Mikey Likes TV

Of the various MLTV efforts that have recently lapsed, none seems more criminal than snubbing my monthly coverage of the Buffy comic book series. This is easily explained though. The Faith-centric, Brian K. Vaughan-penned arc that wrapped up in December didn’t really do it for me, and when it comes to the Buff, if I have nothing nice to say, I’d rather not say anything at all. Then when the two one-off stories rolled out in January and February (the latter quite impressive and the former wholly confusing), I was just too heartbroken by any mention of the series to think about it for too long. You see, too many jaunts to the West Coast in the last six months left me without the means to hit the Buffy reunion at the Paley Festival last week, so blogging was just more salt for m’wounds. It will honestly haunt me for the rest of my life, but since it’s over, I can finally bring myself to discuss this latest development: earlier this month, Buffy dyked out.

Well, kinda. As you may have already read in any one of the many pubs who picked this up, in the 12th issue of the new Buffy series (the first of the Wolves at the Gate arc), Buffy and her right-hand slayer, Satsu, got naked and did naked things. Satsu had been revealed in the previous issue to be in love with Buffy and the supplier of the extremely cheese smooch that woke her up from that magic coma about a year ago. Buffy spurned her advances, explained that, in addition to the fact that she likes boys, bad things typically come to the ones who pursue her. Cut to the next issue when the two are found in bed together. Buffy is comically and typically frazzled, and over the course of a couple pages, nearly all of the Scoobies walk in on the pair. Shock, outrage, drooling fanboys and surprisingly speedy acceptance ensue.

Joss Whedon maintains that Buffy is not going to become a lesbian and that this move was just experimentation that evolved naturally. I’m not one to ever question the almighty Joss, but I am firmly in the camp of people not feeling this latest story. This is not because I’m a prude. I have a pretty laissez-faire attitude about sexuality. But this doesn’t seem natural for me at all, and Buffy, who by my estimates is at least 25 at this point, is getting a little old for the window where “experimentation” seems an acceptable excuse. Most importantly, she’s always really, really, really liked boys – to a fault! And no amount of loneliness or boredom seems like it could justify her switching teams for one night – especially when the other involved has genuine feelings. Buffy is supposed to be over using people.

I digress. What’s done is done, and no amount of gratuitous girl-on-girl is going to keep me from running to Midtown Comics the first Wednesday every month… even if I do occasionally fail to report on the developments. And developments, while we’re on the topic, showed up in spades in issue 12. Lesbian canoodling was accompanied by the return of Andrew and Dracula, and a troupe of magical Harajuku girl vampires, who can turn into animals and, um, fog, that stole Buffy’s super scythe. To get it back, the gang will be heading to Tokyo for the next three issues. We don’t know exactly how yet, but this will culminate in Buffy traveling through time to hang out/bitch fight with that future slayer from the comic book series I still haven’t read. It’s officially on my list of things to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 4:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized, buffy, comic, whedon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.