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shapinglightCan't be bothered to do a full review of the Buffy comic this month, so thought I'd combine the two.
More behind cut with spoilers for both comics.
It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I wasn't going to like this issue of BtVS season 8. For one thing, I can't stand that kind of kids' cartoony art. For another, I don't think much of Jeph Loeb as a comics writer and never have done. Okay, so this issue is dedicated to a good cause and I hope lots of copies are sold and it makes lots of money, but that doesn't change that fact that it was dull, didn't tell us anything we didn't already know (ie. that Buffy's upset about killing Future Willow - she even does the "Oh Will, I'm so pleased to see you!" hug that she already did in no 19 again), and manages to put off yet again any real forward momentum in the story. I'm bored with it, and definitely of the opinion that the people not bothering with the individual issues but instead buying the TPBs have got a better idea. Maybe then it wouldn't seem so horribly long drawn out.
The cover was great, though, which Comic Shop Boy agreed with. He showed me some other examples of Joan Chen's art - mostly manga-type stuff- and I was very impressed.
Angel: After the Fall no 15 is more interesting. For one thing, it sees the return of Franco Urru to the main book, which serves as a reminder not only of how much he's been missed but of how badly the art has served this story in the issues since he left. At long last, the panels have movement in them again and the characters are drawn without slavish reference to (often ill-chosen) screen caps. The colouring is better too - less muddy.
As for the subject matter, I have rather mixed feelings. I like the way Wesley and Spike use their memories of Fred to talk Illyria down - and unlike some of the posters on Whedonesque, I think Spike is the right person to choose to stand with Wesley. I'm assuming that most of the people who said that haven't read (and have no intention of reading) Spike: After the Fall, because if they had they would realise that Spike is the one with the most immediate memories of Illyria-as-Fred and the one she's had the most contact with for we don't actually know how long. Of course it should be him.
I don't really understand Angel's reasons for not killing Gunn. Not that I want Gunn to die, but I don't see any other option for him now, except to be killed by Angel or Spike. Angel says he doesn't do it because it would prove he can be the monster Wolfram & Hart want him to be, but I'm really not sure that follows. However, Gunn lives on -for now - even though he's just killed Connor.
Which, yes, brings me on to the most controversial incident in this book, the death of Connor. It's not that it's not well written. It is. It's not that it's not moving. It is. However, I wish it hadn't happened for two reasons: the first of these is that - come on, this is Angel's son we're talking about. His only child. The love of his life. He was prepared to damn his friends to hell for Connor's sake, and now Connor is dead. I can't think of anything worse that could happen to a parent. This should be something that Angel will never, ever, in his whole life get over. It should drastically affect his character. I don't mean I think he should go mad with grief or turn evil or anything like that. After Connor's last words to him, the opposite would probably be true. But if he's being true to the character of Angel as I perceive it, he should never, ever recover from it. That being so, I doubt the wisdom of going there. It's just too much, IMO.
The second reason is that the cast of AtS - by which I mean the characters we know and love from the show - seems to be being slowly whittled down. Wesley is a ghost, Fred is dead, Cordelia is dead, Gunn's a vampire and will probably be dead before the story's finished, Gwen's dead, Groo seems to be dead. And now Connor. At this rate, there'll be no one left except Angel himself (which would be my cue to walk away, because without those other characters and Spike, my interest will drop off sharply), and comics only characters like Spider are no more replacements for those beloved show characters than Satsu or Renee or any of the boring, interchangeable baby Slayers in season 8 could ever replace Ethan Rayne.
That all being said, I do like the comic. I very much like Spike's contribution to it (the first time since his scene with Wesley way back), and the art is great.
8 out of 10.
More behind cut with spoilers for both comics.
