Whedon on Buffy "Season 8"... in comics

[Kit]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #4 is on stands tomorrow, Wednesday, June 6.

[Rune]

First issue spoilers?

Going from memory....

Buffy leads a sort of "Slayer-corps" against supernatural evils. The first scenes of the comic find her and a pair of Slayers rappelling from a chopper to an old church, directed by a comm-linked Xander, where they fight some Predator-looking demons (that look like dinosaurs on the cover). Xander is stationed with Slayers in a high-tech monitoring station that assigns squads of Slayers to different supernatural trouble sites. Andrew's apparently part of one of these squads. It's revealed through thought-boxes that there are at least two 'Buffy doubles' in place to protect her from hits. Besides the lack of firearms, it seems like Joss is going for an Initiative-like vibe.

Dawn has been magically enlarged through her relationship with some sort of warlock... or something. Buffy suspects Dawn slept with him/it, and there's some interesting commentary on her "first time" with Angel. Willow's supposedly going to help out with the situation, but neither she or Giles are around at the moment.

No Faith. No "Principal Blade."

The villains of the moment appear to be U.S. military special ops. A Thunderbolt Ross look-and-act-alike visits Ground Zero of Sunnydale. In the ruins, they find... Amy, all gnarly and insane. She's got a "boyfriend" that, along with her, wants weapons to off Buffy.

That's... that's about all.

Last spoiler you missed

The "Boyfriend" is Warren, who still has no skin, and obviously hates Willow.

That's what I saw it the end of issue three, anyhow. I'll pick up ish 4 tomorrow.

[Kit]

I'm told issue 4 features all sorts of revelations

[Rune]

I'm told issue 4 features all sorts of revelations

Oh, it does indeedy, and confirms my opinion on a story arc being roughly equal to an episode. The first four issues together really do make for a decent ep of the series, IMHO. Also has a pretty cool ending. Sets a tone for the next set of stories fairly well, and makes perfect sence given the buffyverse.

[Setothes]

I caved and bought issue four, despite the steaming loads of crap that has been foisted upon us in the last three issues. Man, I've come to the conclusion that Joss hasn't actually ever watched an episode of his own show. About every third page completely contradicts what has come before. It's insane. And he can't even be bothered to explain any of it. Characters gain and lose abilities faster than Dial H for Hero!

And I laugh a bitter laugh when I go to another website where a fan enthuses about how much fun it's going to be to see how Joss wraps all of this stuff up. Heh. His arc is done. He's not 'wrapping up' anything.

Hey, but Amy is now actually more powerful than the omniscient First Evil, D'Hoffryn, Dark Willow *and* the coven in Devon, all of whom she managed to deceive! And Andrew? A master manipulator, capable of spoofing the superhuman senses of Angel and Spike. Willow? Able to regrow not just her eyes, but *her brain* after being lobotomized. Also able to heal lots of random people, as long as they are not named Xander, and raise the dead equally casually, as long as they aren't named Anya.

[Kit]

Hey, but Amy is now actually more powerful than the omniscient First Evil, D'Hoffryn, Dark Willow *and* the coven in Devon, all of whom she managed to deceive! And Andrew? A master manipulator, capable of spoofing the superhuman senses of Angel and Spike. Willow? Able to regrow not just her eyes, but *her brain* after being lobotomized. Also able to heal lots of random people, as long as they are not named Xander, and raise the dead equally casually, as long as they aren't named Anya.

Interesting. I may have missed something or misread something

Where does it state that Amy is more powerful than all those people/things? And I completely missed the bit with Andrew. Where was it? what happened?

[Rune]

That's not how any of it came across to me, not at all.

Amy was certainly deceptive, but not more powerful. Willow's healing spells didn't imply regrowing anything to me. Nobody actually died in the attack on the Military base, Buffy said as much. I'm not sire what actually happened yet when warren was torturring Willow, or after it, might have been an intercession by those creatures she was communing with. They seemed to be Wicaan Gods and Goddesses to me.

The bit about Andrew refers to the retcon of an Angel episode, the one where Spike and Angel went to europe to find Buffy, who was hanging with some guy known only as "The Immortal", and partying a lot. In the comics, it turns out that that Buffy is one of three Buffy impersonators Andrew cooked up to keep Buffy seekers off her trail. That Angel Ep is occurring simultaneously with this story arc. I don't remeber any particular time in which Vampiric Sences could detect magical glamours of any kind, and both Spike and Angel have been fooled by and directly affected by magic of all kinds many, many times.

[EL]

That's not how any of it came across to me, not at all.

Amy was certainly deceptive, but not more powerful. Willow's healing spells didn't imply regrowing anything to me. Nobody actually died in the attack on the Military base, Buffy said as much. I'm not sire what actually happened yet when warren was torturring Willow, or after it, might have been an intercession by those creatures she was communing with. They seemed to be Wicaan Gods and Goddesses to me.

