Cool News
Who She Is!! What’s To Come!! Hercules Has Seen BUFFY 8.1!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
A long time ago ...
I am – Hercules!!
A few notes on a comic book that came out today titled “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, Part One,” by Joss Whedon. It’s magical, and represents the best $2.99 you’ll spend this month.
BE WARY!! UNINVISOTEXTED SPOILERS LURK ABOUT EVERY COMING PARAGRAPH!! GO BUY AND READ THE COMIC FIRST!! IT’S ON SALE NOW!!
THE COVER. The words “Season Eight” appear in the tiniest type just below the Dark Horse logo. Super-cool. Buffy holds that stake-axe thingie she used to create an army of slayers in 7.22, but I didn’t notice it inside the issue.
PAGES TWO AND THREE. It already looks like “Buffy: The Motion Picture.” Not the Luke Perry teen comedy. Like the Willow/Xander/Giles TV show, but BIG. The start of the $300 million “Buffy” movie you crave in your heart. Our first glimpse of Buffy Summers in years depicts the slayer holding a weapon – but it is not a stake, not a crossbow, not an axe and not the aforementioned stake-axe thingie. It looks like a Love & Rockets ray-gun. There are three teenage girls behind her. It’s beautiful.
PAGE FOUR. Fascinating reference to a third Buffy.
PAGE FIVE. Buffy remains cavalierly ignorant of Spike and Angel’s Roman torments.
PAGES SIX AND SEVEN. Our first glimpse of Slayer Central Command. Again with the bigness. Cooler than The Initiative. Xander Harris runs the place, and displays typically laudable leadership banter.
PAGES 10 & 11. More bigness and swell dialog. And prepare, readers, to be seduced by the slayerettes.
PAGE 12. Oh! Something in the bottom panel! What the fuck is that??
PAGE 14. Sunnydale, Calif., was an inland municipality.
PAGE 17. Buffy and Xander together again, looking a little lonely, a long way from the Sunnydale High School library. The librarian isn’t around, but the funny remains, as do the books.
PAGE 19. Are Dawn and Buffy in a room or a big carport or an amphitheater or what? How do these castles work?
PAGES 20 & 21. MacBeth fans! In the mood for an angsty Scotland monologue? Because we get a great one here.
PAGES 22 & 23. What’s with that old-school Tony Stark/Howard Hughes facial hair on labcoat-clipboard guy?
PAGE 24. Nice visual with the reveal!
PAGE 25. Letters pages?? Oh, they reference “Tales of the Vampires”! Neato!
Whedon and some of the other “Buffy” writers made sort of a dry-run at season eight by authoring these two volumes. They don't focus on Buffy Summers, but they’re all about her universe. And they’re kinda cheap!
Tales of the Slayers
by Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Amber Benson, et al
Tales of the Vampires
by Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Ben Edlund, et al
Creepy!!
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This time last week the excellent, extra-crammed “Twilight Zone” sets were selling for as much as $87.99 per season. Here’s what they run this week:
$59.99 Twilight Zone Season One
$49.99 Twilight Zone Season Two
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Probably one of the three best series ever made, it carries a SRP of $139.96 and it normally sells for around $100. But at the moment:
$69.99 The Complete Prisoner
1960s Outer Limits: Less than $33/Season!!
$32.99 The Outer Limits Season One
$32.49 The Outer Limits Season Two
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completely forgot this came out today, i'll have to get my hands on a copy.
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...hyperbole for this comic series? I mean, seriously...it's NOT season eight. Nor is it a motion picture, as Whedon started referring to it after he got yanked off Wonder Woman. It's a comic book series. Maybe it's good, but let's keep it in perspective, huh?
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I mean, movies have budgets. I'm not sure we'd ever in our wildest imaginings get a movie with this kind of scope. (We sure didn't the first time!)
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...about a restaurant, along with that guy who wanted to be Sydney's boyfriend in the first season of Alias. That got cancelled, which was a shame.Anyway, Herc, I'm going to go ahead and let the rest of the talkback answer your question about whether a comic book is better than a movie as a vehicle for telling a story or, more importantly, for enjoying that story.Guys? If you could either make a movie or write a comic book limited series, which would you choose?Someone want to ask Whedon what his choice would be if he had one?
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Anyone have an idea who the male half of the duo found in the Sunnypit was? The mention of a lab seemed odd, since Buffy's techno-foes (Adam and Warren) seemed pretty definitely gone.
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Got it today, probably the first time I've bought a comic on the day it came out. Would we have rather had a big budget movie? Sure, but this is the next best thing. Because it's doable, for all the aforementioned reasons - you're only limited by your imagination - no budget constraints, no idiotic studio interference, no ego-tripping actors who think they're better than the role and would rather do crappy horror films that aren't fit to lick the boots of Buffy. This is Joss writing his great dialogue and stories - if you're a fan, you can just imagine the actors saying the lines. Fuck it, this is better than a movie because you can use your imagination. Anyway, to answer your question Herc, I think Dawn is in a courtyard of some sort. We're looking at the inside of the outer wall of the castle. You can see the water wheel in the lower right hand corner. I was also wondering who the male half of the Sunnydale duo was. And who was floating above the castle. Oh yeah, and Xander suggesting that his underlings call him Sgt. Nick Fury is hilarious. Issue #2 can't arrive fast enough.
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he was on a SciFi Saturday movie just the other week (didn't see it) and some other ABC Family thing. He certainly doesn't have the career that his fellow Scoobies do, but then Xander was always the odd man out. Kitchen Confidential wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't really given a chance. It's still beyond me why "How I Met Your Mother" is such a success. I saw one episode and I couldn't wait to turn off that insipid tripe.
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He could fit in well with the cast of 30 Rock.