It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I wasn't going to like this issue of BtVS season 8. For one thing, I can't stand that kind of kids' cartoony art. For another, I don't think much of Jeph Loeb as a comics writer and never have done. Okay, so this issue is dedicated to a good cause and I hope lots of copies are sold and it makes lots of money, but that doesn't change that fact that it was dull, didn't tell us anything we didn't already know (ie. that Buffy's upset about killing Future Willow - she even does the "Oh Will, I'm so pleased to see you!" hug that she already did in no 19 again), and manages to put off yet again any real forward momentum in the story. I'm bored with it, and definitely of the opinion that the people not bothering with the individual issues but instead buying the TPBs have got a better idea. Maybe then it wouldn't seem so horribly long drawn out.
The cover was great, though, which Comic Shop Boy agreed with. He showed me some other examples of Joan Chen's art - mostly manga-type stuff- and I was very impressed.
Angel: After the Fall no 15 is more interesting. For one thing, it sees the return of Franco Urru to the main book, which serves as a reminder not only of how much he's been missed but of how badly the art has served this story in the issues since he left. At long last, the panels have movement in them again and the characters are drawn without slavish reference to (often ill-chosen) screen caps. The colouring is better too - less muddy.
As for the subject matter, I have rather mixed feelings. I like the way Wesley and Spike use their memories of Fred to talk Illyria down - and unlike some of the posters on Whedonesque, I think Spike is the right person to choose to stand with Wesley. I'm assuming that most of the people who said that haven't read (and have no intention of reading) Spike: After the Fall, because if they had they would realise that Spike is the one with the most immediate memories of Illyria-as-Fred and the one she's had the most contact with for we don't actually know how long. Of course it should be him.
I don't really understand Angel's reasons for not killing Gunn. Not that I want Gunn to die, but I don't see any other option for him now, except to be killed by Angel or Spike. Angel says he doesn't do it because it would prove he can be the monster Wolfram & Hart want him to be, but I'm really not sure that follows. However, Gunn lives on -for now - even though he's just killed Connor.
Which, yes, brings me on to the most controversial incident in this book, the death of Connor. It's not that it's not well written. It is. It's not that it's not moving. It is. However, I wish it hadn't happened for two reasons: the first of these is that - come on, this is Angel's son we're talking about. His only child. The love of his life. He was prepared to damn his friends to hell for Connor's sake, and now Connor is dead. I can't think of anything worse that could happen to a parent. This should be something that Angel will never, ever, in his whole life get over. It should drastically affect his character. I don't mean I think he should go mad with grief or turn evil or anything like that. After Connor's last words to him, the opposite would probably be true. But if he's being true to the character of Angel as I perceive it, he should never, ever recover from it. That being so, I doubt the wisdom of going there. It's just too much, IMO.
The second reason is that the cast of AtS - by which I mean the characters we know and love from the show - seems to be being slowly whittled down. Wesley is a ghost, Fred is dead, Cordelia is dead, Gunn's a vampire and will probably be dead before the story's finished, Gwen's dead, Groo seems to be dead. And now Connor. At this rate, there'll be no one left except Angel himself (which would be my cue to walk away, because without those other characters and Spike, my interest will drop off sharply), and comics only characters like Spider are no more replacements for those beloved show characters than Satsu or Renee or any of the boring, interchangeable baby Slayers in season 8 could ever replace Ethan Rayne.
That all being said, I do like the comic. I very much like Spike's contribution to it (the first time since his scene with Wesley way back), and the art is great.
8 out of 10.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 12:36 am (UTC)I did, however, like (in the sense of admiring it aesthetically) the move of killing Connor. You're right, of course, that it's just too much for Angel. Connor really is the love of Angel's life. But I think it's precisely because in some important ways he DID damn the world to hell for Connor's sake that he was never going to get to keep Connor. Connor's death in season 4 would have been a terrible tragedy. But it was an inescapable one. That's why it took such extreme measures to try to escape it. But since nothing after the mind wipe was "real" it seems like it just HAD to be undone; but the price of undoing it would be Connor. In some sort of karmic balance sense.