The bit about Andrew refers to the retcon of an Angel episode, the one where Spike and Angel went to europe to find Buffy, who was hanging with some guy known only as "The Immortal", and partying a lot. In the comics, it turns out that that Buffy is one of three Buffy impersonators Andrew cooked up to keep Buffy seekers off her trail. That Angel Ep is occurring simultaneously with this story arc. I don't remeber any particular time in which Vampiric Sences could detect magical glamours of any kind, and both Spike and Angel have been fooled by and directly affected by magic of all kinds many, many times.

not to mention that in that ep they never get close enough to even see her face.

[Setothes]

We saw Willow get a scalpel in the eye on p 6, and her little spirit people informed her that Warren was lobotomizing her on p 11. On p 22, said spirit people tell Willow that her body is almost dead, and that she can't ressurect herself from a natural death. (which implies that she could *ressurect herself* from a mystical death!) Since she had her eye back, and no missing parts of her brain on p 27, it seems that she can indeed restore missing body parts. As well as heal soldiers that Buffy refers to as dying. As well as ressurect Kennedy so casually as to it not even being news to her best friends.

The supposedly omniscient First Evil thought Warren was dead, and used his form to try and manipulate Andrew. D'Hoffryn thought Willow killed Warren when he chatted her up about other demons having paintings of it on their walls and calling it 'watercooler vengeance.' Willow herself, powerful enough to break all the witchly rules and do stuff that no other witch could do, thought she killed Warren. Amy was powerful enough to fool each and everyone of them. Go Amy, I guess. Tough enough to fly, teleport (which witches are said not to be able to do, with Willow being the sole exception ever), change into animals, shift people into other dimensions, etc, but trapped in Sunnydale crater, forced to eat corpses to survive. This whole Amy arc is kinda like that scene of Hank Pym standing over Black Goliath's enormous corpse, wondering how, oh how, they'll be able to get it out of there, 'cause it's not like he knows anyone with *shrinking powers.* And yes, I just compared Joss to Bendis.

As for Spike and Angel never getting close enough to see Buffy's face, they were in the room with her at the dance club (and both have been shown able to track her by scent across a *city,* let alone a single room), *and* they were standing at the door of her apartment. She wasn't even in said apartment at the time, so no amount of 'glamor' would have made them believe that this was not her apartment. To their noses, the place must have reeked of her.

Or, in this case, of some other girl, who has accepted the job of sleeping with the immortal head of Rome's demon mafia, famous for blowing people up with bombs for annoying him. Wow. Faux Buffy must be a good little soldier to take that job! The Watchers Council, for all it's patriarchal mean-ness, was never portrayed as actually ordering their Slayers to sleep with the heads of murderous bomb-throwing demon mafias and be living targets to protect more important people!

Ah, and Andrew, so happy to see Spike alive that he hugs him and calls him Frodo. Also a master manipulator, who successfully lies to Spike and Angel about Buffy being in Rome, right to their faces, despite his inability to actual talk to Spike without blushing and forgetting not to drool and despite them being able to tell when people are lying by listening to their heart-rates go up...

None of this is making sense. It's all violating what Joss himself has set down before, and if *he* can't be bothered to read what he's writing, why should I be paying for it? It's random gobbledigook, with characters sharing the names of Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters.

[Sidious]

just to weigh in on this....

who says that the Willow they rescued was the real one? Warren is certainly capable enough of creating a robot duplicate, and Amy is easily able to put some kind of glamor on it to make it all appear normal.

Real Willow could easily be still suffering under the attention of Warren for all we know.

At least with Ethan we saw the body.

[EL]

okay as far as the spike and angel thing goes...
scent is pretty easy to fool. Get some of her clothes that she has sweated in etc. Make a perfume etc. You could do it with science or magic. As far as not sensing that Andrew was lying, you would think that is something they should be trying to do. How often do you think they check if people are lying? You'd think they'd do it when interogating not when meeting someone they consider a friend and a completely inept person.

[Cyclone]

As well as ressurect Kennedy so casually as to it not even being news to her best friends.

Wait, what? Resurrect Kennedy? When? I must have missed that part, 'cause I don't even remember her dying.

[Valiantheart]

Wait, what? Resurrect Kennedy? When? I must have missed that part, 'cause I don't even remember her dying.

Darn and I was going to sing and dance if it was true

[Kit]

Wait, what? Resurrect Kennedy? When? I must have missed that part, 'cause I don't even remember her dying.

Darn and I was going to sing and dance if it was true

It comes up in conversation in issue 3. Its not stated how it happened or how she got better though.

[Kit]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #5 is on stands tomorrow, Wednesday, July 25.