Buffy Season 8 - Issue 7
Thoughts behind the cut.
I have only just got around to reading this as I have been tied up writing fic.
Since I have decided to treat this as a non-canon AU enjoyed it a little more than the previous issue. Not much, just a fraction :-) but enough to make note of.
Overall have mixed feelings on this issue for once there is some good stuff alongside the bad, still cannot be considered as anything but distinctly average overall.
Starting with the Jo Chen cover that is a perfect example of the mixed view I have. Alongside the best Giles I have ever seen we have an appalling rendition of Faith. Also I think that Dark Horse should be bought up on the Trade descriptions act since Giles manages to appear in a total of one pane inside the issue.
The interior art by Jeanty is as variable as usual but overall I would say it is slightly better than the previous issue. Still does horrible Dawn and Buffy but occasionally manages to make Faith not look like a Hag and his Willow is pretty good in a couple of places.
As for the story itself it follows a pretty predictable path and seems very short sort of undermining the whole Pygmalion riff. The opening panels dealing with the Buffy and Faith friendship are a partial retcon of Faith's thoughts of the time and even her thoughts after the fact, plus it is completely unneeded except as the basis of the final panel reveal which I will talk about later. In addition it does not actually follow the choreography of the actual fight.
Still massively concerned over the Giles characterisation he is still seemingly just asking Faith to conduct murder without thinking of the consequences for her. So very not a fan of this, hard realpolitik Giles I can buy as it is in character but the lack of nuance here highlights why I fundamentally disagree with Scott Allie and Joss Buffy is singularly unsuited for the comic format as we loose the entire emotional nuance and aside reveals all the subtlety.
The only thought that did occur is if the constant retirement reminder uttered by Giles is him pushing Faith's buttons precisely because he knows this observation would massively annoy her and is therefore a hint of an underlying plan. But that may be too subtle for the comics as they have always plumped for the obvious so not hopeful.
The party entrance is frankly pathetic, what is the point or need for the Eliza Doolittle stuff if the security is so useless? Surely the magical protections are keyed to an invite but really it is just another example of Joss/BKV not thinking through world coherence. The dialog is totally cringe worthy in this section as is his horrendously out of date idea of British society which is frankly insulting.
At this point the issue of Faith characterization also rears it head again as despite what people said in their reviews of previous issue Faith did not have an alternative save Gigi plan. No she is just going to go through with the assassination and become a murderer again she draws forth her knife from her hair. So clearly Joss and BKV have definitely not watched any of Faith's episodes on Angel.
Next onto the Dawn portion. YAWN can we get over this lame pointless B plot. Obviously it is in because pacing wise they need to get it to a point so they can resolve it as the A plot in Drew Goddard’s pointless arc. Also to involve Willow so as to build on the non-existent fake relationship. The building of the parking bay continues apace as well. One would also have to question how they are buying top notch kit with out using the existing watchers council’s relationships with manufacturers which would mean connivance of the GB government which of course would undermine the whole of JW's terrorist plot. Still it is not like Joss thinks these things through.
I actually really like the Faith angstying over killing her mark and that her subconscious avoiding it as that seems to be inline with S7 Faith but I still have a huge problem with this characterization of Faith ,she is still going to do it, she still draws her knife after shooting the breeze with Gigi. So she had no other plan than kill the mark and this is not where we left her and does not fit her character arc. It still feels like they are ignoring her arc on Angel.
Another example of sloppy writing in this passage mentioning Amy Whitehouse who neither Faith or Giles would be aware of at this point, she hadn't broken through yet and Faith has just come to Britain remember. So either this is longer than 18 months or Joss, BKV just forgot. A longer gap might actually make the character regression and neglect easier to believe but that means conscious thought. JW has show not evidence of that so far in S8. So mixed again.
The battle scene is okay although the facial art is all over the place again. But it seemed to lack energy and was just cool we couldn't do this on the show thing that narks me about the comics.
Onto the reveal well another obvious one. It coupled with the cover for the next issue are obviously meant to make you think that Faith goes bad. Unfortunately to believe that you would need an IQ of 5. The art in this portion is actually okay.
Faith is clearly acting in her pally scene on the balcony and in the bedroom scene at the end and is going to pump Gigi for information. So either this is a really heavy handed and obvious misdirect in which case it is lame or it isn't, in which case it is massive mischaracterization with JW & BKV not watching Angel, in which case it is Lame.
This is one of my problems with the issue and the whole arc.
It is all about Buffy and Faith interaction again.
They are just revisiting boring often tread ground, wasn't this covered in S3,S4 of Buffy and S1 of Angel, weren't her only interactions in S7 with Buffy or hawk spit Spike. This fits with the whole lets repeat pointless storylines vibe of S8. Why couldn't we have Faith interact with someone other than Buffy must all relationships be set in stone? Change was part of Buffy which Joss and BKV seem to fundamentally miss. I was hoping for Giles & Faith interaction but it has been sadly missing about as much of this as the pointless Dawn stuff. The whole direction of S8 is just obvious and mediocre nothing is surprising in a good way, nothing flows logically, even the time gap between S7-S8 fluctuates issue by issue just evidence of a general lack of care and thought in the writing.
The letters page made me laugh, did they unearth those in a recent dig or was the response to the recent issues so bad they couldn't find any good ones to publish or more likely they haven't managed to write them yet.
Still overall fractionally better than the last issue hence the mixed no doubt helped by treating it as an AU so 6/10 from me.
