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Spike comic review and Buffy comics - too many artists/writers spoil the plot...
I picked up issue 3 of the Spike comics. I got the Urru cover, they had one issue of the Jenny cover left - priced at 10$, which I passed on. Because, really don't care that much.
The issue I bought was $3.99 (yes, the Spike comics are one dollar more than the Buffy ones...which is odd. But also explains a lot. They also sell out really quickly, while the Buffy comics don't sell out at all - not because one is more popular, so much as the comic stores order more of one than the other.)
At the store - the two comic book shop gals, the tall thin one who likes me and the plump goth gal with multiple body piercings and purple hair who hates me were discussing She Hulk. Or rather how oddly she had been drawn and potential casting for a film version. They said she was too busty, She Hulk isn't busty, she's more athletic in build, more like Cate Blanchett - who they think would be fantastic in the role. (Hey if Iron Man can be Robert Downey, Jr, The Hulk - Edward Norton, why can't She Hulk by Cate Blanchett?)
Found what they said to be interesting - since it is an excellent commentary on how poorly men draw the female form in comic books.Nicola Zanni apparently has taken over for Franco Urru until Stephen Mooney can take over full time. And well, if you didn't like how Franco Urru drew Drusilla or women, you're going to hate what Nicola does, let's put it this way - at least Urru's Drusilla sort of resembled Drusilla. Nicola's doesn't. Like most male comic book artists - he sucks at drawing women realistically. Dru doesn't look like Dru at all. Actually she looks a bit like...Beck or maybe Gwen. Nicola makes Jeanty like Micheangelo (not that Micheangelo ever drew comic books) in comparison. Oh well, at least he's doing the whole thing, as opposed to half of it like in issue 2 - which confused me. Note to comic book editors - switching artists in an action comic book without warning is jarring to the reader. Don't do it. (IDW likes to do it a lot. At least with First Night - they did it to show different points of view. Here, they do it because Urru jumped ship, which I'm beginning to think I should do as well.)
Okay, is it just me, or have the IDW comics gone a bit down-hill since Whedon poked his nose into the mix and sat down with Brian Lynch to plot out Angel After the Fall? I say this, because I rather enjoyed Spike : Asylum and Spike: Shadow Puppets. But after Whedon got involved, the story has...well lost something. Maybe it's just me. Generally speaking I liked After the Fall, well enough, I just found it to be a bit old hat in places and rather sentimental in others. Didn't surprise me, so much as left me feeling...a bit...meh. Feel exactly the same way about the Buffy comics that I felt about the Angel comics...and now the Spike comics, disappointed.
Both comics have a similar problem - they've changed creators in mid-stream. Buffy keeps shuffling writers around, often with no real notice ahead of time, it's gotten to the point that I'm not sure who is writing the damn things. While on Spike - they are shuffling the artists around with no real notice. Angel's worse - there they shuffle the writers and artists. Folks? You can't do that in a comic book. Okay, you can, you can do whatever you damn real please - comics are basically male romance serials like daytime soap operas are female romance serials, although both genders watch and read both, but the powers that be (think evil marketing/advertising people) see comics as targeting male readers and soaps as targeting female watchers. Both are horrifically plotted, and often make no logical sense, and both like to shuffle writers, actors, and/or artists around - with the view that the audience either won't notice or won't care. Soap operas and comics have fairly tolerant fans. That said, it helps to have a little consistency. The comics that work are the ones that have the same writer and artist all the way through - which granted is a bit hard to accomplish for 40 issues, plus 25 more (S9). They don't pay enough to stay committed to just that - for that long. But Lynch's arc is only eight issues long...there's really no excuse for the change in artists. Three artists to complete an eight issue arc? Come on. It's only eight issues and all you're doing is the pencils. Makes one respect George Jeanty, Karl Moline, and John Cassidy quite a bit - they hung in there for more than 30.
