I don’t expect from Joss’s openings, they’re not as strong as his endings. Every Season (except possibly Season 6 where Joss wrote neither the first episode or the last) the first episode has been much weaker than the last, and less satisfying than many of the episodes in between.
Now I’ve read all of it, I’m not that impressed with The Long Way Home. I’d say it was about on par with Lessons, possibly slightly better than the season openers not j. But much worse than Anne, When She Was Bad or Sunday, which were more concerned with letting us see where the characters were, than setting up a whole bunch of new plot. Because setting up plot is often boring, and should be done really slowly.
A lot of the on-going ideas I really like I’m really looking forward to more Giant Dawn, and the army hating them. But there’s too much that is just a little bit off. Amy and Warren bear only the most superficial resemblence to the people they were on the show. Dawn’s ‘she’s like a Mom to me’ about Willow doesn’t reflect the relationship we saw, and certainly not the events of Season 6.
I’m really unsatisfied with what had happened between Willow, Xander & Buffy. Even if we don’t know now what happened to Willow (and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, except contrivance, because surely Willow would tell Buffy & Xander as soon as battling stopped), we should at least know what happened from Buffy’s point of view (remember number one rule, we should go through what the characters go through).
I hope that the writers who wrote on the show soon get tired of the thrill of an unlimited budget. Just because you can now have battles of hundreds doesn’t mean that two battles (and a practice fight of dozens) are that interesting. Likewise the five spirits added less than nothing to the comic as a whole.
I’ll buy the next one, and I’ll probably buy the Faith arc. But so far the story has been more about the cool things they can do than people, and that’s not Joss at his best.
Yeah, I agree. Just picked up part four yesterday, and I went from underwhelmed to a little confused.
Warren and Amy; their re-emergence was contrived, and more than that, the zap-out, we’re not finished, slayer business was not like Joss at all. He didn’t play villains that way, that cheesy plot black-hole where you fight the same enemy again and again. Buffy’s climactic battles had real resolutions, with real emotional impact, unlike this- I get that it’s a comic medium, but the story is not being told anywhere close to the original feeling of the series.
And Dawn and Willow: if anything, she was always closer to Tara.
I also thought that Buffy’s reaction on the last page was bizarre. I expected her to say “Oh…. what ?” Not that I don’t like twists and surprises, and not that I would mind seeing Buffy explore a little of her darker, resolved battle side. But the idea that he’s right, that she is/will actually be in a battle with the human race ? Is ridiculous. She proved more strongly than ever in season seven that she was devoted to the light- refusing the dark power and relying on sisterhood and humanity to carry the day. A battle with humanity, with her own humanity, now; seems strange and cheap to me.
Maybe I’m reading too much into one panel. But it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I guess all the comic-book trappings are getting to me: elaborate costumes, lazers, castle headquarters, big comic hair on that redhead, etc. It’s so not Buffy, which was so real, in a way that coexisted but contrasted well with the supernatural. The whole lure of BtVS to me was that the underground, the horrific, the dark and dangerous, existed just below the surface of a beautiful California paradise. Placing these characters into an exotic adventure setting has still not settled with me yet.
But- I’m going to keep reading. Darn you, my dear Joss !
Wow . . . this seriously is traditional for Buffy.
I mean, everyone hates the most recent season? It’s just like old times!
;->
—Myca
I found the issue hard to follow; I had to read it twice to figure out what was going on. The fights were too chaotic, it was all too unstated in all the places it needed to be clear.
I actually thought Joss successfully justified bringing Warren back. Warren did disappear in a poof of flashpaper just after he was flayed, and that was never explained.
After Part III, I sat down and re-read all three. There were lots of small things that bothered me. “What did they eat down there?” “We think other survivors.” Oh pleeeze. If a buried Sunnydale supported survivors, it also supported buried canned goods.
It was an unsatisfying issue, but I’m still buying the next one.
Meh, I liked it, although I’m not a comic fan in general and miss the show. I like it when Joss gets all dream-surreal. oh, and! subplot of cinnamon lipgloss girl! hee. bringing in Ethan Rayne and then killing him was a nice touch, I thought. I wonder if we’re gonna see more of Amy’s backstory and the Mom weirdness. or if Andrew’ll ever run into Skinless Undead Warren (ick).
yeah, i thought that particular “can-you?” plot device was….*just* kosher, but only just. like, quibble yes, but among other things: so, Warren’s disappearance in a flash-fry is now being interpreted as Amy having done it, which is possible, but…wouldn’t Wicked Willow have noticed someone else is fucking around with magic? maybe not.
(yes i am an utter geek fangirl, i confess)
oO Now, I can honestly say I haven’t read this comic – let alone doubt I would’ve even remotely picked it up. I’m in all truth of the matters, rather baffled at what I have read throughout all these reviews.
It’s a comicbook. And people are griping about how the female characters appear because they do not look like real women. Kay, one. It’s a comic. Not ment to be and or even remotely appear to be real. Sorry to say, sex sells. It’s why most male superheros have impossible bodies in -spandex- and looking like they’re packing three feet of salami in their ‘shorts’.
Oppisite for the female characters whom all seem to be metaphysical perfection. Take example; Witchblade. In the comic books, the main character Sara has a perfect body. In the crap-o-rama TnT series special dodad, she looks as if she was beaten with an ugly stick then used as a human pinball in the ugly forest.
In general sense of these type of comics, sorry to say but sex sells. The fact Buffy The Vampire Slayer was made into a comicbook (and now to be lynched by the rabid buffy fans out there) should’ve been some indication that hey, the comic wasn’t going to how to say..a 5 out of 5 hit. Rabid fanboys would buy it like it was the last bit of water in a post-apocalyptic world simply for a chance to see Buffy, Willow or whomever else in a scantily clad panel. Been that way allll through the Comic Book (in general, I mean.) History.
Only a sparse -few- comics didn’t have such a thing. Take another example, McFarlenes Spawn. Granted, some uber babes in there – such as Angelus or the like of some random “walkinhottie”, but overall it wasn’t about the sex, but rather sheer violence and mayhem. If you made it through the comic without seeing some -super charge demonic genetically altered by moronic human satanic worshippers with craploads of money to make bruce wayne appear broke- ripping some poor sap apart or Spawn himself out of his armored mask or not ripping someone “villian” apart with his HellSpawn Chains, you thought it was dull most likely.
Sex. Sells. Especially when todays societies standards of “hot and beauty” are so screwed up now that you either have to be rich or something akin to some yahoo from a boyband to even remotely get even a normal woman to look at you, yeah. Those rabid fanboys will turn to the only other thing that got. Movies/Comics/Video Games. Same with Women.
So when someone picks up a comicbook, mind you. An actual comicbook. And expects some robust plotline with realistic looking characters that appear as if they were in truth, real? I have to laugh. Only things I have seen like that are those Graphic Novels. The AvP/Aliens/Predator graphic novels are testament to that. Granted they themselfs have some uber babes in them, but far and few between.
So again, sex sells. Buffy and Willow would thusly fall into the catagory as a MetaHuman, same with Spike and Angel. All the rest are usually either considered cannonfodder, nothing more than lackeys or walkonhotties.
That and well, my own two cents being – the factoring of a “Slayer” is just some cheesy ripoff of the Dhampir, just without the vampire aspects in the mixture. VhD? Blade? BloodRayne, anyone?
Then again…not even entirely sure on how I stumbled in on this place or even how I found, but hey..ten to one rambling on along with the voice in my head, so just ignore it all and continue on.
Ja Ne!