I have only just got around to reading this as I have been tied up writing fic.
Since I have decided to treat this as a non-canon AU enjoyed it a little more than the previous issue. Not much, just a fraction :-) but enough to make note of.
Overall have mixed feelings on this issue for once there is some good stuff alongside the bad, still cannot be considered as anything but distinctly average overall.
Starting with the Jo Chen cover that is a perfect example of the mixed view I have. Alongside the best Giles I have ever seen we have an appalling rendition of Faith. Also I think that Dark Horse should be bought up on the Trade descriptions act since Giles manages to appear in a total of one pane inside the issue.
The interior art by Jeanty is as variable as usual but overall I would say it is slightly better than the previous issue. Still does horrible Dawn and Buffy but occasionally manages to make Faith not look like a Hag and his Willow is pretty good in a couple of places.
As for the story itself it follows a pretty predictable path and seems very short sort of undermining the whole Pygmalion riff. The opening panels dealing with the Buffy and Faith friendship are a partial retcon of Faith's thoughts of the time and even her thoughts after the fact, plus it is completely unneeded except as the basis of the final panel reveal which I will talk about later. In addition it does not actually follow the choreography of the actual fight.
Still massively concerned over the Giles characterisation he is still seemingly just asking Faith to conduct murder without thinking of the consequences for her. So very not a fan of this, hard realpolitik Giles I can buy as it is in character but the lack of nuance here highlights why I fundamentally disagree with Scott Allie and Joss Buffy is singularly unsuited for the comic format as we loose the entire emotional nuance and aside reveals all the subtlety.
The only thought that did occur is if the constant retirement reminder uttered by Giles is him pushing Faith's buttons precisely because he knows this observation would massively annoy her and is therefore a hint of an underlying plan. But that may be too subtle for the comics as they have always plumped for the obvious so not hopeful.
The party entrance is frankly pathetic, what is the point or need for the Eliza Doolittle stuff if the security is so useless? Surely the magical protections are keyed to an invite but really it is just another example of Joss/BKV not thinking through world coherence. The dialog is totally cringe worthy in this section as is his horrendously out of date idea of British society which is frankly insulting.
At this point the issue of Faith characterization also rears it head again as despite what people said in their reviews of previous issue Faith did not have an alternative save Gigi plan. No she is just going to go through with the assassination and become a murderer again she draws forth her knife from her hair. So clearly Joss and BKV have definitely not watched any of Faith's episodes on Angel.
Next onto the Dawn portion. YAWN can we get over this lame pointless B plot. Obviously it is in because pacing wise they need to get it to a point so they can resolve it as the A plot in Drew Goddard’s pointless arc. Also to involve Willow so as to build on the non-existent fake relationship. The building of the parking bay continues apace as well. One would also have to question how they are buying top notch kit with out using the existing watchers council’s relationships with manufacturers which would mean connivance of the GB government which of course would undermine the whole of JW's terrorist plot. Still it is not like Joss thinks these things through.
I actually really like the Faith angstying over killing her mark and that her subconscious avoiding it as that seems to be inline with S7 Faith but I still have a huge problem with this characterization of Faith ,she is still going to do it, she still draws her knife after shooting the breeze with Gigi. So she had no other plan than kill the mark and this is not where we left her and does not fit her character arc. It still feels like they are ignoring her arc on Angel.
Another example of sloppy writing in this passage mentioning Amy Whitehouse who neither Faith or Giles would be aware of at this point, she hadn't broken through yet and Faith has just come to Britain remember. So either this is longer than 18 months or Joss, BKV just forgot. A longer gap might actually make the character regression and neglect easier to believe but that means conscious thought. JW has show not evidence of that so far in S8. So mixed again.
The battle scene is okay although the facial art is all over the place again. But it seemed to lack energy and was just cool we couldn't do this on the show thing that narks me about the comics.
Onto the reveal well another obvious one. It coupled with the cover for the next issue are obviously meant to make you think that Faith goes bad. Unfortunately to believe that you would need an IQ of 5. The art in this portion is actually okay.
Faith is clearly acting in her pally scene on the balcony and in the bedroom scene at the end and is going to pump Gigi for information. So either this is a really heavy handed and obvious misdirect in which case it is lame or it isn't, in which case it is massive mischaracterization with JW & BKV not watching Angel, in which case it is Lame.
This is one of my problems with the issue and the whole arc.
It is all about Buffy and Faith interaction again.
They are just revisiting boring often tread ground, wasn't this covered in S3,S4 of Buffy and S1 of Angel, weren't her only interactions in S7 with Buffy or hawk spit Spike. This fits with the whole lets repeat pointless storylines vibe of S8. Why couldn't we have Faith interact with someone other than Buffy must all relationships be set in stone? Change was part of Buffy which Joss and BKV seem to fundamentally miss. I was hoping for Giles & Faith interaction but it has been sadly missing about as much of this as the pointless Dawn stuff. The whole direction of S8 is just obvious and mediocre nothing is surprising in a good way, nothing flows logically, even the time gap between S7-S8 fluctuates issue by issue just evidence of a general lack of care and thought in the writing.
The letters page made me laugh, did they unearth those in a recent dig or was the response to the recent issues so bad they couldn't find any good ones to publish or more likely they haven't managed to write them yet.
Still overall fractionally better than the last issue hence the mixed no doubt helped by treating it as an AU so 6/10 from me.