Buffy season 8...

[shadowkat]

Picked up the latest Buffy issue today from my neighborhood comic shop - Rocketship, which is a pleasure to visit. It's designed more like an art gallery meets book store than your traditional comic shop. No dusty bins of old comics. Everything clearly displayed. Framed underground comics on the walls. With a chair in the corner. I can actually enter it without fear of having an allergy attack.

I ended up reading it while watching The Office (which was a hoot and a half) and 30 Rock (not as funny as usual - I think it had something to do with the added length, situation comedies do not fair well if they are drawn out too long, I've discovered. )

Mixed feelings regarding the issue. Haven't read anyone else's reviews as of yet, so this is my unaffected opinion - in that I haven't a clue what anyone else thought. I think reading others views of something before I offer my own - will often affect how I write it.



Not sure what Whedon is up to here. But he clearly plans to address the Angel/Buffy/Spike triangle of doom up front. My hunch is: Whedon will side-step the issue again, and more or less state she loves them both just differently. Either that or establish Angel is her one true love who she can never have - so as a result both characters won't ever move on or *truly* love anyone else - if he does that, then he's more or less fallen into a gothic romance by Laurell K. Hamilton or maybe Nabokov's Lolita meets Xenia Warrior Princess. Can't quite decide which. I'm admittedly biased. I want Buffy with either Xander, Spike, Faith or by her lonesome. Angel? I think his true love is either Spike or Darla. Can't quite decide which. Okay mostly joking there.

The gist? Evil Amy puts Buffy under a spell, so she's in a perpetual nightmare, and can only be woken by true love's kiss. Meanwhile the evil dead are climbing the castle walls. Xander's comments to Amy are priceless and quite funny. I adore Xander. "So, let me get this straight, it can't be a friend who loves her...it has to be someone who is passionately in love with her, and she doesn't have to love them back?" (Well, you could fix that pretty easily - just call up Angel or Spike - assuming of course this isn't taking place after NFA and they aren't dead or worse. And well that they know Spike is alive, which the jury is still out on. Problem with comic books is you never know when the stupid things are taking place in the time line. This is how writers get away with all sorts of weird stuff.) Xander's reaction to the evil dead? "Man, you're really pulling out all the classics on this one Amy." Hee.

The nightmare kiss scene with Xander was a tad confusing - I'm not quite sure when Buffy began dreaming...my guess before the conversation with Xander. Which means some of that bit, which she wasn't privy too, must have happened before she went into dream state?

Found it funny and enlightening. Yep, always figured part of Xander and Buffy's problem was they are both attracted to monsters, because they believe they are monsters themselves and fear destroying those that they are with. Can we say parental issues? Xander is attracted to Buffy because he knows he can't physically hurt her, he won't ever be his father with her. Buffy is not attracted to Xander because she fears she will hurt him, and she's attracted to Spike and Angel because she knows she can't hurt them, that they are equally matched. Plus they are older and in some ways probably represent her unresolved issues regarding her own father and his abandonment of her.

The main reason Buffy and Angel have had problems since S2, is now Buffy believes she can and will destroy Angel just as Angel believes he can and will destroy Buffy - after all that's more or less what happened in Season 2 - so they can't trust themselves with one another or for that matter trust one another period. She can't trust that Angel won't become the evil Angelus and destroy her entire world as he attempted to do and almost accomplished and Angel can't trust that Buffy won't send him to hell. Sort of takes the whole notion of star-crossed to the extreme. Those two get together? The world ends. Or we all die of boredom a la Veronica Mars S3. It's complicated and very psychological. Whedon likes psychological issues - sometimes I think he's a frustrated psychology major, since he seems to dwell on them more than anything else. Whedon's characters spend more time contemplating their own and each others navels than any superheroes I've come across to be honest - which may explain why I enjoy them.

Then there's Dawn. I'm enjoying Dawn. Even though some of the lines regarding her seem odd.
"The feminine hygiene product called Kenny"??? Uhm okay. Maybe my brain is just too fried to read this? But her talk with Xander - was great.

Also enjoyed Giles...even if we saw far too little of him. Whedon seems to use Giles sparingly for some reason. Giles struggling with the tables being turned, now slayers are in the majority, with watchers in the minority.

The central mystery is intriguing. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Amy's boyfriend is a sewn together Caleb. I *really* hope I'm wrong about that. If Spike hadn't ended up on Angel, I would have been worried it was him.



Okay must go to bed now.