C'mon Tina, give the guy some work. -
...and say that, if Xander actually tells folks to call him Sgt. Nick Fury just because of the eyepatch thing, that's as dumb as dumb can be.Fury had both eyes when he was leading the Howling Commandos. The patch turned up in his superspy days, due to an injury sustained in WWII. But Fury lost the sight in that eye progressively after the Howling Commandos era.So Joss flubbed a fucking comic book reference within a comic book. Isn't that how we identify (and subsequently turn on and eat) posers in the geek community?
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I thought it was a bit short. It's enough to get my Buffy fix. Looking forward to the rest of the series. Can't wait to see what Faith has been up to. Don't know about this "seasons" BIG BAD though.
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...which never really had a proper conclusion? Although I loved its anti-conclusion...
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I crave no such thing...
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I crave no such thing...
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it's a comic book not a season. I enjoyed Buffy once upon a time, shoot I'd even watch it on FX if I got up early enough (like 6am) but it's a comic book, not a season. That's like me (well maybe not me, but say Jerry Sienfeild or Larry David) writing a Sienfeild comic book and calling it season...9, 10 (who long did that show run)if this is the new stage in comics/television/movie etc...can we get Paul Simms then to write the season 6 of NewsRadio in New Hampshire that I know I want to see
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Damn this interface!
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I agree that I would love to see what happened to Angel an the rest of his crew. Sux about Wesley though. Maybe Illyria get's her powers back and resurrects him....then kills him and everybody else by really overloading this time.
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FYI...
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It seems apparent from your "blow job" comment that if you watched it, it was to add to your spank-a-dex. If you are too shallow to enjoy that universe beyond that, that's your own issue. We actually care about the characters in the Whedonverse, much like how people wanna know what happens to the characters on the Sopranos, or Heroes, or Lost, etc...
This is an official continuation of the story, and it's the story we are fans of, not some young girls on tv. -
I'm just biding my time until the reviews for Andy Barker PI come out in earnest tomorrow so I can be proven right and basque in the glory that is me. I shall serve your crow medium-well with a warm slice of humble pie for you to enjoy tomorrow Herc.
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If you really want to have a geek off, Joss addresses the very issue about Fury through a conversation. It's just a comic geek shoutout. And if they want to call a 30 or so issue run a season, let 'em. Oh yeah, and I did mean 'Brendon' not Brandon.
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stop referring to it as a "season"
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But the words 'season eight' are printed on the cover of the comic.
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Dark Horse and Joss Whedon both officially refer to it as BTVS: Season 8. Comic or not, that's what they are calling it.
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try telling people who are fans of anything to 'move on with their life'. What's wrong with being excited about the continuation of a story you loved by the people who originally created it?
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I'm waiting for the collection.
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that it's printed on the comic, I know the DH and Whedon are both refering to it as a "season" I just can't see it as such...HOWEVER if this fad catches on, if Buffy season 8 is sucessful I'd like to see some other shows continue their shortened seasons, Firefly, Space Above adn Beyond...and yes I'd love to see a Newsradio comic. In fact I think that would be an approiate test of a sitcom to comic as Dave was...one of us. I don't know how the rythms would work but I think it would be an interesting expirment.in conclusion, I know there's nothing i can do about Buffy Season 8 but it irritates me to see it refered to as such, but I hope it's sucess so that we can see other "brillant but cancelled" shows attempt it.
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i just wish it would have ended with a black panel reading "executive producer joss whedon" in it. that would have been fuckkin amazing.
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There's no such thing as vampires.
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yes there is.
http://tinyurl.com/292v7l
:p -
please tell me the "buffy vs dinosaur-demon" one is worth millions. cause then i'd be a millionaire.
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SUCKS!!!!!1!
Get it? Sucks. -
the official entry for an entire nation in the Eurovision contest? It's absolutely surreal.
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All-time greatest Eurovision winner.
I love "Father Ted." -
1. It indicates that they're keeping the continuity. It's a statement from Whedon himself basically saying if they were doing a TV Season 8 (and had a huge budget) this is what it would be.
2. They got a lot of the old TV writers on board for the comic, which is a good sign.
3. I also see calling it Season 8 as kind of a nice "fuck you" to the whole negative aspects of the television experience & the politics involved. "Cancel my show? Fine. I'll continue the story in this medium, thank you very much." Remember, Joss was super pissed when Angel got cancelled.Buffy/Angel was one of the best things to happen to TV EVER. No exaggeration. I miss it terribly & hope this comic is a huge success for them. -
Grrr. Arrgh.
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How many issues does Joss have in mind to comprise a "season"? If you were to convert a 22-24 page comic book to TV script form, it would translate to 10-14 minutes. That means every 4 issues equals one one-hour episode. (And in fact Joss has in mind for Season 8 to comprise of mostly 4-issue arcs.) At this rate, it would take 88 issues to equal 22 episodes, and would take over 7 years to publish on a monthly schedule.
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"How the hell does "Vampires Are Alive" become the official entry for an entire nation in the Eurovision contest? It's absolutely surreal."
not sure about that one, but last year we (as in, Croatia) sent a national-paris-hilton-wannabe-porn-star with a song about high heels.
so, yeah, I kinda seriously considered applying for a nationality change at that time...
and just to pretend to be on subject here, when are you lazy asses that can actually go out and buy buffy comic gonna scan it and put it on torrents???
I need my whedon fix. fast. -
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I made a funny.
By the way, on NYC radio there are a lot of ads suggesting vacationing in Croatia. Is that a good tip? And this is on topic, because one of the main characters on "Buffy" hails from Croatia.
Ok, I made that up. -
Seriously. Dont let Whedon pick the artist cause I personally hate his taste. Fray - meh. Buffy - Ok. Runaways - blarg. The Firefly mini - craptacular. Could you tell who was who? Jayne?...oh Inara!
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I'll buy it because I love the show, and I'm curious. But I haven't really been looking forward to it. Not really a comics fan, and this is so much sadder than a movie. I don't care about budgets. It never needed a big budget before. If this is the best Whedon can do to revive this world, why bother? Shouldn't he be making another movie or starting another TV show?