Even if I liked Nicola Zanni's art, and it isn't that bad to be honest, Spike looks like Spike, and everything else more or less works. It's just the women who are off. If this is how they are drawing Dru, I can't wait to see what they draw Willow (being sarcastic here) (Willow is actually amongst the easier of the characters to draw - due to certain distinctive facial features and hair coloring). Also the coloring is off - Dru does not have red hair, her hair is pitch black, here it appears to be auburn. We may not be able to tell Dru and Willow apart - oh that's going to be fun. But anyhow, even if I liked Zanni's art, I'd still be annoyed by the abrupt change in styles. Not sure what happened exactly - except Urru took off for "personal" reasons.
So, no, not crazy about the change in artists.
For comparison purposes? Check out Fray - written entirely by Joss Whedon and drawn entirely by Karl Moline, also the Astonishing X-Men written entirely by Whedon and drawn entirely by John Cassidy. Neither arc had any changes in writers or artists. While both had problems here and there, from a comic book perspective? They more or less worked. I cared about the characters. The plot made sense, generally speaking. Yes, the whole Danger Room bit and magic bullet bit in Astonishing caused quite a bit of eye-rolling, but hey, comic book, you have to be a bit lenient. It still made sense, point A linked to point B. You could follow the story, without hunting down a rosetta stone to interpret it. And every plot-line was wrapped up and completed. The reason? Simple, the story-tellers stayed the same throughout. The problem with collaborations, having participated in one, is that everybody has their own take on the enterprise. While in prime-time tv this isn't that big an issue - because the show-runner tends to run the show, and is physically present on a daily basis to bop someone in the head if they step out of line, plus - hey, you have actors who remember and do the same thing. In comics - people usually talk by email. And there's well less supervision. So more chaos. Having attempted to write a story by "email" - I know whereof I speak. Our plot did pretty much what the plot in the Whedon's Buffy comics is doing meandering, jumping around, and not making much sense. Although, oddly, ours made more sense than his did. But that's only because our leader was incredibly anal and edited the whole thing before it went online, and well, we didn't have quite so many characters or writers. Plus all the writers involved were in on the plot-line, helped co-plot it, and agreed on each and every plot-point. [Example - one writer wanted to put Angel and Spike in dresses. Two of the writers hated the idea of Angel in a dress and thought it was out of character. We compromised and agreed to let Spike be in a dress and the Spike fans wrote it - I know, because I was one of them.)
The problem I see emerging with both IDW and Dark Horses endeavors is the left and right hand aren't communicating that well. There's a disconnect...which pops up in the comics. I see it in this issue, and I see it in the Dark Horse comics. As if some of the people involved have no clue what is going on and are well, bluffing their way through.
That said? Yes, I laughed at Lynch's writing. I share his sense of humor. But, it felt off to me.
It's felt off since he sat down with Whedon, almost as if Whedon told him something and he's felt the need to incorporate that in the comics? I know that he met with Whedon and Dark Horse before doing this arc - and this arc feels off as well, not helped by the fact that he has to incorporate stuff from Willingham and Armstrong. (See - another example of how too many writers spoil the plot - a play on the old too many cooks spoil that pot.)
So Spike issue 3 may well suffer from the same syndrom Buffy issue 39 is suffering from...too many different people with different views working on this thing.
In comics - which share more in common with books than tv shows, medium wise, it works far better if there's one writer and one artist, not a revolving door. Here - we do have one writer, but...this writer has had to please too many back-seat drivers. He wrote the initial story - Angel after the Fall - but he did it with well Whedon as a somewhat distracted back seat driver occassionally making cracks about how he needs to go right at the next turn not left, like he intended. Then, he left, and Armstrong quickly followed by Lynch then followed by Willingham and Williams...that's what? Three new writers - each with contradictory takes adding to the mix. Lynch comes back with a great idea for an unlimited arc - possibly 12 maybe 20 issues, and wham, the rights get snagged by Dark Horse - so his arc is truncated to 8 issues, and he's told to meet with Dark Horse and Whedon to find out how to meld his plot arc into the S8 plot arc. This means he has to rewrite his story to fit Whedon's vision of the character, as well as what everyone else came up with. Be like leaving your soup, only to come back and find out that someone added a new spice to it - one that changed the whole soup.
