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shadowkat[Quiet weekend, doing very little. Did go to church and got a lovely compliment on my article that was published in the Church newsletter that went out to about 600,000 folks - on Haiti. "I hope that you continue to write for us. Because you really CAN write!" Hmmm. Ponders writing non-fiction. Tomorrow I get to see apt's again - yes back to the frustrating flat hunting. Also laundry. I've been a lazy ass - the most I've accomplished is grocery shopping, cooking, finishing my latest water-color, and telling myself a story. Also watched some telly. Enuf boring personal stuff - off to do the review.]
Spike issue 4: "You Haven't Changed a Bit"
Well, except for the fact that role of Drusilla is now being played by the gal from Ed Wood film Plan 9 from Outer Space, but other than that....
The comic generally speaking is entertaining. That is if you like tongue in cheek self-deprecating snark and can overlook the fact that the part of Drusilla is now being played by Vampiria. I'm guessing Juliet Landau wasn't available? If you thought this didn't matter in comics, which I did, you'd be wrong. Also demonstrates once again the important role the actors played in these stories. And artists for that matter. While Zanni is improving (possibly helped by the fact that Urru isn't doing half the art, thereby making Zanni look bad by the comparison), it's still below par in some respects. (ie. he sucks at action sequences.)
The plot? It's not that complicated, which to be honest is a bit of a relief after reading some of Willingham's Angel and all of Whedon/Allie/Meltzer et al's Buffy comics, whose plots are so convoluted they gave me a migraine or just an attack of the giggles. (Okay maybe not an actual migraine, I am prone to exaggeration on occasion - I admit that. But the attack of the giggles does sound about right - to say that they are ridiculous is an understatement.) Won't go so far as to say it's great or logical or tight, but hey it's a comic book written by a C-list writer and on a little known imprint, what do you expect? Shakespeare, this ain't. It's not even Claremont or Moore for that matter - who I wouldn't exactly describe as tight plotters either, but they have their moments.
Wolfram and Hart ("WRH"), the evil law firm that has been plaguing Angel for about six years now...possibly longer than that, hard to tell what the timeline is exactly in these comic books, has popped up in Las Vegas - after abandoning LA briefly when Angel got LA out of hell. They've set up shop and just in case anyone on Team Angel comes a knocking - they've set up elaborate traps specifically designed to distract them. Spike's distraction consists of Drusilla and some serial killer named John, who blames Spike for the loss of his soul and current condition. Apparently John became a serial killer after he lost his soul, before that he was just your average jerk. According to WRH - "There needs to be a balance, when Spike won his (soul) back...your's had to be taken." (Sigh again with the balance thing. You'd think these writers would learn from each other's mistakes. One of the things that always bugged me in Angel - was the whole bit about two vampires with a soul unbalancing the universe. This made no sense. The more they tried to explain it? The less sense it made. I finally decided it was a ruse conceived by Lindsey and WRH to trick Angel into going after Spike, which of course worked, because we all know that Angel's greatest flaw is his need to be "Special". The boy just does not know how to share. Bad subplot. Only to be succeeded by an even worse subplot in the Buffy comics - where Angel (again) decides that the world is out of balance because there's too many slayers, where there should only be one. Apparently it's not enough for Angel to be "SPECIAL" but the love of his life must be "SPECIAL" too. Clearly this is a Whedon thing, since he repeats the idea in Dollhouse and Firefly - it didn't work for me in those shows either. So, Lynch being a die-hard Whedon fan, decides to borrow this particularly annoying plot device from Whedon. Oh well, it could have been worse I suppose.)
What's my problem with this story thread? Well. First off - why John's soul? Why not Angel's? That would have made more sense. Also why did the demon who Spike won his soul back from - have to take a living person's soul? Is that even possible? Oh vampire just won his soul back, I'm going to randomly choose someone who is alive and grab theirs to replace it in my nifty collection. So what - if a whole cadre of vampires came to the demon, won their souls back, would a whole cadre of humans lose theirs? And what about the curse on Angel - did Willow have to take someone else's soul in order to curse Angel with his? You have to ask these questions folks when you write these types of plots, because your readers will (okay maybe not all your readers..just the insanely analytical ones, but still.)
Alrighty then. This bit admittedly does not quite work logically speaking. Mr. Lynch I suspect, much like his colleagues, Willingham and Whedon, would fail miserably at logical reasoning games. Also not much in the critical thinking department either I suspect.
John, the villian, isn't buying it. (He looks a little like Kevin Smith who played Ares in the Xenia and Hercules series.) Or is that happy with WRH. Apparently he has a thing for Vampira (sorry Drusilla), and doesn't understand why they had to use her to distract Spike, couldn't they have brought in the slayer (meaning Buffy) to mess with Spike's head?