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That was my first and last "ever" joke, but seriously... This is such a fantastic idea... It gives us all what we want, in a way that's not only possible, it exceeds our expectations. Thank you JW.
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#2 can't come out soon enough. As far as 20+ pages not being able to capture the spirit of a single episode, I disagree. Whedon manages to drop in nearly as much funny & suspense as he would in a single episode. More in some regards. He answers some questions, poses a whole lot more, and gives us his patented "What The?!?!" ending.
Faboo. =)
As for how many issues Season 8 will be, Whedon was originally aiming for 24, but settled on a little over 30. IIRC, he stated that since comics don't work quite the same as TV his season structure different. So, even though we'll have the typical tent pole episodes and arcs, it's going to play out more like an epic story in terms of scope.
Regarding all of the hate at this being labeled "Season 8".... GET OVER IT. Joss already stated that this is IN CONTINUITY. As the creator, he's got every right to do that. Just like Lucas has every right to ignore the Star Wars novels or comics. Want to know, in no uncertain terms, what happened with Buffy & Co after Season 7? Read the comic. Like it or not, it's Whedon's New Testament in the Buffy Bible.
Accept it or burn in hell. =)
Don't give Herc such grief. How many sad, sexless mofuggas are still creaming over Kirk & Spock, even though their show was canceled 40 years ago and their last movie appearance was back when leg warmers and big hair still roamed the Earth?
Herc's got every bit the right to gush over Buffy & Angel as the pocket protector sect has to masturbate over that 7of9 or that green chick. Fan... short for FANatic. -
“Things used to be pretty simple. A hundred years, just hanging out, feeling guilty. I really honed my brooding skills. Then she comes along.”
Like for Angel, Buffy came along and forced a reassessment. Within a season of the show airing, I began acting in school plays, entered the English honors curriculum, and became one of the fiercest competitors my school speech team had ever seen. I had been profoundly touched by the show and wanted nothing more than to emulate that experience for others.
I happened upon the show one summer night when my mom was watching. The genre-blending format seemed unbelievably fresh. Every Tuesday, I would laugh, be thrilled and provoked into meaningful thought in just 44 minutes. Beyond the intellectual and visceral stimulation, Buffy offered common ground for my mom, my two sisters and I to enjoy each others company and opinions.
Having been a freshmen in high school when Buffy started, my favorite characters ever were only a year my elder. I immediately identified with Xander Harris; I never snagged the super-girl and continually relied on brevity to calm my nerves. Every character was strangely familiar and impossible not to love. With such strong, funny and allegorical installments, the show taught me how powerful and wonderful narratives can be. In fact, I wrote a 15-page paper on Buffy in my Feminist Film Theory class, while at college. I give full credit to Buffy the Vampire Slayer for compelling me to earn a B.A in English Literature. Buffy most certainly changed my life and I will always love the myth.
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for a sincere testimony. Don't let any of the haters here spoil your party. It's funny, when Buffy first came on I was 27 and still felt like a Xander. Years later, with a wife and family and now I teach courses on stuff like Buffy, I feel a lot more like a Giles. And you should consider submitting your essay to Watcher Jr (go to slayageonline.com and you'll see what I mean). Arrangedletters, as far as I know, Joss' Runaways run hasn't been released yet, but I don't know if he's sticking with Vaughan's artist. What about Cassaday? I love his AXM stuff. And speaking of Vaughan, besides some of the show writers, he's working on a Buffy arc in season 8 (said it. Feels great). So the quality will continue.
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And I really liked Fray, cause it didn't seem dependent upon going back and watching 900 episodes of Buffy (saw the movie, and maybe 1 episode and that's it). And I like Serenity and Astonishing X-Men. And looking forward to Whedon's RUNAWAYS arc (but he has a damn high standard to live up to. And hopefully it'll ship on time). I might pick up "Season 8" when its all traded out (or maybe in a super-duper 20+ issue collection), cause I'm hoping it'll have the same easy readability something like FRAY was. Yeah, Fray was awesome. I think that axe-pointy thing was first introduced in that, too. Some Buffy fan correct me on that one, willya?
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"If this is the best Whedon can do to revive this world, why bother?" - because unlike you, but like a lot of the rest of us, Whedon is a fan of comics. He's a pretty accomplished and popular comic writer; much more so than a film director (damn the world for overlooking Serenity!) and probably almost as well-known there as he is in the TV world. It's a bit selfish and ignorant of you to want the rest of us not to have this just because you can't 'get' comics as a valid medium for story-telling. What if Whedon had never switched to TV after the Buffy movie because of some film fan who didn't like the idiot box?
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I'm sure they had rights for promotion and memorabilia, etc during the run of the show, but those contracts have long expired. syndication, home video/dvd are separate contracts that may not have a likeness rights clause built in, or it might just be a cost cutting measure to avoid paying royalties to each actor for likeness in every issue.
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Someone scan the pages for us non US fans. And yes, Buffy was, for a time, the greatest TV show I had ever watched. So good sometimes it left you in shock. And until Galactica Season 2 Ep 18 Downloaded, the finale of season 6 Warren/Evil Willow was the greatest episode of TV ever. For God sakes, she flayed Warren alive after her Lesbo girlfieng got murdered. You dont expect that from lite teen dramas. Buffy always will be a step from vertually everything else in the 90's. It was too good sometimes
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As nonsensical it is for Herc to post this in the Coaxial section instead of the @$$holes comic reviews, apart from the cover labeling this comic as "Season Eight," it's also listed as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight" on the inside front cover indicia. So like it or not, it's as "Season 8" as you're ever going to get until Sarah Michelle Gellar stops making bad Japanese horror film remakes.