Yet, this is actually not as bad as what they did with Buffy. Buffy had at last count eight to nine writers...possibly ten if you include Allie. All with quite divergent and at times contradictory takes on the series and story. None of them sat down with each other and hammered out the plot or discussed the characters (except for Allie and Whedon, but Allie was acting as the editor so he sort of had to be involved), nor did any of them know who Twilight was (outside of three Brad Meltzer, Whedon and Allie), nor did any (except Whedon and Allie) know where the story was headed. Meltzer had some idea, but was not really that involved in the pre-Twilight arc or the post bits. So basically this is a collaborative writing enterprise with 3/4 of the writers operating in the dark regarding plot and general character arcs. I can understand why Brian K. Vaughn stated somewhat cryptically that this was the last time he would work on another guy's comic book series, he'd stick with his own from now on. Imagine writing a chapter of a story and being kept in the dark on major plot points - such as who the villains are and what the climatic point is. The fact that Jane Espenson had no idea where the story was going or who Twilight was - when she wrote Retreat was inexcusable. We found out when she did.
Granted serialized action comics like soap operas have a tendency to be so loosely written that predicting where they will go next is a bit like trying to read tea leaves. They can go any number of directions...the writers have no clue, they are making it up as they go and often scrap plot arcs that don't appear to be working. Watching a soap or reading a serial comic can often feel like watching writers throw jello at a wall to see what sticks. It's only fun if you don't invest yourself too much in the enterprise and well stay spoiled. Spoilers are imperative in these situations...partly because they aren't always that reliable (so you most likely will be surprised anyway) and partly because when they are - you can see if you want to hang in there or jump, because the writer has clearly gone into bizarro land and has no idea what he or she is doing.
Yeah, I know I went off on tangent. Back to the review...not much to say really.
Spike is in Las Vegas. He's fighting WRH and some guy WRH hired, named Johnny, who claims that Spike stole his soul or has his soul. Johnny is a bit of a sociopath - who has killed lots of vamps and lots of humans - so maybe he is soulless? Who knows? WRH has also hired a demon that took over Jeremy (one of the humans that Spike befriended and saved, well until Illyria killed him, in After the Fall - who yes, came back to life - because nothing in After the Fall actually happened, although everyone remembers it happening and Angel is a hero - sort of the reverse of the Buffy comics, where none of the evil things Angel did matters, because even though it happened and the people died (we don't know them and shouldn't care, and the only we should care about, we shouldn't hold against Angel because it wasn't really Angel, even though Angel chose to be possessed knowing full well it would happen and facilitated it, it just wasn't him, sigh. I hate how these serialized stories retcon what characters have done in order to keep them likable. ) WRH has also kidnapped Drusilla (as shown during the Dru mini-series that was drawn far more effectively and with Juliet Landau's cooperation, which may explain why it was better written and drawn. I'm beginning to think Landau should be the back-seat driver on these things not Whedon et al.) Beck and the Fish named George (as opposed to Wanda) have rescued Dru from the WRH - or rather just from Beck's tendency to start fires. Dru was actually doing quite well on her own - she kills the demon inside Jeremy or his psychic form and his body guards and well everyone else keeping her captive. No it doesn't look like Dru, but Lynch makes her at least sound like Dru - so we can tell. Plus they use her name - which is always a good indicator. (Note to Dark Horse - you should try doing that more.) George the Fish...decides upon Beck's advice (because let's face it Dru is weird), to give Dru the pyschic look see, which promptly renders George unconscious. Dru's a bit too much for even George to handle. Meanwhile...or elsewhere.. Spike gets saved again by Groo (not that he really needs any saving this round, except maybe from the giant bugs Groo brings with him. WRH does not play fair). And as a result Johnny leaves before Spike and by extension us, can get any answers (I hate it when they do that -- so contrived.) Spike, Groo, and Cordy the Dragon which were apparently sent by Angel to help Spike...( which is a bit ironic, considering Angel tries to do Spike in himself a few months later in the Buffy comics. Apparently the whole killing bit, Angel wants to reserve for himself? I mean why let WRH have all the fun, when he can try to burn Spike to a crisp or drop him from five thousand feet...whatever works, oh wait, that wasn't Angel...that was Twilight. Never mind. Sigh - whoever came up with the bright idea of linking the Angel/Spike comics to the Buffy ones, did not think this through.) Angel, buddy, you couldn't come up with someone less irritating than Groo? Spike, to give him credit, agrees with me. I knew there was a reason he was my favorite character. (Although am glad it's not Illyria - not sure we could tell her apart from Beck and Drusilla.) Then, finally, at the very end...Spike runs smack into Drusilla, who Beck has saved. Spike's not quite as happy to see Dru as Dru is to see Spike - who embraces him warmly - so warmly that Beck is less than pleased. Beck meanwhile is beginning to regret her decision to save Dru and not just burn her to a cinder. Now why Beck and George couldn't figure out Dru was a vampire - I'll never know. You're guess is as good as mine.