WRH: "The slayer cannot be easily manipulated."
Apparently WRH hasn't been reading the Buffy comics. (or Lynch for that matter).
Anyhow, long story short - Spike and gang had escaped John, almost get flown out of LA by the Grooslaug and Cordy the Dragon - only to hit a barrier (which I somehow knew would pop up - because barriers always pop up for Spike - how else is the writer going to keep him in the fray, the character has this nasty habit of taking off just when things get heated and interesting.) The Good news about the barrier? Groo and the Dragon can go through it. Yes, folks, that means we are rid of them for the rest of the series. YAY! Since they can't get back in, hear or see Spike, or seem to be aware that they lost Team Spike or Team William, whichever you prefer.
So, now sans car, because this happened about 1000 feet in the air...which means the car sort of got destroyed in the fall to the ground, still not quite sure how the rest of them survived. But they did. Let's put it down to comic book physics and move on. They've hitched a ride with some nice tourists to a motel. Because the sun is coming up - and a long walk would result in extra crispy vampires. The tourists look like they need to join the cast of the Greatest Loser. One is named Bill or Willy Styles. (Sigh, apparently Lynch has acquired Whedon's fetish for the name Bill). The other, a woman, of course, doesn't introduce herself. (No, we don't live in a sexist society.)Vampiria Drusilla who has the hots for Spike suggests they hurry because she's discovered he has a hard on and is "ready". (She's practically sitting in his lap in the cramped space.)
They make it to the motel. John breaks out of WRH and goes after Spike. Apparently WRH got more than they bargained for when they hired John and Dru. (Batting a 1000 per usual.) They keep losing people and plate glass windows for that matter. As John states on his way out their compound..."It's no wonder these guys are out business."
A possessed Jeremy (because Dru killed the demon's host body, so he's decided to take up semi-permanent status on Jeremy's) and Beck have a somewhat strained tete-a-tete resulting in Beck lighting a fire circle around him. It's about the likilihood that Spike will abandon her for his ex- Dru.
Spike attempts to contact Angel, can't - no answer. Dru insists talking to him from the shower. So here we have Spike and girl out of the shower scene take 2. Yes, it's staged in a remarkably similar manner to the Buffy comic, except instead of a bunch of boring exposition and a bit of sexual fantasy, we actually get, surprisingly enough, a real discussion. It's not perfect but it's a lot better than what I got in issue 37, so I'm not complaining. I'll take whatever small crumb I can get.
What comes next doesn't quite work or flow. Spike for some reason or other comforts her and hugs her and tells her to soak him in while she can. And I'm thinking, huh? Then he starts to pull himself together, to concentrate on his cigarettes and think it through - how to get out the trap that WRH has placed him in. He needs back-up who to call, so he thinks through the list - Angel? Nah, Gun? Nah, Illyria? Nah, Connor? Nah...Wes? Ghost - doesn't quite work. So decides on to think outside of the box, besides WRH told him they'd come up with something for all the players of TEAM ANGEL (what's with all the Team stuff...has Lynch been spending too much time talking to tween marketing folks?)
So he decides to go with the Witch - Willow.
Hopefully the Willow/Spike interaction will be better than the Dru/Spike reunion and the Buffy/Spike one...so far so good. Spike/Buffy was a yawnfest - 0 character development or evolution but a lot of silly headache inducing exposition that made me wish for the glory days of early Marvel comics,
Spike/Dru - was a snippet or two better...with ACTUAL relationship dialogue and character development, even if it ended in a sort of WTF manner but hey, not bad for a comic book. So...maybe this is good news? Hope springs eternal. (Not that I care that much.)
Overall - a fun read. Nothing fancy. Read better fanfic - but that's been true of all of the comics, lately, so nothing new there.
Spike issue 4: "You Haven't Changed a Bit"
Well, except for the fact that role of Drusilla is now being played by the gal from Ed Wood film Plan 9 from Outer Space, but other than that....
The comic generally speaking is entertaining. That is if you like tongue in cheek self-deprecating snark and can overlook the fact that the part of Drusilla is now being played by Vampiria. I'm guessing Juliet Landau wasn't available? If you thought this didn't matter in comics, which I did, you'd be wrong. Also demonstrates once again the important role the actors played in these stories. And artists for that matter. While Zanni is improving (possibly helped by the fact that Urru isn't doing half the art, thereby making Zanni look bad by the comparison), it's still below par in some respects. (ie. he sucks at action sequences.)