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I am not a comic book guy, but I am a colossal Buffy nerd. Is it worth me shaking off my comic prejudices and deigning to enter a Forbidden Planet to check this out?
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I checked to see if you could get this on Amazon and the closest match I got was a 'Rub & Read' book by someone called Buffy Huckabuck. Strangely, it is not a porno.
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I checked to see if you could get this on Amazon and the closest match I got was a 'Rub & Read' book by someone called Buffy Huckabuck. Strangely, it is not a porno.
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Could you rename this column "Whedon Wankodrome" and find someone else to write "Coaxial"? Not that I don't like Whedon or Hercules, but I think it would be much clearer.
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Two men enter... one man jids.
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http://www.spiketv.com/shows/gamehead/promoplayer/video.html?streamParam=/shows/originals/GRV_Buffy_TuneIn_320
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I'm not a comic book guy either, but it's def worth checking out - just spent my lunch hour fetching and reading it. It's only two quid in the Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue.
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Sorry guys, but I didn't go back and watch seven seasons of buffy before picking up season eight #1, so please refresh my memory... Who the hell is the Amy chick? A brought back to life Amy Acker? Any buffy historians want to share?
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"...on the cover of the comic."So, oisin, by that logic, I am officially a bikini inspector, the world's greatest dad and, according to the underwear my wife got me for valentine's day, hot stuff.I think the lesson here is not to believe everything you read.And which comic issue did Whedon reference? Because unless we're talking some post 1990s retcon, I'm almost positive Fury never wore an eyepatch as a sergeant (he appeared in a Wolverine hallucination/dream sequence as a sergeant in an eyepatch, once, but that can be chalked up to Wolvie's often fudged with memories and the rather sad shape he was in at the time).
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I was living with two women and did my best to avoid such a stupid show.Angel snapped Jenny's neck, and stalked Willow's house to enjoy their grief.I was ashamed of my ingnorance.
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I meant re-watch seven seasons of Buffy... Please, anybody want to share regarding the chick at the end of the issue...
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She was a rat for a while, then Willow turned her back into a reasonably pretty young woman. To return the favour, Amy got Willow hooked on those china white magics only the best dealers can get you. Later, if I remember rightly, she made Willow look like Warren. My favourite thing about Amy was this exchange with Buffy:"How've you been?""Rat. You?""Dead.""Huh."
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Thanks Frank.
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Thanks Frank.
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Whedon's probably a bit confused about his Nick Fury history, but with Xander's fondness for the army (remember that Halloween episode?), it makes sense that Xander prefers Sgt. Fury to Colonel Fury. Nice to know that Xander didn't completely lose his geek cred after Nathan Fillion took away his depth perception.
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sorry broken link earlier:
http://www.spiketv.com/shows/gamehead/promoplayer/video.html?streamParam=/shows/originals/GRV_buffy_TuneIn_320 -
http://www.spiketv.com/shows/gamehead/promoplayer/video.html?streamParam=/shows/originals/GRV_buffy_TuneIn_320
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Buffy was a great TV show. If you didn't, or haven't, watched it, then what the hell are you talking about? You can't hate something you know nothing about. It's become "cool" in the last couple years to hate on the Buffyverse. Too bad, because you're missing out on what makes it fun to be a geek - your loss. And when links are posted here they add a space.
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...I thought I was losin' it for a second there. I do think it's giving Whedon a tad much credit to think he wrote the reference that way on purpose as a Xander flub, though (something tells me a geek like Xander would know his Marvel history).As for revisionist hate, Jaka, I don't see a lot of that going on here. I think a lot of people, like myself, fully acknowledge that Joss captured something special in those first three-to-five seasons of Buffy (depending on who you ask) and for almost all of Angel. I think what we're saying, though, is that Buffy ended for a reason (it was getting awfully tired and directionless in the latter seasons) and that Whedon doing comic books at this stage in his career feels like a step down.I think Joss is an extremely talented writer, He can take familiar ideas and make them feel fresh (like he did with early Buffy and almost all of Angel, both of which were concepts that had been explored before) or at least help further a concept even if he doesn't do anything very original with it (like Firefly, which I still believes owes its existence to Cowboy Bebop).While he may not be cut out for the big screen, I think there's a lot of good he could still do on television. Early Buffy is testament to that.
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Since you're obviously not going to read this thing on your own, let me spell it out for you. I don't have the issue with me, so this is paraphrasing. Xander says 'Call me Sgt. Fury' or something like that. One of his underlings corrects him and says, 'isn't it Col. Fury with the eyepatch?' And he says, "Well I prefer the Howling Commando days, but points for the geek cred" or something like that. So Joss knew perfectly well about the eyepatch discrepancy, thank you very much. You can NOT outgeek the Whedon.
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...in the first place, we wouldn't have had the discussion at all.And please stop referring to him as "The Whedon." My friend, Ted Whedon, gets very resentful of that kind of shit, as he's been a Whedon at least two years longer than Joss, and is no slouch in the geek department.Plus, using "the" in front of anyone's name makes you sound brainwashed...or Whedtareded.
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going to review this because anything comic related that they aren't they usually show up in a talkback for, so i'ma ssuming that they will review this as well, which I'm curious about, to hear their take
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you're the one that turned it into a geek off. And I guess I should have used my 'tongue in cheek' font when I referred to Mr. Whedon as 'the.' I respect the hell out of the guy and he's responsible for a great deal of viewing (and reading) pleasure in the last 10 years, but my 'worship' of him is always somewhat ironic. I'm not a total idiot. Having said that, while it's ok to only like some of Buffy's seasons, a fan that really cares about the characters will be interested in those characters' entire journey, even when they're going through some heavy shit. So unlike a lot of people, I fully support the darkness of the 6th season, especially when we see them emerge from it stronger than ever. Well, it takes Willow a little longer to do that, but hey, she did flay a guy alive. Anyway, with all the flaws of season 7 (too many speeches, inconsistently powered ubervamps, whiny potentials, ineffectually written Big Bad), there were still some great episodes: Conversations with Dead People, Storyteller, Potential, Lies My Parents Told Me, etc.. Anyway, I don't think the Buffyverse was tired and needed to end - but the original show needed to end to make room for other manifestations, like spinoffs and these comics, or movies. I'll never forgive Tru Calling for derailing that Faith series. Why, Eliza? Why?