That's the plot. I could I suppose try to figure out what theme Lynch is going for, but I seriously doubt Lynch is that deep. I think he's basically exploring Spike by way of the character John Constantine from the Hellblazer series. And having a bit of fun with it. The dialogue is funny in places and the story makes sense and engages you. It's not great, but it's not bad either.
Don't really know whether to recommend the series or not, mostly because I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it. Most likely will if only to see what Lynch plans on doing with Dru and Willow (the next major guest star to pop up in the comics).
It's probably worth noting that I appear to be rapidly losing interest in the comics, the Angel/Buffy verse and all things Whedon related. I'm getting bored. I don't know why exactly. Been struggling to figure it out. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of the same old, same old? Want something new, something that surprises me, and entertains, as opposed to merely disappoints and feels like well watching the same old magic trick even though the magician promises it won't be.
After writing all that? Want to explain one thing - we're going to see this differently guys. Appreciation of entertainment is subjective not objective and it often tends to be emotional. Arguing about such things as personal taste is a bit like telling someone who hates Granny Smith apples (because they are too tart) and loves Golden Delicious (because they are sweet) that they are wrong and Granny Smith have more substance and should be the apples to use in pie. (Actually I think the popular opinion is McIntosh). Also we think differently - what bugs me in the comics, probably doesn't bug someone else. You shouldn't judge someone's tastes primarily on whether or not they love or hate the Buffy comics or a particular novel for that matter. That's silly. People love or hate what they love or hate. This is basically my round-about way of telling you that just because I have issues with the things, doesn't mean I expect you to. Just not really all that interested in arguing about it. Find the prospect a tad head-ache inducing to be honest. So if you vehementally disagree with me, let's just politely agree to respectfully disagree. Save us both some needless blood pressure spikage (comics just aren't worth it...but I don't think politics are either...human rights however, a whole other story.).;-)
Reading The Hunger Games now - about twenty pages in, I think - hard to tell on the Kindle - it says 2% not how many pages. But it is engrossing and I rather like Katniss. Quite a bit in fact. I see Natalie Portman from Luc Besson's The Professional or maybe someone like that. Someone tough as nails. Trying to think of a young actress who fits that...maybe Chloe Mertz from Kickass - although she may be too young. By the way - so far? Hunger Games is a lot better written than Twilight. You can tell Suzanne Collins actually has some training in the craft and experience. She doesn't over do on the adverbs (I really wanted to kick Meyers for that). And the characters feel real and not over-done. In some respects it reminds me of the novel I loved when I was that age - The Girl Who Owned A City -which I bought at a school book fair and adored. (I loved school book fairs as a child - best thing ever. Yes, bookworm. Ecletic and moody book worm, who reads every genre on the planet. I dabble in them all, expert in none.)
The issue I bought was $3.99 (yes, the Spike comics are one dollar more than the Buffy ones...which is odd. But also explains a lot. They also sell out really quickly, while the Buffy comics don't sell out at all - not because one is more popular, so much as the comic stores order more of one than the other.)
At the store - the two comic book shop gals, the tall thin one who likes me and the plump goth gal with multiple body piercings and purple hair who hates me were discussing She Hulk. Or rather how oddly she had been drawn and potential casting for a film version. They said she was too busty, She Hulk isn't busty, she's more athletic in build, more like Cate Blanchett - who they think would be fantastic in the role. (Hey if Iron Man can be Robert Downey, Jr, The Hulk - Edward Norton, why can't She Hulk by Cate Blanchett?)