Comments

Re: Pt 2

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes. The comics are split into segments or mini series arcs. Whedon is writing the first 6 or 8 issues. Then Brian K. Vauhn takes over and writes a six comic arc for Faith - including the same characters, with Faith journeying from Cleveland to England and it's supposed to be very dark, since that's Vahn's style. Next up I think is Espenson and Goodard.
Each arc will focus on a different character. It will run for 30 issues.

Then Whedon is co-writing/co-helming this summer an Angel S6 with Brian Lynch, who is currently writing some amazing Spike comics - Spike:Asylum
and Spike:Shadow Puppets - the art in those puts the above comic to shame.
It's *really* good and the writing - perfect. Lynch nails the noir aspects of the Angelverse.

People keep saying Spike had no father. How do you know? It's never really stated one way or the other. He could have had one and the guy just wasn't around very much or died before his mother did. His mother was hardly young and was sick with TB, dying from it. More than likely his father did as well. We aren't told. Outside of that one quibble, I agree with your analysis of Spike.

I also agree - one of the reasons I read Whedon is I like the psychological analysis. Am a frustrated psychology major myself...sometimes I think. Stories that focus on the psyche's of their characters or explore the psychological bits - intrigue me more than those that don't. Yep, I Could write reams on both Angel and Spike (wait, I already have, haven't I? LOL!).

No, I like the comics more or less. Have really low expectations...which helps. Sorry if any of this came off snarky, been irritible today. It was a good analysis - I enjoyed reading it.

Re: Pt 2

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) We've written a lot, but there's more to write, lol.

Yes, I have pretty low expectations too, simply because comics are so short.

About Spike, I assume his father hasn't been around for a while because Spike is so close to his mother. Of course he'll have had a father in the social circles he moved in. I like the idea that he died of tb, that makes sense, but who knows? But you're right, that's just an assumption that I haven't thought about a great deal. It's worth figuring out, though.

Re: Pt 2

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping the writers will reveal it at some point.

My theory? I think he had a father and possibly a few siblings. Just because he's devoted to his mother, does not mean the others don't exist. Whedon after all was completely devoted to his mother, a real "momma's" boy and had a couple of brothers and a father.

Also Angel - remember had two parents, but we get almost no information on his mother. She's barely seen or referenced. Any more than Wesely's is for that matter. He also had siblings. We only see his little sister who names him. His focus was on pleasing his father - so we dwell mainly on that.
Whedon sort of split the two issues between Spike and Angel. Spike = Mother issues. Angel = Father issues. But at the same times, did explore via their relationships with other characters - mother, sibling, father issues. Their relationships with each other - Dru and Darla - are very telling and the fact that both vampires stayed in that group as long as they did does reveal something.

So I think his father could have done one of the following:
1. Died of a disease or even abroad - it is the Victorian Age, he could have been an officer in India for all we know. Or died of TB for that matter - which would have been ironic.
2. Divorced his wife and married someone else - also possible during the Victorian Age. And fits what happened to Buffy. Buffy after all had a father - he just left her.
3. Just left.

As for sibilings?
They could have died of disease. They may not exist (we don't know - nothing concrete on that). Or they could be much older and elsewhere. If brothers - would make sense they aren't around.

Re: Pt 2

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

And sisters could have married and left home. In fact, men who grow up surrounded by sisters tend to feel very at home around women, and understand them better than men without sisters. Sisters wouldn't change the dynamic between Spike and his mother, who is dependent on him in many ways.

If I remember correctly, one had to apply to the government (state religion, after all) to get permission to divorce, and that would have been a great scandal. Anne didn't strike me as strong enough to do that. Of course her husband could have just left her, as men often did in those times. And that might explain why Anne clung so much to Spike, better than death even. Plus Spike's reaction to the idea that Giles was his father was very negative. He assumed Giles was going through a mid-life crisis, complete with shiny car and young girlfriend. His father could have gone to India as an officer or to run a tea plantation or work for the British governemt there, or ru noff to Paris with an opera singer, for all we know, lol. Or just died of a disease. Based on his reaction to Angelus, I'm guessing Spike didn't have brothers, though. He was very enamoured of Angelus' manliness, and that might mean he wasn't accustomed to having a man to look up to. (Pure specualtion,of course.)

Re: Pt 2

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

What you stated above seems to be the general consensus. Most if not the majority of Spike fanfic writers and essayists have determined he had sisters (possibly three - no idea why that number) and a father who either left them or died.

There is evidence in the series that leads one to believe this was the case. His relationship with both Dawn and Willow. How he handles women. Men raised with sisters - tend to be better with women for some reason or more comfortable with them, I've discovered. Also it fits with the fact that Buffy got involved with Spike after Dawn's entrance into the plot. Whedon has a tendency to like to parallel character relationships.

So I think you're theory above is probably what happened.