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While I do agree that Cowboy Bebop is some great shit, Firefly is a different animal. Bebop is full of selfish assholes('cept maybe Ed) and is set in our solar system. Firefly is a family('cept maybe Jayne) and has a larger playground. Also, I can't think of a Bebop equivalent to Reavers.
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Xander himself in the comic states that he is using the name as he liked Fury from that period, he in no way states its due to the eye patch, that's the dumb arse conclusion some people have drawn and ran with, seriously you read like fucking idiots moaning about something you ain't read.
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I wonder if Joss was inspired by the Reavers from the 90's X-Men, back when they were based in Australia. These guys were Mad Max-esque, part human and part cyborg and scavenged for parts and were eventually led by Pierce from the Hellfire Club. In fact, I think these guys were the ones who crucified Wolvie, who was saved by Jubilee back when she was first introduced. Wow, my geek is really showing now. Anyway, I still don't think Joss ripped off Bebop, but some aspects of Firefly did have an anime quality to them, especially the River stuff.
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by the way, I once met a grad student named Sarah Whedon, who lamented the fact that she could never Google herself because of Buffy, what with SMG and Joss being so pervasive on the web. I thought that was kind of funny.
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...were X-Men inspired (Joss does like using comics for inspiration in his TV writing, clearly).And, Billy, Firefly owes pretty much its entire pastiche, premise and setting to Bebop (Asian meets Western meets Sci-FI), which owes no small debt, itself to Blade Runner (substitute noir for western).I think your take on Bebop's characters is off base (they all tried to act selfish and heartless but, if you followed the characters' entire arc as someone suggested, you'll see that's simply not true...any more than it was true that Captain Mal and his crew were just pirates).If you want to get more granular, however, there were huge shades of Outlaw Star (another space western anime I enjoyed, though not quite as much as Bebop) in Firefly's characters, particularly River and Captain Mal.Whedon wears his influences on his sleeve, comic or anime or daytime soap (Dark Shadows and Forever Knight ring any bells?), which is not necessarily a bad thing because, like I said, he often does new or at least interesting things with those concepts.
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...put forth, I've got to call bullshit. That's the same argument I've heard from Star Wars fans who claim if you don't like the crap that was the majority of the prequels, you can't be a true Star Wars fan.It's a fallacial argument. Would you say to someone who liked the original Highlander that, because they can't stomach any of the sequels or the series that nullified the premise of that first film, they aren't true Highlander fans? Sometimes stuff goes on a lot longer than it should and characters who have completed whatever dramatic arc they have to complete can be put to bed. Buffy had that opportunity with the tombstone ("She saved the world...a lot."), but pushed on for some reason and started to make fans care less about characters they had enjoyed (for me, the post-leap seasons ruined Spike as a character and made Buffy completely unsympathetic).On the other hand, Whedon demonstrated an amazing ability to wrap things up with satisfaction when someone pulled the plug unexpectedly on Angel. That was about the most perfect ending to the most perfect season of TV I've ever seen...and it really only happened that way because someone effectively put a gun to Joss' head and said "end it. now."I agree with you that a Faith spinoff could've been very interesting (in a world without the last two seasons of Buffy, where not every girl in the Buffyverse fhad gained slayer powers). But even that would've had a pretty limited shelf-life, I think, as Faith was a different kind of character with fewer, arguably simpler dramatic obstacles to face.
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Man, I'm old...
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The best bet we have at this point is in ten or twenty years Buffy is remade into a movie franchise or new TV series with an all new cast. The window has passed as far as the original cast ever reprising their roles, save for maybe Sarah herself agreeing to a big screen treatment(but even that must be done in the next couple of years).
So in the mean time, Buffy's character has to be transformed into something bigger than the actress playing her. Iconic in a way that other superheroes and pulp fiction characters are so that there will be interest in her a decade or two down the road. Comics are a great way to accomplish that. -
...blackhole. But I don't think a comic is necessarily, well, necessary to having the Buffy franchise revisited in features someday.Look at all the old TV properties that have been made into movies recently. None of them needed comic books to catch the attention of Hollywood's idea-starved money-making machine.Granted, a lot of those tv shows turned movies have been somewhat spoofed in their translations.I wonder, if the same treatment is applied to Buffy, would we get a movie ten years from now that is eerily similar to the original movie?
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First, I never used the words "true fan" - I knew that would come off as baiting, which is why I didn't say it. Secondly, the Star Wars and Highlander comparisons don't work. The Star Wars prequels had some continuity, but with the exception of Obi-Wan (a character we barely knew), they were different characters in a decidedly different world(s). The prequels were a different animal altogether. Just as the Highlander series was a completely different world than the movies. Just as the Buffy series was completely different than the movie - the only similarity was the fact that a blonde girl fights vampires in Southern California and she has a 'Watcher' who trains her. Everything else was totally different. What I'm talking about are later seasons in the SAME show played by the SAME actors, completing the SAME story arc. The only thing that changed was the network. If the show had ended at season 5, that would have been horrible and would have completely undermined the message of the show. It would effectively say that if you're a strong, independent woman that your only recourse is to sacrifice yourself. Whereas the show, as it ended, was a perfect resolution of the character and the show's raison d'etre. What better way to pay off a show whose character breaks the rules of what it means to be a young woman and a warrior than to undermine the metanarrative of the Slayer mythos (the chosen one) by activating all potential slayers, effectively applying 'Slayerness' to every ordinary girl who has the potential for greatness. That montage scene where girls around the world claim their power was amazing, and as Giles says, the plan was 'bloody brilliant.' Granted, the previously impossible to kill ubervamps became ridiculously easy slayer-fodder at the end, but I'm willing to ignore that. On the other hand, I totally disagree about Angel's finale. While the final scene IS great, I felt like the ending of the series was sloppy and rushed, but the best they could do, given the premature cancellation. They could have used a whole other season to plan the downfall of Wolfram and Hart, rather than suddenly pulling it out of their asses that Angel had been setting them up the whole time. The best part of that whole fiasco was Spike's performance in the poetry slam, where he finally gets recognition for his Cicely poem. Anyway, all I'm saying is that by ignoring later seasons, a viewer is certainly cheating her/himself out of a complete, coherent story involving these characters.