You are right, of course that it's very hard to think about how Angel's story continues. His desperation about Connor, the desperation that led him to such deeply questionable choices tells us that Angel's whole project is somehow centered on Connor. The loss of one's center changes everything. I'm not sure that Lynch is up to handling the enormous challenge of capturing Angel in a post-Connor world. He didn't do much with Angel being human which ought to have been much more dramatically pregnant. But while I'm not optimistic about how Lynch will unreel his story from here, I have to be pleased that for once he noticed how very high the stakes should have been all along.
(Of course, I would not be surprised if Lynch ends up swerving by having Angel sell his humanity to restore Connor. And yes, that makes it easier to imagine Angel going on. But it kind of destroys the sense of inevitable tragedy that made Angel such an arresting figure and show. But that's the sort of thing I've come to fear from a writer who thinks Lorne could just get his groove back.)
You're bang on about why Spike's memories were added to the anti-Illyria mix. Was surprised the folks at Whedonesque didn't get that.
Hope all's well by you!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 08:21 am (UTC)I've been less present on the boards because I haven't much liked AtF, and because while I think that I will like B8 once the whole picture is revealed, I agree with you that the unfolding is awfully slow.
I've liked bits of season 8 - mostly the bits the people who like all of it don't seem to like, notably the Xander/Dracula stuff, which I thought was hilarious. And while I agree that the overall story might end up being a good one in a technical sense, I have less and less interest in it as time passes and find all the meandering around and the elements Joss has thrown in because it's a comic and he can (like the fairytale creatures and the hardware) very distracting and irritating. A pity, but then I realised a long time ago (when Fray first came out, in fact) that the things that interested Joss about his own shows and the things that interested me were quite different.
As for AtF, I agree it's telling a much less ambitious story but at least it's not taking who knows how many years to do it.
I understand what you're saying about the symmetry in the death of Connor, but I doubt that was what Brian Lynch was going for, and I really doubt the wisdom of negating that wonderful scene in Not Fade Away where Angel tells Connor he'll never die as long as Connor lives (that Connor was, in fact, his Shanshu) for the shock value of killing Connor here. I can't believe that future writers of the AtF comic will want to cope with the full implications of what losing his son should do to Angel's character. So in fact, yes, I would rather Angel did give up his humanity to bring back Connor, even if it does seem like a cop out. As it is, since the Angel/Spike relationship in the comics is far from familial (more like how it was at the beginning of season 5 than the end), killing Connor seems to leave Angel with nothing and no one, since Fred, Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn are already dead.
I think it was a step too far, but we'll see the story isn't quite over yet.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 09:32 am (UTC)The more I think about it, the more I think that AtS just had to end in the alley way -- an epic Shakespearian tragedy with dead bodies all over the place. Angel really was at a dead end. And while I do like Connor, I don't see how it works dramatically for Angel to have purchased Connor's (fake) life at the cost of all the other very real tragedies that occured as a result. Unless that outcome is itself part and parcel of an ending where everyone but Connor ends up dead. But that leaves me with a real ambivalence -- and I'm not sure how ME could possibly have satisfied me. I wanted the story to carry on. But I don't really see how it could carry on in a way that wouldn't diminish the epic tale that had been told. Of course, I was hoping that Joss could pull it off anyway, but that just hasn't been the case. At least there's the consolation that it looks somewhat likely that Spike will live to go on to more stories. And that can't be a bad thing. Hard to imagine a world without Spike.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:00 pm (UTC)I'd certainly be very pleased if Dracula came back, but I'm not expecting it. Weirdly, so far, the two arcs not written by Joss seem closer in tone to the show than the ones Joss has written himself. I suppose this is because, as the originator, he can do what he wants, whereas BKV and Drew Goddard are approaching the material as people who were originally fans, and thus with a great deal more reverence. I find that I don't like this whole storyline being concocted so that Fray can be connected to the 'main' Buffyverse. I don't like Fray - the character or the comic. Looking back, I can see that when Joss wrote it, he deliberately stripped the setting/characters of most references to the wider Buffyverse because he was trying to appeal to a different audience who might not necessarily have watched the show. While that doesn't apply to season 8 (I can't imagine anyone who hasn't watched the show wanting to read it), the Joss-penned parts of the series strike me in the same way.
