon, and Jonathan gets some practise in by wreaking horrible emotional vengeance on Andrew, by showing him visions of Buffy and the others saying stuff about how they don't trust him, and then of the men he's dated since coming out (including Clive, remember him?) shaking their heads about his huge lack of self-awareness and what hard work he is.
Boy, Gage has really evilled up Cyber!Jonathan, hasn't he? Mind you, I suppose Cyber!Jonathan did miss Real!Jonathan's revelation in CWDP just before Andrew killed him.
Elsewhere, elsewhere, the military fire rockets at D'Hoffryn (who in a Magneto-like way, has created a island for himself out in the middle of the ocean) only for the rockets to blow up on launch and D'Hoffryn (currently doing a sort-of benevolent dictator act) to warn them not to try it again. Willow exclaims aloud that they never gave him that sort of power from what they wrote in the book and realises he must be doing it as a result of some human's wish for vengeance. But the military types overhear her talking and decide to hold an urgent inquiry into her behaviour, from which Lake is excluded due to their personal relationship (which sounds fairly realistic actually, and may possibly leave Willow tied up in military red tape till the end of the season).
And in Anharra, Xander and Dawn turn down Lilah's offer of help and set off to find the way home by themselves. Lilah is okay with this. She put a tracker in Dawn's quiver of arrows, so if Xander and Dawn find the way back to Earth, so will Wolfram & Hart.
Nice little cameo from Lilah, and again the Xander/Dawn scenes are the best/most enjoyable in the book.
So anyway, unlikeable Buffy flinging accusations at her friends and Spike, Spike looking very sad and saying they need a break, and all hell breaking loose elsewhere. I guess there actually are elements here that do seem like the climax of a season of BtVS. We'll see. I do hope that even if Spike and Buffy break up for good, Spike won't leave town but will be there to help Buffy until D'Hoffryn is defeated (if he is) before wandering off somewhere. He's going to look like a complete s**t otherwise.
Though given that Gage has written him as having almost saint-like patience in this issue maybe he's due for a fall from grace. ;)
We'll see.
The letters page contains a letter begging for a season 11. The editor tells the letter writer not to worry, so I guess there really will be one. Also, someone else writes in wondering (in a rather weird sort of way) what Buffy would do if Spike died. Would she go back to Angel? The editor responds (in an outraged tone) that if Spike died Buffy would be really upset and wouldn't be thinking about getting another boyfriend for a good, long time. Whether this is apropos of anything, I have no idea, but it's a change from season 8 anyway when all Buffy missed was 'the sex'.
It will surprise none of you, I suspect, to read that Buffy and Spike 'go on a break' at the end of this issue. It certainly didn't surprise me, given that Buffy spends practically the entire issue screaming and ranting at her friends, and Spike, ending with her accusing Spike of never coming up with any solutions, and maybe they should call Angel, 'who is not the type to give up when things get tough.' Needless to say, Spike doesn't take this well, but the break up (or the break, it's not yet clear it'll be permanent) doesn't happen until they're back at the apartment and have had yet another argument, this time when Buffy says she wishes everything could just be solved by her killing a Big Bad like the Master, although she knows that killing D'Hoffryn 'wouldn't fix all this.' When Spike responds (the art makes clear not in an angry way) by saying that's just not how life works, 'killing the monster, the heroic quest fulfilling the prophecy. It's no wonder children like those sorts of stories', Buffy snaps back, "Oh, like your life has been a model of dealing with things in an adult way,' and that's when Spike suggests they take a break.
In-story, I can understand why, obviously. Buffy has become pretty much impossible to live with (earlier in the issue, she has a massive go at Willow and Giles, who both have a massive go back, then she goes all BtVS season 3 Faith on a demon queen they're interrogating, and Spike has to beg her to stop hitting the woman), but as I said in my review of the previous two issues, I don't really understand why Buffy is behaving the way she is (completely off the wall and permanently in a snit with everyone, I mean), except that making her incompetent and unlikeable seems to be a given in the comics right from the start of season 8.
Okay, being smacked in the face with the evidence of that incompetence, as she has been in the last couple of issues will make anyone feel bad, but I don't remember Show!Buffy dealing with her self-doubt by whaling on her friends and boyfriend (except maybe in When She Was Bad, and FFS she was only sixteen then!)
Elsewhere, Andrew meets up with Cyber!Jonathan, who has fallen into D'Hoffryn's clutches. D'Hoffryn has promised to make Jonathan the first ever male vengeance demon, and Jonathan gets some practise in by wreaking horrible emotional vengeance on Andrew, by showing him visions of Buffy and the others saying stuff about how they don't trust him, and then of the men he's dated since coming out (including Clive, remember him?) shaking their heads about his huge lack of self-awareness and what hard work he is.
Boy, Gage has really evilled up Cyber!Jonathan, hasn't he? Mind you, I suppose Cyber!Jonathan did miss Real!Jonathan's revelation in CWDP just before Andrew killed him.
Elsewhere, elsewhere, the military fire rockets at D'Hoffryn (who in a Magneto-like way, has created a island for himself out in the middle of the ocean) only for the rockets to blow up on launch and D'Hoffryn (currently doing a sort-of benevolent dictator act) to warn them not to try it again. Willow exclaims aloud that they never gave him that sort of power from what they wrote in the book and realises he must be doing it as a result of some human's wish for vengeance. But the military types overhear her talking and decide to hold an urgent inquiry into her behaviour, from which Lake is excluded due to their personal relationship (which sounds fairly realistic actually, and may possibly leave Willow tied up in military red tape till the end of the season).
And in Anharra, Xander and Dawn turn down Lilah's offer of help and set off to find the way home by themselves. Lilah is okay with this. She put a tracker in Dawn's quiver of arrows, so if Xander and Dawn find the way back to Earth, so will Wolfram & Hart.
Nice little cameo from Lilah, and again the Xander/Dawn scenes are the best/most enjoyable in the book.
So anyway, unlikeable Buffy flinging accusations at her friends and Spike, Spike looking very sad and saying they need a break, and all hell breaking loose elsewhere. I guess there actually are elements here that do seem like the climax of a season of BtVS. We'll see. I do hope that even if Spike and Buffy break up for good, Spike won't leave town but will be there to help Buffy until D'Hoffryn is defeated (if he is) before wandering off somewhere. He's going to look like a complete s**t otherwise.
Though given that Gage has written him as having almost saint-like patience in this issue maybe he's due for a fall from grace. ;)
We'll see.
The letters page contains a letter begging for a season 11. The editor tells the letter writer not to worry, so I guess there really will be one. Also, someone else writes in wondering (in a rather weird sort of way) what Buffy would do if Spike died. Would she go back to Angel? The editor responds (in an outraged tone) that if Spike died Buffy would be really upset and wouldn't be thinking about getting another boyfriend for a good, long time. Whether this is apropos of anything, I have no idea, but it's a change from season 8 anyway when all Buffy missed was 'the sex'.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-25 06:18 pm (UTC)I must have repressed it better than I thought.