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Point taken. However, most of these old TV concepts adapted to the big screen didn't involve a super-hero as the main character. With any luck, we'd get film makers passionate about the material like those behind Hellboy and Blade, not to mention other mainstream super-heroes, too. That's why it's important for Buffy to transcend the show. If she doesn't, then it's a possibility that we will get a Buffy spoof rather than a proper Buffy big screen treatment(though Buffy was so camp that would be a little too easy...wait, we're talking about Hollywood here...).
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...as part of the same overarching story of Anakin's character arc, then the comparison is absolutely apt. Supporting characters came and went from Buffy (Angel, Oz, Riley). But it was ultimately her story arc we were supposed to be focusing on. I lost interest in that after she came back from the dead (and SMG started phoning in her performances from the set of whatever movie she was filming at the time). Of course, you can choose not to look at it that way, but that in no way invalidates my comparison.As for your opinion of the BUffy ending vs. the pre-station-jump ending, seems to me you prefer your endings be Hollywood happy and are willing to make certain compromises in terms of resolution (for the main character and a fair number of supporters...paging Anya and Xander's "oh, well" reaction) to see those happy endings come about. I've always rather preferred the tragic heroes (which is why I was so bitterly disappointed in the Star Wars prequels and what they did to Vader) because they impart a (no less) valuable (than "girl-power") lesson about the very real and frequent necessity to sacrifice for what one believes. Maybe that's why I cheered out louod for the ending of Angel and, although I hated to see him go, for Wes' sacrifice before that ultimate Butch and Sundance finale.Different strokes for different folks.I think it's cheap of you to presume I've dismissed any part of the Buffy TV mythos, as I clearly watched the whole damn series. Not likeing something is nowhere near the same as pretending it doesn't exist or even making an uninformed decision about its quality based on what you've heard or read. That's what I'm doing with the comic, no doubt, but that's after deciding the last couple seasons of the show did nothing for me.And, in case you're about to jump to the "Well you're ignoring season 8!!!" argument, we've already established that a comic book is not a TV show...or a movie.Cheers.
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"In fact, I am talking to Brian Lynch who wrote Spike: Asylum about doing a sort of season 6 of AtS - a canon, post-AtS story. I was really impressed with Asylum. Brian really got the humour and the rythyms and told a story really well. I thought, "If they can do this, why shouldn’t they?" It would be on a separate plane from BtVS, but having said that, we are planning on having Spike and Angel appear in the BtVS arc. As far as a separate story goes, we will resolve how they can both be going on. It might end up a little like the X-Men, who are always doing different things in every comic, but hopefully we will work out more continuity than that. I’m not going to make it so that you have to read books from both companies. I don’t think it’s fair to people and I don’t think it’s fair in a single company. I hate it when they finish a Spiderman arc in Iron Man. I get pissed off! There will be no Buffy Civil War! Well, maybe."
I wasn't a huge fan of Spike:Asylum, I'd say if Peter David wasn't so busy, have him do it if Joss isn't.
Sorry, Childe, I still don't buy the Star Wars comparison. Different actors, completely different time period, the prequels made almost 20 years later, as opposed to a show continuing consecutively from one season to the next. Doesn't work. We'll just have to disagree. Besides, I'm not knocking you for not being a 'true fan' or anything, just defending the last two seasons. I really do stand by my assertion that Buffy was always about claiming your power, personal committment, and community and that ending with Buffy's death would have felt empty, whereas Angel was more about redemption and sacrifice (though themes about community did sneak in there somewhere). I think both shows had endings appropriate to their respective themes.
And speaking of Miss Dushku, I just read she was cast as the lead in a Fox show about nurses, called... wait for it... Nurses. Because we need another hospital show.
Can't wait for issue 2! As far as I'm concerned, canon is canon and I'll follow Buffy to any medium, even if it's a pamphlet. And Joss' first Runaways issue comes out early next month. That means 3 Joss-penned comics at once! Bliss. -
...the prequels not working, but you have to acknowledge they were part of the same story as the OT and featured a number of the same characters centrally (Obi Wan, Vader, the Emperor, Yoda, the Droids and, to a lesser extent, Boba Fett and Chewbacca...that's about as many as the Scooby Gang ever had). Yeah, they were separated by about 20 years, but time elapsed between seasons of Buffy as well...and those last two seasons were on a totally different network. Make no mistake, we're talking apples to apples here.I'm completely fine with your interpretation of and fondness for seasons six and seven. Works for you. Not so much for me. Again, a matter of taste.This news of an Angel comic set on some alternate plane even as the central characters appear in a completely different and unrelated storyline in the Buffy comic doesn't do much to support the integrity of character continuity in this universe where that's supposed to be so important.I find it rather disconcerting, actually, because I still gave a shit about the Angel characters when that show ended. I'd hate to see Joss fuck up the good work he did there just to make a buck.
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read the comic or not? And if so (or did) what is your opinion on the first issue?
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'Nuff said about the Star Wars comparison. I don't buy it. You do. What more is there to say?