Found what they said to be interesting - since it is an excellent commentary on how poorly men draw the female form in comic books.Nicola Zanni apparently has taken over for Franco Urru until Stephen Mooney can take over full time. And well, if you didn't like how Franco Urru drew Drusilla or women, you're going to hate what Nicola does, let's put it this way - at least Urru's Drusilla sort of resembled Drusilla. Nicola's doesn't. Like most male comic book artists - he sucks at drawing women realistically. Dru doesn't look like Dru at all. Actually she looks a bit like...Beck or maybe Gwen. Nicola makes Jeanty like Micheangelo (not that Micheangelo ever drew comic books) in comparison. Oh well, at least he's doing the whole thing, as opposed to half of it like in issue 2 - which confused me. Note to comic book editors - switching artists in an action comic book without warning is jarring to the reader. Don't do it. (IDW likes to do it a lot. At least with First Night - they did it to show different points of view. Here, they do it because Urru jumped ship, which I'm beginning to think I should do as well.)
Okay, is it just me, or have the IDW comics gone a bit down-hill since Whedon poked his nose into the mix and sat down with Brian Lynch to plot out Angel After the Fall? I say this, because I rather enjoyed Spike : Asylum and Spike: Shadow Puppets. But after Whedon got involved, the story has...well lost something. Maybe it's just me. Generally speaking I liked After the Fall, well enough, I just found it to be a bit old hat in places and rather sentimental in others. Didn't surprise me, so much as left me feeling...a bit...meh. Feel exactly the same way about the Buffy comics that I felt about the Angel comics...and now the Spike comics, disappointed.
Both comics have a similar problem - they've changed creators in mid-stream. Buffy keeps shuffling writers around, often with no real notice ahead of time, it's gotten to the point that I'm not sure who is writing the damn things. While on Spike - they are shuffling the artists around with no real notice. Angel's worse - there they shuffle the writers and artists. Folks? You can't do that in a comic book. Okay, you can, you can do whatever you damn real please - comics are basically male romance serials like daytime soap operas are female romance serials, although both genders watch and read both, but the powers that be (think evil marketing/advertising people) see comics as targeting male readers and soaps as targeting female watchers. Both are horrifically plotted, and often make no logical sense, and both like to shuffle writers, actors, and/or artists around - with the view that the audience either won't notice or won't care. Soap operas and comics have fairly tolerant fans. That said, it helps to have a little consistency. The comics that work are the ones that have the same writer and artist all the way through - which granted is a bit hard to accomplish for 40 issues, plus 25 more (S9). They don't pay enough to stay committed to just that - for that long. But Lynch's arc is only eight issues long...there's really no excuse for the change in artists. Three artists to complete an eight issue arc? Come on. It's only eight issues and all you're doing is the pencils. Makes one respect George Jeanty, Karl Moline, and John Cassidy quite a bit - they hung in there for more than 30.
Even if I liked Nicola Zanni's art, and it isn't that bad to be honest, Spike looks like Spike, and everything else more or less works. It's just the women who are off. If this is how they are drawing Dru, I can't wait to see what they draw Willow (being sarcastic here) (Willow is actually amongst the easier of the characters to draw - due to certain distinctive facial features and hair coloring). Also the coloring is off - Dru does not have red hair, her hair is pitch black, here it appears to be auburn. We may not be able to tell Dru and Willow apart - oh that's going to be fun. But anyhow, even if I liked Zanni's art, I'd still be annoyed by the abrupt change in styles. Not sure what happened exactly - except Urru took off for "personal" reasons.
So, no, not crazy about the change in artists.
