Mikey Likes TV

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.

Today’s release of the second installment (episode!) of the new Buffy comic sees the return of even more characters and answers to a few lingering questions. Most exciting of all, Giles is back. He’s off in what looks like some eastern European capital, reflecting on his old way of life, training new slayers and drinking tea. Silly, predictable, British man.

The Long Way Home, Part II ups the ante with some significant violence and our heroine’s first major obstacle in unearthing the new conspiracy against her new legion of slayers. Xander remains the easiest transition to 2D (with his whimsical dialogue no longer being overshadowed by Nicholas Brendan’s rapid aging) and is thus far the hero of comic book Buffy. Though the most major development in the issue flirts a little too heavily with the cheesy, and opens the gate for a premature cameo, Joss’s story remains appropriately indulgent. He’s taking full advantage of his niche audience by treating fans to more geek culture references than ever before. But with so few precious frames in every issue, must we really devote two whole pages to Andrew’s ramblings on the introduction of new characters in Star Wars Episode VI?

In the end, I am led to one immaculate conclusion: in lieu of further questioning the medium or over-analyzing each issue, I’m resigning myself to blissful appreciation for what I’ve been given. Considering the obstacles of money and casting, Buffy on a grander scale is nearly impossible, and as TV Squad pointed out after issue one, this is could be the best way for the show to return. Issue #1 was fantastic. Issue #2 is crazy-awesome. And as we progress, I’m confident the quality will get, well, exponentially prefixy.

It took almost the whole of the two years since Joss Whedon’s announcement that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would get an eighth season in comic book form* for me to reconcile reading it. Though I’m confident in his abilities (Joss penned for the first arc and crafted the plot outline of the entire run), I am one of the few fans who was utterly content with the way almost everything was wrapped up. I didn’t see the need to open old wounds, kick dead horses or alter my perfect memories. After all, I have spent the majority of my life suffering from an unhealthy obsession with this character and the thought of voluntarily seeing her go through any more misery (without the payoff of an extravagant film), just seemed too risky.

As I should have known, and as anyone might have predicted, I caved several months ago when plot details, cover images and Whedon quotes started popping up online. The Buffy-shaped hole in my heart has been vacant for too long and I’ll fill it with anything you’ll toss my way – even if it involves subjecting myself to comic book people for the second time in less than a month.

And so I bit the bullet, found a quiet space in my office, and absorbed the first bit of Buffy canon that’s been thrown my way since the mediocre, severely misleading, final season of Angel. We reunite with Buffy a year or so after the destruction of Sunnydale, commanding one squad of the Slayer army, and kicking some serious ass. Here’s where the bittersweet starts to kick in. Joss Whedon loves comic books as a medium because they allow the creator to pull crazy stunts – too impractical or expensive for film or television. Seeing Buffy dive off of a helicopter into an ancient Scottish cathedral and start wrastling demons five times the size of anything we saw on the show is as exciting as it is sad. It makes me nostalgic for a visually sumptuous Buffy that I never saw on TV and I’m certain I’ll never be lucky enough to see in film. Falling somewhere between books and TV, comics eliminate the need to rely on imagination but don’t allow for complete visual saturation. It’s something I respect, but as a medium, it falls into a grey area that I traditionally avoid.

But for roughly the next two years, I will be very much in the grey. And if this issue is setting the standard, that’ll be just fine with me. The Long Way Home started warming my cockles about five pages in, when my hands stopped shaking long enough to fully indulge in the glory of Joss Whedon’s dialogue. There is nothing happening on these pages that couldn’t have easily happened on the show, and none of the words written would sound unnatural coming out of cast-members’ mouths. Even one of the new slayers is written in a bizarre Irish/Cuban/German accent like the dearly departed (and hilariously portrayed) Kendra.

The comic is not without its flaws. The potentials are still there, but now there are thousands and they’ve more or less fulfilled their potential. I’m all about female empowerment, but can the other slayers not speak – like mute, violent lady-monks? I’m also not too pleased with the fact that Buffy isn’t frolicking through the hills of her puppy farm with a newly mortal Angel (as I had imagined her fate), but I doubt that storyline could stretch for 22 issues. Buffy still has her ennui, and changing the world is taking a lot more work than she’s hoped for.

So while nothing is perfect, this comes ridiculously close. And with a once irrelevant Scooby given an amusing and unexpected storyline, long-forgotten characters assuming unique and villainous roles and so many others still waiting in the wings, Buffy Season Eight looks to be a new monthly highlight; more exciting than what’s on TV these days, but probably never as great as what we once had.

*pardon the deviation from the orthodox, but it’s TV to me.