Not that I think he's a saint or anything, but Joss is usually pretty protective of his characters, and I don't think he'd make any rash decisions just to 'make a buck.' I think what he means is that if he did it, he would make the comics two independent, different entities, so you wouldn't have to buy both to get the whole story, unless you wanted to. If he just wanted to make a buck, would he be saying that? I mean, he just dissed Civil War for doing that very thing. -
If they're going to bring Spike and Angel back into the mix, I am definitely curious about how Joss would explain their survival (unless they're a couple of ghost vamps, which I'd hope he wouldn't do again). And if Giles gets some more play, it might be worth the read.But I'd be a happy camper if Whedon would set the comics aside and get back to writing for TV sometime soon. There's precious little that's truly well-written on the air these days.
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Girl in a briefcase? Where did I see that?Still, I say Spike, Faye, and Jet are assholes, but they are supposed to be. What we are talking about is noir vs western. Noir has shady characters doing shady things ending in unhappy resoulutions. Westerns(at least the fun ones) is more about the hero archtype, love, sacrifice, and duty in hostile enviorments. Sure they're both related, but still very different. Firefly isn't very noirish. Bebop is.
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Feels great to 'hear' the characters again. "I feel a little weird about using a crucifix to kill someone." This is going to be very cool. So who/what do we think Amy's "boyfriend" is, anyway? She wanted a weapons lab for him..."try not to picture it" suggests he's not human...Adam? Nah...
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You haven't experienced Buffy until you've gone to a Buffy sing a long at the Alamo here in Austin. They show Once more with feeling like a karaoke night...but with free plastic fangs. Too funny.
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the guy was trying a bit too hard, the 'performers' were missing, but it was still a packed theater and fun. Of course you really haven't experienced Buffy unless you're in a singalong with a huge group of academics gathered around a piano for a Buffy singalong. That was at the first Slayage conference in Nashville. Surreal, I tell you.
And Childe, if you want a good Spike trade, I'd pick up Spike vs. Dracula by Peter David. It fits perfectly fine with Buffy/Angel continuity and it's funny as hell. -
...hard to believe how closely your opinions on this mirror mine. I'm one of those five season people, and I believe that ending the series with season five would have been simply brilliant. And Oisin, only in the most simple, mushminded way would that ending have created the impression that a strong woman was doomed to death. The whole theme of season five was Buffy making the transition from child to mother, personalizing her role as a protector more than it had ever been before. And when she learns the meaning of her gift being death it is the precisely perfect warrior's coda, transcending any tweeny pop culture girl power message. Her journey was complete, and by her death she brought life, for the world and for Dawn, unscarred by the battles that life brought. Buffy didn't choose her fate, it was thrust on her, so the whole girl power thing starts on pretty shaky ground anyway, as to fit the bill of what you're putting forth the show would have logically been about her struggle to earn and deserve the mantle of warrior instead of her struggle to remain, on some level, just a high school kid. The fifth season was about her final reconciliation with what life had dealt her, how she finally and completely accepted the hero's mantle. It really was the perfect end to Buffy's journey.
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...and even so the series could have continued, and they could have brought Buffy back. And because I loved the show so much I was as eager to see what could come next as anyone could be. But Whedon had clearly lost interest, and the people he left to steer the ship possessed the storytelling skills of flatulent yaks. And the subtle play of themes which had marked the first five seasons became boorishly obvious and flat bludgeonings. If you honestly believe the Willow magic addiction train wreck would have been handled in such an obvious and heavy handed way in seasons two through five then I don't know what show you were watching. Whedon got tired, Noxon turned the show, as much as she could, into Buffy's Creek, and season seven was just failed damage control. On the other hand, one of the guys who works for me who knows how much I loved the show brought me in the comic today. And yeah, I was still excited. So there.
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I walked around downtown today for two hours visiting different comic shops. In one of the places the guy knew what I was looking for and told me it was sold out about 30 secs after I walked in. At another place there was a sign saying next week for more copies. It was the fourth shop that I found a few copies and some of the alternate covers. In every store I saw a lot of Captain America dies issues. It is not the longest comic I've bought - I remember when they were 12 cents. A buck got you 80 pages. Still - it was the best 2.99 (thanks Herc') I've spent in a good while and I'm looking forward to more. Got both covers. They look so nice in their mylar. I'm glad it was so hard to find cuz the North American Comic is gonna keep sliding down the bowl if the industry doesn't start taking better care with the stories and the characters.
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Does that make me evil? But I just don't have use for havin' the things hanging around in floppy comic format. I downloaded it. I mean, I'll probably buy a single-volume trade of the whole thing when it's available, but otherwise, I can't really be bothered.
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I don't feel guilty. They're going to a second printing. They don't need my piddly 3 bucks.
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Faith's 4 issue arc begins with issue 6, written by Brian K Vaughn.
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It felt like watching Act I of the Season 8 premiere episode. If Whedon wants to keep this new comic series feeling like an actual season, then he should restrict all storylines to be four-issue arcs. Back in the Babylon 5 days (when the show was in its first season), J. Michael Stracynski plotted out the B5 comic book series the same way (though the comic book only lasted 8 issues).