For comparison purposes? Check out Fray - written entirely by Joss Whedon and drawn entirely by Karl Moline, also the Astonishing X-Men written entirely by Whedon and drawn entirely by John Cassidy. Neither arc had any changes in writers or artists. While both had problems here and there, from a comic book perspective? They more or less worked. I cared about the characters. The plot made sense, generally speaking. Yes, the whole Danger Room bit and magic bullet bit in Astonishing caused quite a bit of eye-rolling, but hey, comic book, you have to be a bit lenient. It still made sense, point A linked to point B. You could follow the story, without hunting down a rosetta stone to interpret it. And every plot-line was wrapped up and completed. The reason? Simple, the story-tellers stayed the same throughout. The problem with collaborations, having participated in one, is that everybody has their own take on the enterprise. While in prime-time tv this isn't that big an issue - because the show-runner tends to run the show, and is physically present on a daily basis to bop someone in the head if they step out of line, plus - hey, you have actors who remember and do the same thing. In comics - people usually talk by email. And there's well less supervision. So more chaos. Having attempted to write a story by "email" - I know whereof I speak. Our plot did pretty much what the plot in the Whedon's Buffy comics is doing meandering, jumping around, and not making much sense. Although, oddly, ours made more sense than his did. But that's only because our leader was incredibly anal and edited the whole thing before it went online, and well, we didn't have quite so many characters or writers. Plus all the writers involved were in on the plot-line, helped co-plot it, and agreed on each and every plot-point. [Example - one writer wanted to put Angel and Spike in dresses. Two of the writers hated the idea of Angel in a dress and thought it was out of character. We compromised and agreed to let Spike be in a dress and the Spike fans wrote it - I know, because I was one of them.)
The problem I see emerging with both IDW and Dark Horses endeavors is the left and right hand aren't communicating that well. There's a disconnect...which pops up in the comics. I see it in this issue, and I see it in the Dark Horse comics. As if some of the people involved have no clue what is going on and are well, bluffing their way through.
That said? Yes, I laughed at Lynch's writing. I share his sense of humor. But, it felt off to me.
It's felt off since he sat down with Whedon, almost as if Whedon told him something and he's felt the need to incorporate that in the comics? I know that he met with Whedon and Dark Horse before doing this arc - and this arc feels off as well, not helped by the fact that he has to incorporate stuff from Willingham and Armstrong. (See - another example of how too many writers spoil the plot - a play on the old too many cooks spoil that pot.)
So Spike issue 3 may well suffer from the same syndrom Buffy issue 39 is suffering from...too many different people with different views working on this thing.
In comics - which share more in common with books than tv shows, medium wise, it works far better if there's one writer and one artist, not a revolving door. Here - we do have one writer, but...this writer has had to please too many back-seat drivers. He wrote the initial story - Angel after the Fall - but he did it with well Whedon as a somewhat distracted back seat driver occassionally making cracks about how he needs to go right at the next turn not left, like he intended. Then, he left, and Armstrong quickly followed by Lynch then followed by Willingham and Williams...that's what? Three new writers - each with contradictory takes adding to the mix. Lynch comes back with a great idea for an unlimited arc - possibly 12 maybe 20 issues, and wham, the rights get snagged by Dark Horse - so his arc is truncated to 8 issues, and he's told to meet with Dark Horse and Whedon to find out how to meld his plot arc into the S8 plot arc. This means he has to rewrite his story to fit Whedon's vision of the character, as well as what everyone else came up with. Be like leaving your soup, only to come back and find out that someone added a new spice to it - one that changed the whole soup.
Yet, this is actually not as bad as what they did with Buffy. Buffy had at last count eight to nine writers...possibly ten if you include Allie. All with quite divergent and at times contradictory takes on the series and story. None of them sat down with each other and hammered out the plot or discussed the characters (except for Allie and Whedon, but Allie was acting as the editor so he sort of had to be involved), nor did any of them know who Twilight was (outside of three Brad Meltzer, Whedon and Allie), nor did any (except Whedon and Allie) know where the story was headed. Meltzer had some idea, but was not really that involved in the pre-Twilight arc or the post bits. So basically this is a collaborative writing enterprise with 3/4 of the writers operating in the dark regarding plot and general character arcs. I can understand why Brian K. Vaughn stated somewhat cryptically that this was the last time he would work on another guy's comic book series, he'd stick with his own from now on. Imagine writing a chapter of a story and being kept in the dark on major plot points - such as who the villains are and what the climatic point is. The fact that Jane Espenson had no idea where the story was going or who Twilight was - when she wrote Retreat was inexcusable. We found out when she did.