I don't see the end of AtS in quite the same way as you do. While it certainly has its tragic elements, and it can be interpreted that way, given Angel's actions over the season, I think Joss/Bell/Fury were going for a sort of transcendant moment at the end there, and I tend to think of Angel, Spike, Gunn and Illyria caught in an eternal moment of struggle so that they become as much a symbol of something as four individuals.
At least there's the consolation that it looks somewhat likely that Spike will live to go on to more stories. And that can't be a bad thing. Hard to imagine a world without Spike.
I can't, frankly. If he'd stayed dead after Chosen I'm not sure I would've been back for the final season of AtS, and if he dies in A:AtF, I'm done with the comics. I've said so on IDW. Besides, even if he weren't my favourite, the whittling down of show characters has become so extreme in that title that at this rate, there'll only be Angel left, and AtS was always more than just the title character.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 04:07 am (UTC)I do think it was transcendent, but in a tragic sort of way. Angel really can't overcome himself. He's tried for five seasons but just keeps digging in further. Yet he doesn't give up. The perfect depiction of a tragic hero. Someone who is admirable despite the fact that their story can really only end with lots of dead bodies, none of whom would be dead if the tragic hero hadn't come onto the scene.
Agree, though, that they have a problem seeing the tragic ending through if they plan on continuing the story. It does make it seem more likely that Angel's going to swap out his humanity to save Connor. We'll see.
NFFY was my favorite arc. But I disagree about Joss's stuff. LWH was really quite dense with both references to the past and foreshadowing the way the story was going to unfold. I think Joss worked quite hard on it. The latest arc was quite plot-heavy with all the time travel stuff. But I expect it to take on more weight as we move on. LWH seemed thin at first, too; but it gets thicker with each new issue.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:00 am (UTC)This is true. Poor Angel! Maybe tragic-heroic would be a better description rather than just tragic?
I'm not expecting Connor back myself. Brian Lynch said how much that scene upset him to write, and I don't think he would have been so upset if Connor were coming back two issues later. But who knows?
Re: Joss's arcs in the Buffy comic. Unfortunately, I've got to the stage where I don't care how plot-dense they are. I just don't like them and they seem very far divorced from the show I loved. It's sad, but there it is.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:12 pm (UTC)Heh! Maybe that's why I didn't like it?
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Date: 2008-12-19 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:59 am (UTC)I'm less concerned about Wesley the ghost because if he can be a ghost in hell he can always be brought back some way or another if needed.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:17 pm (UTC)Well, he looks pretty dead. However, this is not only the Buffyverse, it's a comic of the Buffyverse, and in both things dead people coming back is pretty much an everyday event, so it's certainly not impossible that Connor will.
I really don't know what'll happen with Wesley. I've been expecting him to be freed from his contract at the end of A:AtF and wander off to a 'better place,' but who knows? I don't seem to be very good at second-guessing things in this story. For instance, I thought it would be proved that Fred's soul had survived after all and that bits of her really were inside Illyria, but it seems that's not the case. Likewise, people keep saying they saw Connor's death coming, but I didn't.
:is puzzled:
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 09:28 am (UTC)Now I am of the belief that there's nothing to look forward to if you know that no one can ever be happy. Taking away Connor from Angel is too far because it's just not something he can get over.
The Spike/Illyria/Fred connection sounds interesting and even without reading the mini (waiting for the TPB) you know that they were together for awhile. And he and Wesley were the only ones who really bothered spending time with her in season 5.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:35 pm (UTC)People keep saying this but I don't know where they get it from, because I certainly didn't. It never occurred to me in a million years that Connor would die. I thought he was pretty much the last person who would except for Angel himself.