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Why has no one mentioned the cheese bit at the end of the episode??
think back to season four kids! the best episode, the season finale. the dream episode...RESTLESS...in Willow's freakin sweet and creepy dream when she is back stage she encounters the cheese man. i had no idea what that dude was about until now...i think...
at the end of the comic AMY wants cheese. she was a rat must have grown an affinity for all types of cheese. the creepy ass dude says something to the effect, "I wear the cheese. The cheese does not wear me." That had to be Amy foreshadowing right. I mean, it was Willows dream...Willow turned her into a rat...something is up with this cheese business. any thoughts? -
I've heard those criticisms before, that Joss 'lost interest' in the later seasons, but I just think that's bullshit. I saw no evidence of interest losing or even a lessening of Joss' presence. Just because he had other shows on and you lost interest in the show, doesn't mean HE lost interest. The idea in season 6 was to make the threats more personal and have it be more about individual breakdowns, that the Scoobs were their own worst enemies. Call that Dawson's Creek if you want, but the show was also about the characters. And this is just my opinion, but I really think that anyone who thinks that the show should have ended with Buffy sacrificing herself really didn't get the point of the show. Also, Buffy was the 'chosen' one but she 'chose' to go shopping. Remember? The whole point of the end of the series was to remind us of all the ways that Buffy had broken the rules throughout the run of the show, highlighted by the ultimate 'fuck you' to the Slayer mythos that she had struggled against her entire tenure as Slayer. She took a 'destiny' and made it her own. Just as she refused to be effectively spiritually raped by the First Watcher's demon in that season 7 episode, "Get It Done." This is...NOT Sparta. It's Sunnydale. That whole 'warrior' sacrifice thing is a bullshit testosterone-laden patriarchal myth and Joss knows it. Which is why he ultimately refused it as an end for his most heroic character. She had to go through that part of the hero's journey, but ultimately reject it. Besides, if you're going to get all Campbellian, a crucial part of the hero's journey is rebirth (or resurrection, but that has too much of a Christian connotation). Anyway, Buffy only offed herself out of desperation. I don't know, I just think it's far more interesting, story-wise, to sacrifice yourself and live, and deal with those consequences. Any idiot can die, but not everyone can truly live. Sorry, I'm getting loopy. I just think the whole 'sacrifice yourself for the greater good thing' is tired and cliche. Didn't we learn anything from Matrix: Revolutions?
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I agree. Buffy Seasons 1-5 were brilliant. I honestly thought the show was over until I heard that UPN picked it up and was tryin to get squeeze some money out of it. Now although I did enjoy the themes of Seasons 6 & 7, I absolutely HATED the way the stories were told. It lacked so much creativity. It was weak to me. I enjoy Willow turning evil and the potential slayers becoming real slayers, but the buildup to the stories could have been a WHOLE Lot Better. Especially Buffy's resurrection. It was too forced and they just put crap together. It wasnt serious. Maybe Willow should of brought her back, but that episode itself was stretched ridiculously. Maybe Joss didnt have much to do with that, i hope so because it doesnt seem like his work, or work he would approve of.
Anyway, I'm excited about "Season 8". I need to pick up a copy. I know its gonna be good. Im glad they're continuing the story. -
It's always bothered me that people wanted Buffy to end with her death. Season 7 may have had some problems, but it was worth it for that perfect ending. Buffy could never do as she was told, so seeing her giving the finger the entire Slayer heritage and turning her power into something she could share was pretty cool. I thought so, anyway.
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...never lived long. They tended to be alienated isolated people. Buffy broke that wide open in the first episode. She made friends and it was those friends that kept her alive and even brought her back. Part of the thing I enjoyed about season 6 was Buffy realizing how hard and cold the world seemed to her as she was forced to continue living. It is something most of us come to sense once we pass from childhood. The weakness of many of the previous Slayers was their lack of backup and that the Watcher Council seemed to think it was best that way. I think Buffy lost faith in the Council back when they put her through that test wherein they weakened her and put her up against a underfed "pet vampire". She was never quite the same with Giles after that either. Considering that she once proclaimed that all she wanted to do was be a kid it is not surprising that when she saw a way to avoid putting future Slayers through the previous favored isolation she took it.
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"I think the lesson here is not to believe everything you read."
Actually I think the lesson would be to understand that Joss Whedon says it is Season 8, Dark Horse says it is Season 8 and it has Season 8 promptly printed on the cover (and it's not ta fool ya!). Stubbornness or not, it's Season 8!!! I wouldn't get so hung up on the semantics involved with that though. One way or another, Buffy is back and in good form.
oisin, throw me a link to where Joss dissed Civil War please. I'd love to read that.
As far as the comic? I loved it. It transitions perfectly and I agree with the poster that says that using your imagination is better than the tangles of a movie. Whedon is completely unrestrained here and so far it shows.
My first introduction to Buffy was on a Sunday afternoon. The WB was still a new network and on Sundays they would show long clips of there shows to promote them. At the time, The WB was one of 4 channels I had to watch, and it was new. The first thing I ever saw about Buffy was this scene:
http://tinyurl.com/24bu36
"Don't you wish I would?" I was hooked. How could I not fall in love after that?! Good times.
Concerning quality, nothing lasts forever, but the return of Buffy is a wanted one and the quality is most definitely there. It's like returning to an old flame and having re-invigorated energy and enthusiasm. Concerning the quality of the show and it's final years? I think that Whedon doing Angel, Firefly and Buffy may have strapped him a little, but he was damn passionate. He's a creative person. He'd been with the characters of Buffy and Angel for a long time and he put all he had into Firefly and it showed. Bless him for that. Angel ending the way it did was one of the bes things I've ever scene. I actually don't know if I'm excited the same way I am/was about Buffy's return as I would be with Angels. I don't want to know in exactly what happened in many ways because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't live up to the many ideas I've had about it. Brilliant ending to that series. Anyways, those are my Buffy thoughts. Have a good one folks! -
If anyone's paying attention still. From IDW's chief Chris Ryall: 'Ryall then told the crowd that Joss Whedon said in the new issues of Buffy/Angel magazine, "I am talking to Brian Lynch, about doing sort of a ’season 6 of Angel.’" Ryall then continued, "After Shadow Puppets, we will be doing some new Angel books, with Brian and Joss, picking up where the show left off. They will be post-show, and definitely canon, and co-written by Joss." Presumably this is the companion to Dark Horse’s "Buffy season 8" that fans have been waiting for.'
btw, the Shadow Puppets mini is Spike vs. Smile Time in Japan, featuring puppet Spike and puppet ninjas!
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