Mikey Likes TV

So I bailed on last month’s Buffy comic review/recap – mostly because I got carried away with other things and partly because issue seven was the first real disappointment of the series (though maybe “underwhelming” might be more fair). Anyways, Faith has donned a fake British accent and gone undercover at the estate of rogue slayer and super-villain Genevieve… to kill her. But as it so often happens with Faith, she’s straying from the mission and feeling the temptation of the high life, hoodlumery and possibly same-sex hanky panky. All of this would be fun if she wasn’t playing off of such a flat, annoying character. (more…)

Remember when August was completely without a Buffy post? I don’t know about yours, but my tears were extra salty. Well, season eight returned today with the first part of No Future For You, the latest four issue arc. Joss Whedon, while involved with the story, has taken a backseat as just the producer and left writing duties to Lost‘s Brian K. Vaughan. I’m already nervous!

On top of that, this arc focuses on Faith, the wayward Slayer with a dodgy Boston accent and a penchant for stabbin’ – a character I have one serious issue with. The mere thought of any portrayal of Faith without Eliza Dushku’s bizarrely brilliant delivery is odd, if not completely disturbing. Of all the show’s cast members, I’ve always found her to be the most attached to her alter ego (possibly because she hasn’t really done anything else). Either way, double-nervous!

Well, my nerves subsided – due in large part Faith’s undercover status and fake British accent. This can’t be Dushku. Dushku doesn’t do accents. Not much happened, but here’s what we now know…

- Cleveland: actually a hellmouth and holder of the charming moniker “the mistake by the lake”
- The Buffy/Xander sexual foreshadowing continues and I come that much closer to heart failure
- Part of this season’s conglomerate of über-baddies is a rogue slayer who looks like Demi Moore circa Nothing But Trouble
- Faith still has issues

Vaughan does a nice job weaning us off Whedon; the writing doesn’t suffer for his absence at all. It’s also nice to know that these Faith and Giles-centric issues won’t completely abandon our Scoobies in Scotland. I’d prefer they focus on de-gianting Dawn and not on shirtless Xander, but beggers can’t be choosers.

Pick it up. It’s good. And if you’re remotely as lame as me, you’ll notice the cameo by The Doctor and Rose in the last few pages. Ugh, geek shame!

It seems fitting that this month’s sidetrack into the world of television-related comic books fall on the first day of Comic-Con – which I unfortunately am not attending. One blessed week ahead of schedule, the fifth installment of the eighth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on the shelves. It marks the first stand-alone issue and the last to be penned by Joss Whedon for an indefinite amount of time. Apparently a story he was quite anxious to tell, The Chain focuses on one of the unnamed faux-Buffys planted by the new council to keep evil on its toes. And if you’re at all familiar with the last season of Angel: no, it’s not the fun “Buffy”, hoing it up in Italy… it’s the emo “Buffy” who has to live in caves and be unceremoniously killed.

Just as he likes them, Joss’s anonymous heroine is strong, intelligent, selfless and ultimately tragic. It seems odd that after all of this time he still feels the need to deviate from the linear storytelling for a random parable of female empowerment. Isn’t this girl just another Buffy, Faith, River or Fray? Actually, she’s not. Unlike her predecessors, she exists in a vacuum – without friends, family, history and, given of the brevity of her cameo, she will never even have fans. Joss has tried to create characters that are truly alone in the past, but because of either his affection for them or the fans’, they never remain completely detached. This is the heroism he seems to like the best, the noblest of sacrifices, but this was the only way he could really tell it.

The Chain is brief but poignant. It’s not funny like the previous books, and our glimpses of familiar Buffyverse faces or mighty brief. As the pencils go, Paul Lee’s first stab at the new incarnation of the Buffy seems to be a bit more accurate than Georges Jeanty’s. Andrew and Vi (the red-headed, beret-wearing potential) show up in a hilarious infomercial aimed at educating new slayers, and for the first time in the series, comic book Andrew actually resembles Tom Lenk.

Buffy: Season Eight returns in early September with the first of a four issue arc that promises a lot of Faith, a lot of Giles and a lot of Cleveland (which, Liz Lemon, ain’t so hot). The Chain was an entertaining and heartfelt departure, but I’m much more interested in the folks I know and the story that matters. Futility is too depressing.

It’s that time again! And for the three of you who share my excitement, I’m sure you’re just as giddy as I am. The rest of you can just come back tomorrow and seek comfort in the sad fact that the most stimulating part of my pop cultural life is officially on hiatus until August 1st.

The first arc of Buffy: Season Eight, The Long Way Home, concluded with the release of its fourth issue today. We last saw our heroes separated once again: Buffy and Xander in Scotland with mega-Dawn (seen at your left), Giles and Andrew in different parts of the world training cells of newbie Slayers and poor Willow abducted by evil post-rat Amy and a surprisingly still alive/still skinless Warren. Not so much a series of recaps like in the last three issues, the finale moved rapidly with two scenes coming to blows in one large battle and some much deserved exposition.

More than in the previous installments, Whedon’s signature puns, surrealism, gut-burning intensity and unexpected twists are all present. After over three months, it still feels like we’ve only gotten one episode’s worth of Buffy. But it’s been one of the best episodes ever. In a world where cult TV has to ignore its scattered genealogy to entice new viewers, it’s refreshing to see that Buffy still caters only to the fans – regardless of the venue.

Last month’s installment of the Buffy Season Eight comic series left our heroine in a magically induced coma. Though just one of many cliffhangers, the excitement of seeing how Buffy would wake up paled in comparison to the prospect of seeing some classic Whedon dreamcapades.

Joss Whedon has always been quick to dramatize and exploit the absurdity of the human mind and the potential for truly outlandish subconscious activity – going so far as to devote an entire episode of Buffy to explore the goings on in deepest recesses of the four leads’ brains. Because of his heavy use of the subject matter, Buffy herself was often forced to rely on her dreams, on herself, to get to the bottom of her most dire circumstances. The comic book proves no exception to this tradition.

As funny as it was confusing, Buffy’s bizarre dream showcases the comic’s most impressive visuals thus far. After what might be the most amazing image ever drawn in all history on page three, Buffy falls through time and space, past hundreds of memories. George Jeanty’s renderings of classic Buffy moments and characters (and hilarious cameo by Whedon himself) seemed to raise the bar even higher for the series, but left me disappointed in the subsequent pages when Buffy started to look increasingly puffy, leaving her more closely resembling a post-rehab Britney Spears than Sarah Michelle Gellar. Despite that misstep, it’s his portrayal of Andrew (however brief his appearances remain) that continues to be the least convincing.

Now that we’ve been reunited with Willow, and she’s about to face-off with an old nemesis I was almost positive we’d never see again, I haven’t the slightest idea where he’s going with this story. But it’s going somewhere fast – The Long Way Home concludes next month, and with it, so does the first Whedon-penned portion of Season Eight.