The plot? It's not that complicated, which to be honest is a bit of a relief after reading some of Willingham's Angel and all of Whedon/Allie/Meltzer et al's Buffy comics, whose plots are so convoluted they gave me a migraine or just an attack of the giggles. (Okay maybe not an actual migraine, I am prone to exaggeration on occasion - I admit that. But the attack of the giggles does sound about right - to say that they are ridiculous is an understatement.) Won't go so far as to say it's great or logical or tight, but hey it's a comic book written by a C-list writer and on a little known imprint, what do you expect? Shakespeare, this ain't. It's not even Claremont or Moore for that matter - who I wouldn't exactly describe as tight plotters either, but they have their moments.
Wolfram and Hart ("WRH"), the evil law firm that has been plaguing Angel for about six years now...possibly longer than that, hard to tell what the timeline is exactly in these comic books, has popped up in Las Vegas - after abandoning LA briefly when Angel got LA out of hell. They've set up shop and just in case anyone on Team Angel comes a knocking - they've set up elaborate traps specifically designed to distract them. Spike's distraction consists of Drusilla and some serial killer named John, who blames Spike for the loss of his soul and current condition. Apparently John became a serial killer after he lost his soul, before that he was just your average jerk. According to WRH - "There needs to be a balance, when Spike won his (soul) back...your's had to be taken." (Sigh again with the balance thing. You'd think these writers would learn from each other's mistakes. One of the things that always bugged me in Angel - was the whole bit about two vampires with a soul unbalancing the universe. This made no sense. The more they tried to explain it? The less sense it made. I finally decided it was a ruse conceived by Lindsey and WRH to trick Angel into going after Spike, which of course worked, because we all know that Angel's greatest flaw is his need to be "Special". The boy just does not know how to share. Bad subplot. Only to be succeeded by an even worse subplot in the Buffy comics - where Angel (again) decides that the world is out of balance because there's too many slayers, where there should only be one. Apparently it's not enough for Angel to be "SPECIAL" but the love of his life must be "SPECIAL" too. Clearly this is a Whedon thing, since he repeats the idea in Dollhouse and Firefly - it didn't work for me in those shows either. So, Lynch being a die-hard Whedon fan, decides to borrow this particularly annoying plot device from Whedon. Oh well, it could have been worse I suppose.)
What's my problem with this story thread? Well. First off - why John's soul? Why not Angel's? That would have made more sense. Also why did the demon who Spike won his soul back from - have to take a living person's soul? Is that even possible? Oh vampire just won his soul back, I'm going to randomly choose someone who is alive and grab theirs to replace it in my nifty collection. So what - if a whole cadre of vampires came to the demon, won their souls back, would a whole cadre of humans lose theirs? And what about the curse on Angel - did Willow have to take someone else's soul in order to curse Angel with his? You have to ask these questions folks when you write these types of plots, because your readers will (okay maybe not all your readers..just the insanely analytical ones, but still.)
Alrighty then. This bit admittedly does not quite work logically speaking. Mr. Lynch I suspect, much like his colleagues, Willingham and Whedon, would fail miserably at logical reasoning games. Also not much in the critical thinking department either I suspect.
John, the villian, isn't buying it. (He looks a little like Kevin Smith who played Ares in the Xenia and Hercules series.) Or is that happy with WRH. Apparently he has a thing for Vampira (sorry Drusilla), and doesn't understand why they had to use her to distract Spike, couldn't they have brought in the slayer (meaning Buffy) to mess with Spike's head?
WRH: "The slayer cannot be easily manipulated."
Apparently WRH hasn't been reading the Buffy comics. (or Lynch for that matter).
Anyhow, long story short - Spike and gang had escaped John, almost get flown out of LA by the Grooslaug and Cordy the Dragon - only to hit a barrier (which I somehow knew would pop up - because barriers always pop up for Spike - how else is the writer going to keep him in the fray, the character has this nasty habit of taking off just when things get heated and interesting.) The Good news about the barrier? Groo and the Dragon can go through it. Yes, folks, that means we are rid of them for the rest of the series. YAY! Since they can't get back in, hear or see Spike, or seem to be aware that they lost Team Spike or Team William, whichever you prefer.
So, now sans car, because this happened about 1000 feet in the air...which means the car sort of got destroyed in the fall to the ground, still not quite sure how the rest of them survived. But they did. Let's put it down to comic book physics and move on. They've hitched a ride with some nice tourists to a motel. Because the sun is coming up - and a long walk would result in extra crispy vampires. The tourists look like they need to join the cast of the Greatest Loser. One is named Bill or Willy Styles. (Sigh, apparently Lynch has acquired Whedon's fetish for the name Bill). The other, a woman, of course, doesn't introduce herself. (No, we don't live in a sexist society.)
