Buffy Season 8 - Issue 8
Well finally got round to reading this.
As you can guess it has taken me a little while to get round to reading this, not surprising given my ambivalent thoughts on the previous issues. Actually picked it up one day after release and it has been sitting unread since in its bag, well finally managed it tonight.
Overall liked it about as much as the previous issue, I have problems with the origin of Faith's characterisation in this arc, I feel that whilst she is identifiably Faith she is the Faith of S4 or an AU take of Faith after prison. The character, especially her circumstances have been reset to fit the story they want to tell. But I have complained about all this before and in comments so I'll avoid going down that road again and as with last issue treat this as a non-canon AU.
Starting as usual with the cover, I actually really like the likeness of both Faith and Buffy but really dislike the content. When I originally saw it I thought it was a mislead, it was a slight mislead but very literal in its context.
Faith clearly considers this a suicide mission rather than a save Gigi mission which again is out of continuity with Faith, sure she wanted to give up when she was low in both 5by5 and Orpheus but its somewhat tired to see the same behaviour being repeated over and over.
My main problem with this section , with the issue overall and the arc. Is the usual that Faith is again only being used as a mirror to Buffy that the storyline is all about Buffy , she even says this. Problem is she seemed to got past her Buffy hangup in S7 and frankly since this is a repeat of her S3 storyline it is BORING. I can see the obvious, anvil obvious parallels between Giles/Faith and Roden/Gigi, plus clearly she is alluding that Gigi is repeating Mayor//Faith. Problem is it is as subtle as a brick. It would have been nice to see Faith interact with other people, for her interactions to be about something other than Buffy. I get it Faith was developed as a mirror of Buffy and gigi is clearly intended to be a mirror of Faith but frankly I think there are much more interesting stories to tell.
Faith's attitude to Giles rings partially true, given that he abandoned her for 18 months, I can buy that in the logic of this storyline, of course I have said in previous reviews that I find the whole abandonment unbelievable. Clearly Giles hasn't abandoned her though, didn't send her to save Faith although his lack of appearance is again annoying, just one page with an irritating stereotypical troll/leprechaun.
The bath scene is a bit irritating obviously being there to titillate, plus the timeline goes wonky again with the Artic Monkey's ref. Gigi in her intonation is clearly as much a plant as Faith, Essex girl? Or BKV and Joss just have no idea how British people talk. The only interesting thing here is Faith clearly isn't seduced by the dark and pumps Gigi for information, tries to persuade her that Roden may be using her. So some change in line with the Faith that would occur in a canon continuation.
Willow, what to say about Willow. Irritating as usual, smug , want to throw her from a tall building. Still using way too much magic. She fixes the computer with magic for petes sake. Old real Willow would have loved to fix it the proper way, she's still using magic as a crutch. Hopefully it will bite her in the ass but I doubt it.
The touch on the funding idea was interesting as was the change in Buffy and Willow's position on killing Humans , it shows interesting developments in Buffy's character, being lauded, absolute power and isolation may be corrupting her moral compass as Twilight charges. If this is shown to be correct it will be interesting, mentioned something on this in the early reviews of issues, but I doubt it will occur.
The fight with Gigi takes up too much space and lacks energy. Faith is clearly acting from two impulses in the final panel, to save Buffy from Roden who is about to cast a spell and to stop her killing Gigi with all that entails.
Liked the deep end joke, not surprised at Buffy's reaction as it is very in keeping with her reactions in Sanctuary, she tends to leap to conclusions. The fight is okay but nothing special.The Giles trust comment is I suspect generated by jealousy. He has clearly been neglecting Buffy as well so she lashes out, thing is Faith clearly believes her and as she already had doubts its a serious metaphorical knife in the guts. Hence Faith's reaction.
The hearing voices thing I really do not like as it seems an unnecessary retcon on Faith's reactions to stress. Sanctuary with the knife scene and her breakdown in the valley show that she does have internal monologues/flashes but this seems to codify it as an actual mental problem rather than a stress reaction.
Still irritated by the total lack of any males in the group panels. The final panels with Faith all alone seem like just a repeat which is my problem with the whole arc, just repeating Faith's S3 story in another venue so they can show that she's changed. As for Gigi and the axe expect Faith to wipe the floor with her, the other alternative given the other choices well lets not go there.:-)
On the art front Jeanty is as usual variable, some great panels and some mediocre, no real howlers though so he seems to be improving.
Letters page out of date as per usual.
So overall 6.5/10 from me.