Granted serialized action comics like soap operas have a tendency to be so loosely written that predicting where they will go next is a bit like trying to read tea leaves. They can go any number of directions...the writers have no clue, they are making it up as they go and often scrap plot arcs that don't appear to be working. Watching a soap or reading a serial comic can often feel like watching writers throw jello at a wall to see what sticks. It's only fun if you don't invest yourself too much in the enterprise and well stay spoiled. Spoilers are imperative in these situations...partly because they aren't always that reliable (so you most likely will be surprised anyway) and partly because when they are - you can see if you want to hang in there or jump, because the writer has clearly gone into bizarro land and has no idea what he or she is doing.
Yeah, I know I went off on tangent. Back to the review...not much to say really.
Spike is in Las Vegas. He's fighting WRH and some guy WRH hired, named Johnny, who claims that Spike stole his soul or has his soul. Johnny is a bit of a sociopath - who has killed lots of vamps and lots of humans - so maybe he is soulless? Who knows? WRH has also hired a demon that took over Jeremy (one of the humans that Spike befriended and saved, well until Illyria killed him, in After the Fall - who yes, came back to life - because nothing in After the Fall actually happened, although everyone remembers it happening and Angel is a hero - sort of the reverse of the Buffy comics, where none of the evil things Angel did matters, because even though it happened and the people died (we don't know them and shouldn't care, and the only we should care about, we shouldn't hold against Angel because it wasn't really Angel, even though Angel chose to be possessed knowing full well it would happen and facilitated it, it just wasn't him, sigh. I hate how these serialized stories retcon what characters have done in order to keep them likable. ) WRH has also kidnapped Drusilla (as shown during the Dru mini-series that was drawn far more effectively and with Juliet Landau's cooperation, which may explain why it was better written and drawn. I'm beginning to think Landau should be the back-seat driver on these things not Whedon et al.) Beck and the Fish named George (as opposed to Wanda) have rescued Dru from the WRH - or rather just from Beck's tendency to start fires. Dru was actually doing quite well on her own - she kills the demon inside Jeremy or his psychic form and his body guards and well everyone else keeping her captive. No it doesn't look like Dru, but Lynch makes her at least sound like Dru - so we can tell. Plus they use her name - which is always a good indicator. (Note to Dark Horse - you should try doing that more.) George the Fish...decides upon Beck's advice (because let's face it Dru is weird), to give Dru the pyschic look see, which promptly renders George unconscious. Dru's a bit too much for even George to handle. Meanwhile...or elsewhere.. Spike gets saved again by Groo (not that he really needs any saving this round, except maybe from the giant bugs Groo brings with him. WRH does not play fair). And as a result Johnny leaves before Spike and by extension us, can get any answers (I hate it when they do that -- so contrived.) Spike, Groo, and Cordy the Dragon which were apparently sent by Angel to help Spike...( which is a bit ironic, considering Angel tries to do Spike in himself a few months later in the Buffy comics. Apparently the whole killing bit, Angel wants to reserve for himself? I mean why let WRH have all the fun, when he can try to burn Spike to a crisp or drop him from five thousand feet...whatever works, oh wait, that wasn't Angel...that was Twilight. Never mind. Sigh - whoever came up with the bright idea of linking the Angel/Spike comics to the Buffy ones, did not think this through.) Angel, buddy, you couldn't come up with someone less irritating than Groo? Spike, to give him credit, agrees with me. I knew there was a reason he was my favorite character. (Although am glad it's not Illyria - not sure we could tell her apart from Beck and Drusilla.) Then, finally, at the very end...Spike runs smack into Drusilla, who Beck has saved. Spike's not quite as happy to see Dru as Dru is to see Spike - who embraces him warmly - so warmly that Beck is less than pleased. Beck meanwhile is beginning to regret her decision to save Dru and not just burn her to a cinder. Now why Beck and George couldn't figure out Dru was a vampire - I'll never know. You're guess is as good as mine.
That's the plot. I could I suppose try to figure out what theme Lynch is going for, but I seriously doubt Lynch is that deep. I think he's basically exploring Spike by way of the character John Constantine from the Hellblazer series. And having a bit of fun with it. The dialogue is funny in places and the story makes sense and engages you. It's not great, but it's not bad either.