They make it to the motel. John breaks out of WRH and goes after Spike. Apparently WRH got more than they bargained for when they hired John and Dru. (Batting a 1000 per usual.) They keep losing people and plate glass windows for that matter. As John states on his way out their compound..."It's no wonder these guys are out business."
A possessed Jeremy (because Dru killed the demon's host body, so he's decided to take up semi-permanent status on Jeremy's) and Beck have a somewhat strained tete-a-tete resulting in Beck lighting a fire circle around him. It's about the likilihood that Spike will abandon her for his ex- Dru.
Spike attempts to contact Angel, can't - no answer. Dru insists talking to him from the shower. So here we have Spike and girl out of the shower scene take 2. Yes, it's staged in a remarkably similar manner to the Buffy comic, except instead of a bunch of boring exposition and a bit of sexual fantasy, we actually get, surprisingly enough, a real discussion. It's not perfect but it's a lot better than what I got in issue 37, so I'm not complaining. I'll take whatever small crumb I can get.
Dru: She's getting in the way. (speaking of Beck - the firestarter half demon, that is with Spike and chatting with Jeremy in the other room).
Spike: Wonderful, let's do this now. Getting in the way of what Dru?
Dru: of us
Spike: Dru, us belongs alongside Turok-Han and decent punk bands on the list of things that just don't exist anymore. I hopped off your crazy train the minute you hopped on a chaos demon. Never been more happy with that decision than I was today, when you reeked of villain of the week. [Poor Spike, he keeps reuniting with ex-girl-friends right after they shagged the villain of the week. And has to have them shower in his cabin or room, so he can handle being in the same room with them. Must suck to have that good a sense of smell.]
Dru: I showered. He's gone. You need to let that go.
Spike: Oh love...I've let so much go.
Dru: Yes, I know. Playing with slayers. [Touche]
Spike: Slay-ER. I Uh played with ONE.
Dru: And you killed two. So you're still ahead of the game. Why aren't you with her? Oh, did you get bored? She seemed boring, stiff and boring. [Apparently Dru has been reading the Buffy comics - would make sense, she can see in the future after all.]
Spike: Anything but. Our Story isn't done. (While Spike clearly hasn't been reading them, shame, if he had - he would have brought Illyria and Connor with him instead of cockroaches. At any rate it appears to be done from Whedon and Meltzer and Allie's pov, just not Spike's. Poor Spike, pets him.)
I exploded in front of her (actually burned) for her for the world. That's how we left it. (Nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks this story was unresolved.)
Dru:She forced you to get a soul.
Spike: She made me want to be better.
Dru: You were perfect.
Spike: I was a nightmare. (I rather like that exchange - and I can see them having that conversation...)
Dru: You were committed. You protected me. However you remember it...we were connected in ways that no one can understand. And then it changed. You took a soul and they came and you didn't know.
Spike: They?
Dru: They jumped around like slayers but they weren't her. They fought like her. They left me to die.
Mongrels took me in, hid me away, tried to convince me I was what I knew I wasn't. I was hoping you'd come but you never did. Then hell came and I felt so much better.
What comes next doesn't quite work or flow. Spike for some reason or other comforts her and hugs her and tells her to soak him in while she can. And I'm thinking, huh? Then he starts to pull himself together, to concentrate on his cigarettes and think it through - how to get out the trap that WRH has placed him in. He needs back-up who to call, so he thinks through the list - Angel? Nah, Gun? Nah, Illyria? Nah, Connor? Nah...Wes? Ghost - doesn't quite work. So decides on to think outside of the box, besides WRH told him they'd come up with something for all the players of TEAM ANGEL (what's with all the Team stuff...has Lynch been spending too much time talking to tween marketing folks?)
So he decides to go with the Witch - Willow.
Hopefully the Willow/Spike interaction will be better than the Dru/Spike reunion and the Buffy/Spike one...so far so good. Spike/Buffy was a yawnfest - 0 character development or evolution but a lot of silly headache inducing exposition that made me wish for the glory days of early Marvel comics,
Spike/Dru - was a snippet or two better...with ACTUAL relationship dialogue and character development, even if it ended in a sort of WTF manner but hey, not bad for a comic book. So...maybe this is good news? Hope springs eternal. (Not that I care that much.)
Overall - a fun read. Nothing fancy. Read better fanfic - but that's been true of all of the comics, lately, so nothing new there.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 11:25 pm (UTC)