Could you explain what made you think it might happen?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 10:03 am (UTC)This is going to turn out like Hamlet- hero's gone crazy, bodies everywhere and no one is left without blood on their hands. Angel's going to be talking to skulls (cover to this issue with the pikes) and Spike's gonna drown somehow. Be they like Hamlet/Ophelia or Rosencrantz/Guildenstern, Spike and Angel are gonna be the last one's standing, and I hope it's in a shagging sexy slashy capacity... and, you know, neither one of them being dead/evil/crazy would be a bonus. Oh, Lord, I just realized that Spike and Angel are totally Rosencrantz and Guildenstern though they would never agree as to who is who. XD Well, I just cheered myself up a little bit!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:39 pm (UTC)No indeed, and in fact he looks pretty cut up. I love the panel of him kneeling holding Connor in his arms.
I don't think Angel's going to go crazy, though. If he were going to, I think it would have happened at once. We'll see. And - sadly - I'm not expecting anything remotely slashy, though I would very much like to see Angel say something to Spike to show he reciprocates Spike's family feeling towards him, because I haven't seen it yet (partly due to poor art in the previous issue).
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 03:45 pm (UTC)I am so glad of Franco's return. I can't wait to see this issue!
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Date: 2008-12-19 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 10:46 am (UTC)The second reason is that the cast of AtS ... seems to be being slowly whittled down.
I think that's why ATF confuses me - the end of the show, as much as I was kind of dissatisfied with it, was all about abruptness and the fact that it wasn't really an ending at all. The comic seems to have taken that cut-off momentum and be spinning it out until long past the end has come.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:43 pm (UTC)It isn't. Buffy was tired after slaying, fell asleep and dreamed she was back in sort of season 1 (I say sort of because Dawn was in it), during which dream she realised that you can't really go back - which isn't exactly a huge revelation - and that it's no good her warning anyone about the future because that'll change it. Then she woke up.
I loved the end of AtS myself. Didn't think of it as a cliffhanger, but instead as a symbolic moment in which Angel and his friends and Spike became sort of personifications of the heroic struggle against evil.
Erm - or something along those lines anyway.
Having said which, I was happy about the comic because it meant more Spike, which I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get in season 8.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 03:02 pm (UTC)What a shocker. You mean Buffy's no longer 16? *rolls eyes* It may be just my love for S7 showing through, but I can't help but feel like if she went back there there might have actually been something to say. I mean, Buffy's been unable to go back to S1 ever since say the first episode of S2...
Didn't think of it as a cliffhanger, but instead as a symbolic moment in which Angel and his friends and Spike became sort of personifications of the heroic struggle against evil.
It's probably exactly along those lines - which is why it seems a bit odd to go back on it now. (And also another reason why I was dissastified with it - it felt like a simplification when the whole series had been about how complicated it was to 'fight evil'. It was a bit like Chosen, where suddenly Slayerdom became a metaphor for straightforward female power, no strings attached, despite the fact we'd had seven years of it growing more and more complicated than that.)
More Spike is always good. But Angel!Spike was never quite the way I remembered him, and comics!Spike isn't really the same either.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 04:12 pm (UTC)This is true, though there've been times in his solo series when Comics Spike has been quite close.
I know what you mean about the finales reducing all the complex threads down to a rather simplified single issue. I think Chosen is a far worse culprit for doing this, however, because everyone knew BtVS was going to end and it still happened. AtS was cancelled very late in the season and I think they managed the finale pretty well in the circumstances.
I wasn't really left wanting with it, in spite of the fact that some very troubling aspects of Angel's behavious were rather swept under the carpet.
