Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #34
The 34th issue of BtVS: Season Eight is out and all I can say is they've got to be kidding.
Read on for some harsh and simple truths.
Sure, there's some OK art in this issue and it's nice to see the whole team finally reassembled but you know what? No way. No. Way. I'm sorry, comic book, but you lose me the second your heroine and her greatest love manage to get off so hard they tear a hole in reality. That is some straight-up Anita Blake stuff right there. I almost had to check the cover to make sure the comic shop didn't make a mistake.
I know that Buffy's super-sonic orgasm isn't explicitly the cause of the universe being rent asunder so that demons can pour out but I am not about to buy that the timing was coincidental. As a reader I am forced to come (cough) to the conclusion that Buffy and Angel just boned reality to death and... and I don't know where to take things from there. I just don't.
I have a lot of respect for some of the ideas I have of where this all might be going, or at least Giles' expository monologue overlaid on page after page of Buffy and Angel knocking boots. The idea that slayers and vampires balance one another and that if either side becomes too powerful the other is increased to match it is a pretty compelling place for them to take the story. It opens a lot of questions about the metaphysics of the world that story inhabits and it casts a whole new set of gray shadows across all the otherwise superficially high-contrast divides at the heart of the Buffy story. After all, who's to say that the whole reason the threats are going to get exponentially worse isn't because Buffy's survived this long and become this powerful, creating opportunities to examine our society's outdated and discriminatory views on youth being at a premium to a woman or maybe a direct study of the prejudice that an independent woman is somehow inherently dangerous to society. I see the narrative arc of the show having started as being generally about youth and teenagers and having grown more refined in its feminist focus with successive seasons. It was always a feminist show, yes, but over the years it became increasingly about Buffy's experience of being a powerful young woman and less about either specific Big Bads or the experience of many young people who are outside the mainstream; in a lot of ways, the faceless, identity-less Big Bad of the comic's superficial plot while it really focused on the Slayers themselves and their unique experience of power and womanhood and how society attempts to regulate or outright rejects powerful women was a culmination of that trend.
So, yes, I see a lot of potential here. But really? Honestly? It all kind of feels like an excuse to give Buffy super-powers. I mean, she can frakkin' fly now. Don't even get me started on Angel: he can walk around in the daylight and he glows when he's near Buffy. I'm pretty sure I watched that movie and it wasn't very good. If the intent is to quietly satirize the Twilight franchise, I'm sorry, but it didn't work for me. And while we're at it, really, I'll say it again: Buffy gets laid for once and the universe opens and demons pour out. Does anyone else hear that low hum coming from Dr. Freud's grave, or is it just me?
But did I drop it from my bag?
Not yet. I'm giving it four more issues; four more, and at the end of the summer I make my decision. I won't lie, I thought this issue was lousy, start to finish. I felt like the promise of the premise it espoused was being squandered in favor of soft-core. It completely ignored the many questions that this storyline inherently demands be asked in favor of a lot of what boils down to Dilithium Crystals talk - you know, the scene where someone burbles a lot of technobabble about needing to reverse the polarity of the anti-matter, etc. - and all so that it could have one long sex scene. Maybe if it had been gay sex I'd be more into it, I don't know, but every time I've tried to summarize this issue for someone else, in conversation, we've both ended up laughing and/or mocking it.
But hey, Avengers, right?
Klarion
Posted to Review on 15 April 2010
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
I agree with you in the "this issue was a big excuse to have a really long sex scene" but I won't lie I found it humorous. I also find the balance thing of vampires and slayers to be a very interesting evolution concept that I hope they develop on more. While this did seem kind of like a "Fanfuck" issue I don't see Angel staying around for too long. At least I hope not. Angel and Buffy love each other but ultimately would never work as a couple. While Buffy has grown up a lot and is less superficial, their personalities just clash on important facets of being a couple. Although reigning over existence as God and Goddess could have potential for them. :P
Usually when Buffy has a "Shiny Special Moment" it means that much devastation is coming. And to be honest that makes for the most compelling story. I'm hoping we will get to see the repercussions of Buffy's actions and the foretold "betrayal" very soon. But who knows, the series has been going for threeish years and is just now reaching some sort of climax! I'm ready for it and I'm willing to deal with one or two bad issues to get it. As long as the story and the next few issues make up for it. I'm playing a wait and see but I will say that, sexing the fabric of reality asunder aside, I still found the background story compelling and I'm excited to see it develop.
To be honest, my loathing of this issue has grown with time. If anything, I hate this issue - of a comic I have really loved - more now than I did when I wrote the review. I've decided I'm giving it one more issue. Even my comics store owner, whose very livelihood depends on people buying comics, referred to it as "fan-fic" in conversation. Ugh. It's so bad.
Well at least you will give it till the end of the Twilight Arc. As it only has one issue left. lol I thought the time jumping thing at the very end of the issue was interesting, but anything that shows me more of Fray... I'm all for. I'm hoping the Arc ends well and I'm interested to see the stand-alone issue of Riley coming out the month after. Although I feel it is a little early for another one shot... If the next issue is bad I will continue to buy them (unless they get as bad as the Angel comics... which would be hard). But I'm a pretty hardcore Buffy fan and while I'm not sure if I'm a fan of where the series has been headed as of late. I'm willing to give it a go. Although the art work on the covers alone is usually enough to make me want to buy it. XD
On a side note I also hate the Twilight book and movies but to be fair to the Buffy comics Twilight appeared in the comics long before the Stephanie Meyer thing really took off. At least it was before everyone became obsessed with sparkly vampires because of that plotless movie... *gag*
Are you sure you're not overreacting just a bit? If this happened in the show, I don't think it would be as shocking. But comic books are a different medium, and showing any kind of sex in them tends to ellicit a different response.
There were plenty of sex scenes in the tv show, and the most memorable one resulted in Angel losing his soul. I think that's pretty funny if you ask me, but it didn't bother me because it advanced the plot. The same thing happened in this issue, but because it's a comic it seems more ridiculous. One issue of sex is like one scene in one episode, and the fact that they're drawings instead of actual actors only adds to the silliness.
Bottom line: sex has always been cheesy and goofy in Buffy, so I'm not really shocked by this instance. If anything I thought it was just funny.
Super post, tienen que marcarlo en Digg
Dougles