Don't really know whether to recommend the series or not, mostly because I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it. Most likely will if only to see what Lynch plans on doing with Dru and Willow (the next major guest star to pop up in the comics).
It's probably worth noting that I appear to be rapidly losing interest in the comics, the Angel/Buffy verse and all things Whedon related. I'm getting bored. I don't know why exactly. Been struggling to figure it out. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of the same old, same old? Want something new, something that surprises me, and entertains, as opposed to merely disappoints and feels like well watching the same old magic trick even though the magician promises it won't be.
After writing all that? Want to explain one thing - we're going to see this differently guys. Appreciation of entertainment is subjective not objective and it often tends to be emotional. Arguing about such things as personal taste is a bit like telling someone who hates Granny Smith apples (because they are too tart) and loves Golden Delicious (because they are sweet) that they are wrong and Granny Smith have more substance and should be the apples to use in pie. (Actually I think the popular opinion is McIntosh). Also we think differently - what bugs me in the comics, probably doesn't bug someone else. You shouldn't judge someone's tastes primarily on whether or not they love or hate the Buffy comics or a particular novel for that matter. That's silly. People love or hate what they love or hate. This is basically my round-about way of telling you that just because I have issues with the things, doesn't mean I expect you to. Just not really all that interested in arguing about it. Find the prospect a tad head-ache inducing to be honest. So if you vehementally disagree with me, let's just politely agree to respectfully disagree. Save us both some needless blood pressure spikage (comics just aren't worth it...but I don't think politics are either...human rights however, a whole other story.).;-)
Reading The Hunger Games now - about twenty pages in, I think - hard to tell on the Kindle - it says 2% not how many pages. But it is engrossing and I rather like Katniss. Quite a bit in fact. I see Natalie Portman from Luc Besson's The Professional or maybe someone like that. Someone tough as nails. Trying to think of a young actress who fits that...maybe Chloe Mertz from Kickass - although she may be too young. By the way - so far? Hunger Games is a lot better written than Twilight. You can tell Suzanne Collins actually has some training in the craft and experience. She doesn't over do on the adverbs (I really wanted to kick Meyers for that). And the characters feel real and not over-done. In some respects it reminds me of the novel I loved when I was that age - The Girl Who Owned A City -which I bought at a school book fair and adored. (I loved school book fairs as a child - best thing ever. Yes, bookworm. Ecletic and moody book worm, who reads every genre on the planet. I dabble in them all, expert in none.)
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And yes, Suzanne Collins does quality writing. I'm currently reading the last installment of Vampire Academy (don't laugh, it is at least a lot better than the title) and while the characters and the plotting is pretty good, the writing seems incredibly rushed. It really shows if a writer takes to two years for a book or 6 months.
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I wanted the last Brian Lynch Spike series to be outstanding so that Spike fans would have a great last story - been rather disappointed thus far -
Drusilla looks like May West on a diet - don't understand why the artist decided to go with this visual treatment - Drusilla was all bones and sheer elegance - matter of fact, Juliet Landau looked to be suffering from anorexia she was so thin.
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And I was rec'd? Cool. Wasn't sure how well that review went down, since barely anyone commented. Goes to show you - that you really can't tell how many people read something by the number of comments you get. (I should know this - considering I rarely comment on people's posts, yet do read them.)
Drusilla looks like May West on a diet - don't understand why the artist decided to go with this visual treatment - Drusilla was all bones and sheer elegance - matter of fact, Juliet Landau looked to be suffering from anorexia she was so thin.
Agreed. She's so badly drawn it's distracting. I don't think Zanni can draw women well - Beck is drawn in a similar manner.
Dru in the series - was incredibly thin, bordering on gaunt, with haunting huge eyes that took up half her face, and pitch blue-black hair. Here - she has tiny eyes, a big roundish face, and
red hair. I'm hoping Mooney does a better job with her, but not holding my breath.
This is so disappointing. Dang comics.
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And reading it on Kindle is great - a)no one knows what I'm reading (love that), and b)it has big print (after the tiny print of Storm, I appreciate the big print. Had Storm of Swords in paperback - hence the tiny print.)