I even think Chosen works, but I wish Buffy's plan hadn't been quite such a daft one.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 09:51 pm (UTC)Anyway anyway, I suppose AtS did do rather well with the time it had, though of course you're right that Angel's behaviour was very much swept under the rug.
Of course, I think at least some of my dissatisfaction comes from the fact I didn't want my shows to end. I'm not sure I could ever have been 100% happy... ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:04 am (UTC)Of course, I think at least some of my dissatisfaction comes from the fact I didn't want my shows to end. I'm not sure I could ever have been 100% happy... ;)
There is that.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 02:56 pm (UTC)And interestingly, the spoiler splash page for the next issue shows at least two characters whom we saw getting thoroughly killed - Burge and Non - alive and well. Which makes me suspect that a big red reset button is looming up in the near future...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 06:40 pm (UTC)As to AtF - I have to confess, I'm a bit shocked. But I won't be surprised if the next quasi-season will be dedicated to bringing Connor back.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:10 am (UTC)I don't think the Buffy comic was conceived as an attempt to greenlight the original animated show, but more as a tribute to what could have been (which I am probably the only person in the fandom to think, thank God it never came to anything). Mind you, apparently, Scott Allie has been talking about the possibility of the Buffy comic being made into a cartoon - which again, I hope won't happen. I don't want a new generation being introduced to the show through this load of old tripe.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 06:48 pm (UTC)Sort of mixed feelings, really. It's a beautiful piece, but in the long run, it doesn't make any sense. Lately I feel like the writers weren't watching the same end of s5 that I was. Granted, the *beginning* of s5 was pretty important, but all those resolutions that happened end of series really seem to either be unraveled here or ignored. The idea that Angel would kill his son in any sense... is quite disturbing.
One thing is certain--Joss is killing off *way* too many characters. It's over done, and in fact, a little boring. It seems like he's cheapening death by using it for shock value so often. After this, who's left? Wesley, Lorne, Spike and Illyria?
Gah.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:15 am (UTC)I was expecting Gunn. Half of me still clings to the belief that Lynch wouldn't kill Spike, or that Fox would say he couldn't - what with Spike being one of the most popular characters in the 'verse, but then I thought he wouldn't kill Connor either, because he was Angel's son, so what do I know?
The idea that Angel would kill his son in any sense... is quite disturbing.
I don't quite understand what you mean here. Could you explain? It was Gunn who stabbed Connor, not Angel.
I do know what you mean about season 5 coming unravelled, though. It was inevitable, I suppose, when a sequel was mooted in such a different medium. Or perhaps not inevitable, but I think it's a lot more difficult to deal with some of the more tricky, ambiguous concepts from the show in comics.
And you're right about far too many characters being killed off. If Joss thinks they can be replaced by comics only characters, he's kidding himself. No way.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:55 am (UTC)Still, the idea of Connor's death is still disturbing. I mean, I sort of understand the beauty of the thing, but... well, you said it best. Something like this should, if not destroy Angel, wound him very badly, and given how things are so chaotic in the comic already (vamp!Gunn, ghost!Wesley, Fred dead, Cordy gone, ect), I can't imagine how bad that would get. Then again, in true Joss form, things get worse before they get better, so maybe Connor comes back after all. I was actually liking his character in the comics, especially that whole uncle Spike thing. :D *hopes!*
If Joss thinks they can be replaced by comics only characters, he's kidding himself. No way.
I hope not! I don't have a clue what Joss thinks he's doing, and I don't have enough faith in him to trust him, either. Given the way things are going, I truly do fear for Spike's character as well. Popular though he may be, Joss has killed off well-loved characters before... *ponders*
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 05:40 pm (UTC)Brian Lynch did a Q&A on the Slayalive forum and some Spike hater asked him if it was possible that Spike could die, and Lynch said absolutely it was. I don't know if that was a hint. If it was, I'm done with the comics and I've made no bones about it.
I loved the Uncle Spike thing too. I can see far more reasons for keeping Connor alive than for killing him. :sigh: