Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Issue #10

 

The Buffyverse is over. Everyone has moved on. The chance to return faded a long time ago. Even Dark Horse Comics gave up on the series. To quote The Smiths: "I know it's over, still I cling."

I loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I never went to conventions or really talked all that much about it. I never even wrote fan fiction. I think I bought one novel.  But I was in the National Post reviewing the final episode, for reasons which still elude me. So there was a connection, and I guess there still is.

Read this issue of the Dark Horse series this week, dating back to 2008. This was part of the Season 8 arc of the series, where the excitement was palpable: Joss Whedon was writing! There was no budget constraints! This was going to be the Buffy we had always wanted. Look out! Batten the hatches, boys! Here we go!

Aaaand it wasn't as good as we wanted it to be. Apparently, budget constraints worked for Buffy.  This issue shows some of the problems with Season 8, and shows how some of the best elements of the show did continue on. 

First, the Big Bad: Dawn was turned into a giant. This was because she slept with someone she shouldn't have. They couldn't have done this on the show without it looking cheesy. But here? It just looked kind of stupid. 

The Second Big Bag: The Slayer Army. Instead of having a few Slayers, Buffy would lead an army of these stake wielding hellions. They would rob banks to fund their Slayering. The story was going global! There was no budget! Look out!

But like with Giant Dawn, it broke something. Not a great idea. Buffy is the Slayer, as was Faith. That worked. Having a ton of them? It was kinda like that scene in Attack of The Clones where all the Jedi are fighting on Geonosis. It should have been cool, but it's really just a bunch of assholes running around being a bit mediocre.

But this issue did echo elements that made Buffy great. Like the interaction between Buffy and Willow. Their relationship was the true bedrock of the series. Willow's reveal that she chose Buffy over Tara in terms of resurrection was a big moment in this issue. Which in turn echoes back to one of the most painful parts of the original series, when Willow did resurrect Buffy and the horror that entailed. It was a nice coda to that moment. Joss knew his characters well.

As a comic, Buffy was fine. I gave up on the Dark Horse series after the big pregnancy storyline because I found the resolution cheap and insulting. The comic had no budget, they could take the Buffy storyline anywhere except the place where it might actually change the dynamic. It showed a lack of courage and at worst, a con man's poorly executed trick. 

But I still have all my Buffy comics in my collection, and sometimes I like to dip back into them, and remember better times. 

Doctor Sleep

This scene does not occur in the book.

Even though I consider Stephen King one of my favourite authors, I haven't read that many of his books. Night Shift, Carrie, Salem's Lot, Misery, Under The Dome and The Stand are the only ones I've read. Oh, and his excellent On Writing.  That's it. This is something I'm trying to rectify.

So I read Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, which I haven't read, but have seen the movie. A movie King is not terribly fond of, but which I consider one of my favourite horror films.

 

So, conflict!

Doctor Sleep tells the story of Danny Torrance, the boy with the titular 'Shining' who survived the horrors at the Overlook Hotel in the original novel. Gifted/cursed with psychic powers, he has limited telepathy, can see ghosts, and has an often crippling degree of empathy. The events of the first novel, perhaps coupled with this, have led Dan to a life of alcoholism and drifting, forever trying to dull his powers and escape his past.

Until he reaches rock bottom, makes a few hard decisions, and begins a new life working in a hospice, helping those about to die ease into the next life. For the first time in decades, Dan Torrance is at peace. 

Until a little girl with the same powers he has reaches out to him. And as time passes, Dan realizes the little girl is in danger from others: psychic vampires who feed on children with the Shining.  Suddenly Dan has to protect this little girl from this roving band of child murderers while still dealing with his own issues and ever looming alcoholism.

When I first heard the plot about Doctor Sleep, I had my doubts. It sounded like a B-movie script until I realized most King stories sound like B-movie scripts. What elevates them from that is King's ability to create characters you relate to, and somehow make the more ridiculous aspects of his stories work through the reactions of those characters.

And so it is with Doctor Sleep. The psychic vampires--who call themselves the True Knot--are immortals who live off the soul essence (or 'steam', as they call it) from tortured and dying psychic children. They should be ridicoulous, but King instead makes them innocuous and anonymous. They drive around America in Winnebagos and are the sort of people you wouldn't glance at twice in a Wal-Mart. This makes then even more terrifying than a bunch of slouching goths in bad capes. 

Abra--the little girl with the Shining--is also well written, with all the anger and self indignation of every teenager everywhere. She can defend herself, in her own way, and is in no way portrayed as a victim or helpless child. 

There are a few things that appear in other King books that  he feels fond of: quite a few just 'regular folk', guys in baseball caps and pick up trucks, who are painfully down home but there when you need them in a pinch. They are perhaps the secondary 'normal' people you find in King novels, who are just a bit more normal than the lead characters. It's reassuring that this has continued with King over the years: reg'lar folks dealing with some fucked up shit and dealing with it FINE.

As with the few King books I've read, the ending is, well, okay. It isn't as eye rolling as the one waiting for me at the end of Under The Dome (which I still really enjoyed), but it seemed maybe just a little bit contrived. And that's fine. I loved the book and I fell in love with the characters and the ending was FINE. 

Since I've read the movie varies widely from the novel, I'm dubious about seeing it. But still, this was enjoyable. It's nice to see King still has both the talent and the drive to keep creating on this level. 

We Never Learn Chapter 48

The incredible flirtation adventures of a tutor and the students he tries to teach continue with more inexplicable situations and embarrassments, along with a little bit of personal growth here and there. 

Chapter 48 finds our tutor Nariyuki out on a fake date with fellow cram school student Asumi, whose father suspects the two are not actually dating and is worried his daughter is too focused on school. (Yeah, because that's a problem.) So to ease the old man's mind they go out in a boat on the beach and take fake selfies for her father, which continues the We Never Learn tradition of incredibly creepy fathers with unhealthy obsessions with their daughters.

Continuing with We Never Learn tradition, Nariyuki realizes he's in a boat with an attractive woman in a bikini and suddenly feels uncomfortable. Asumi, as she has always done, torments him, asking him if he prefers the bosoms of his other students. Nariyuki goes into his usual shock. Then the inevitable wave hits the boat, we learn Nariyuki can't swim, and in the process of rescuing him Asumi loses her bikini top, the shaken Nariyuki being held to her now exposed chest.

The rest of the chapter deals with dealing with Asumi's half nakedness and getting back to shore without anyone seeing, which entails a fake make out session to throw off the inexplicable appearance of divers. The chapter ends with a cliffhanger with Nariyuki being confronted with another case of bikinis disappearing.

For a comedy that does not shy away from titillation (clearly), the success of We Never Learn lies with the characters. Despite the torment Asumi puts Nariyuki through, she clearly is fond of him, and he of her. (Asumi is the most adult of the cast, having fallen from the academic path and trying to still become a doctor through cram school and paying her expenses by working at a maid cafe.  With the eternal question of which of these girls Nariyuki will finally settle down with, Asumi seems to be the one best suited for his nervous disposition. )

Not much happens over all, but it's still a solid chapter. Asumi has been a recent addition to the cast, and she is the perfect foil to Nariyuki's deep repression and anxiety. A fun chapter in a fun series. 

Yet Another New Doctor Aphra #1

So here we go again.

Doctor Aphra is getting yet another relaunch, with another very profitable Number One slapped on the cover. This time around Alyssa Wong is handling the writing duties, with Marika Cresta on art. 

The first storyline is entitled Fortune and Fate, and sets up what looks to be a very by the numbers heist with an archaeological twist, since this is Aphra we're talking about. 

The story begins with Aphra and her new crew pillaging the abandoned Hoth base the Rebels escaped from in The Empire Strikes Back. Aphra's ability to plan and, more importantly, to never trust anyone, comes in very handy here. After escaping, Aphra returns to Shadow University on the Outer Rim where she is approached by Detta Yao, a fourth year grad student who wants Aphra's help in liberating some ancient artifacts called the Rings of Vaale. Of course they're cursed. Of course Aphra is interested.

And of course--in pure heist style--the next member of the team they have to recruit (a professor called Eustacia Okaa) has some jagged personal history with Aphra. 

The main villain of the piece is a rich piece of shit called Ronen Tagge, who had tried to recruit Okaa to help him before. (Tagge is related to General Tagge, the Imperial officer Vader choked out for his 'lack of faith' in A New Hope). He wants the Rings as well, but only because he loves to destroy precious art, knowing full well he was the last one to touch them.

The first issue isn't bad. It's clear that Yao is more than the wide eyed student she professes to be. It's also clear the Rings are going to be something other than described. There is a general air of mistrust around everyone, which is how heist set ups should feel. Yet somehow this issue feels like it's smoothing the edges around Aphra, making her more palatable to a new audience. 

One of the things that made Aphra stand out when Kieron Gillen created her was that she was not a nice person. She had two murder droids, for example, and stood by while they tortured people. She's a scam artist.  She's a thief. She assisted Darth Vader with his evil plans and managed to survive her exit interview. She can be pretty damn cold blooded. She isn't a hero. She's out for herself. Which is why she's so refreshing in the rather moral binary make up of the Star Wars universe.

Her moral grayness made her interesting. Yet with this issue, her murder droids are nowhere to be seen. A new droid who seems to major in being cute is introduced. And while Aphra does take the lethal route with a few people in this issue, she still seems far nicer than she's ever been. 

I'm curious to see where this series goes. Will the edges and darkness that make up Aphra be quietly erased, replaced with a more friendly approach? Did someone at Marvel/Disney realize how dark  she and issue a memo? Or will Wong continue on the path set by Gillen and previous writer Sy Spurrier? 

We'll see. Or if Marvel follows suit with titles that don't sell well, we'll never know. At least until the next Number One.

X-Force #8 (2020)

I'm a fan of Domino, the mutant assassin with the power of luck and some weird skin tone issues. But these past few years have been a trial for Domino fans, since the books she is in are either terrible and/or cancelled.

Which brings us to X-Force #8. Domino is back in yet another X-Force book (wasn't the last one cancelled last year? So many Marvel cancellations blur the memory). Will this be the book that breaks the pattern? Will Domino finally be lucky?

So far, Domino has been far from lucky in this run. Kidnapped, tortured, flayed alive, her DNA being used to create a race of Domino killer clones, our girl has had easier times.

Since this is X-Force (generally the darker of all the X-books), things have been grim. But in this issue, Domino starts hitting back, tracking the people who tortured her to Russia. Colossus agrees to accompany her, probably because he's Russian and because apparently he and Domino have a thing? I must have missed that.

The issue started off well, but quickly derailed. Domino taking out another assassin was cool. But when we get back to the new mutant base, there is a weird scene where Colossus apparently advocates Domino commit suicide so she can heal from all the trauma she's suffered.  When did this happen? Colossus has always been a gentle soul, an artist. Now he's offering to help murder a friend.(On the new base--the island Krakoa--no one can die: you just get reborn, brand spanking new.) Domino is all uh-uh about that, and off they go to Russia to deliver vengeance.

Even that's clumsy. In a scene that doesn't appear in the comic, apparently Domino suffers a fatal injury during the battle. From what I gather, she's going to die and will be reborn. But--we never see her getting hurt. She's fine one page, and near death the next. 

Sloppy.

Aside from that, writer Benjamin Percy writes Domino well, but the story isn't clear in many spots. Why didn't more X-Men accompany Domino? Wasn't this a threat to all the X-Men? The island is clogged with mutants--surely someone else could have joined them.Why don't we see how she was hurt? Why is Colossus now the Death Panel for the X-Men? Why did Colossus crash the train? There was no need for that.  And the most important question: how did this get past an editor?

The art here is passable. There is a nice scene with Domino and Colossus fighting on the train against a small cadre of Domino assassins, but it's hurt by the writing, which gives no character to these assassins at all. (We at least had some with the first assassin at the story's beginning, but the others are just figures to be hit and killed.)

So, not an issue to inspire hope. But Marvel has been on a slide for awhile now, and here's more proof of that.

Star Wars: Lords of The Sith

The Disney Star Wars really likes to see Vader kill people. In the old movies, the threat of Vader was enough. Sure, we saw him murder a few people, a few casual choking deaths here and there,  but we never saw the scenes of outright carnage Disney seems so fond of.  That scene in Rogue One, for example, where we spend a movie rooting for the good guys that Vader just slaughters. And how the audience cheered! Narrative dissonance is fun!  And that love of Vader murderizing continues in Lords of the Sith.

Lords of The Sith takes place after the Clone Wars when the seeds of rebellion against the Empire are starting to grow. In the Disney canon, the Rebellion began on one planet--Ryloth--and it's here where most of the novel takes place.

For reasons that don't bear much scrutiny, Darth Vader and the Emperor go to Ryloth just in time to end up facing an attack that strands both of them in the murder jungles of the aforementioned planet. The Free Ryloth movement then spend a lot of time trying to kill them, while dealing with Imperial traitors and their own internal tensions.

There is also a subplot focusing on the tensions between the Emperor and Vader.  Apparently, the Emperor likes to snipe at Vader for his past failures as Anakin Skywalker and to gauge whether or not Vader wants to level up his Sith-ness by murdering the Emperor himself. 

I had hoped for some deep Sith lore like that found in the Drew Karpyshyn novels. I was disappointed. There is really nothing Sith about this book aside from the mutual distrust between the Emperor and Vader and their red lightsabers. It highlights how the whole Sith apprentice program would never really work, because if selfishness is integral to a Sith, why would you ever take an apprentice, especially when the graduation program involves your own murder?

The most interesting character in the book was Isval, a Twi'lek working for the Free Ryloth movement who apparently moonlights as a serial killer of Imperial officers. That was an interesting take, especially when the author starts looking at the differences between 'terrorists' and 'freedom fighters'. The Free Ryloth people kill a lot of people, many of them unarmed. And in that weird thing that Disney does, they are seen somewhat as monsters, while the low level Imperials are seen as stand up guys just doing their jobs. It's that same dissonance that was in Rogue One--just who are we cheering for? The Rebels or the crushing branch of Imperial tyranny?

When Vader is in conflict with the Free Ryloth fighters, the story is fun, because even though we know how this will play out, it was still fun to read. But too much time is spent on Vader just fighting predators in the murder jungles, just slaughtering animals that were just trying to either survive or protect their young. They aren't evil. But Vader and the Emperor get to do back flips and do Force shit against creatures that don't stand a chance against them--and this goes on for pages.

Lords of the Sith isn't a bad book. But it suffers from the same thing all Disney Star Wars suffers from: there doesn't seem a plan to any of this. It's about moments, about cool shit, but not about creating characters that we can relate to or grow fond of.  In the end, it just feels forgettable, and light, and another missed opportunity.

Batman Universe #1

I wasn't aware of the existence of this title, but really, I shouldn't have been surprised.

When Brian Michael Bendis left Marvel to come work for DC Comics, the world just assumed he would take over a Batman book. He excels at street level stories, be it Daredevil or Jessica Jones or Scarlet or Spider-Man....and you get the idea. He's good at urban hero stories, and there is no hero more street level than the Darknight Detective. So when Bendis instead took over some Superman titles, I wasn't the only one surprised.

So now here he is working on a Batman title. (Yes, he did write Batman in Event Leviathan, but I believe this may be the first Batman solo book.) And it is an absolute joy so far.

I'm deliberately not reading any reviews of this book, but part of the joy is that it reads like a team up title. The story begins with Batman investigating a Riddler robbery, but it soon ends up pulling in other unexpected DC characters, like Jenny Hex (Jonah Hex's great granddaughter), as well as Deathstroke and a certain archer who likes green. The story moves along very nicely, with very clear and original art from Nick Derrington. It was just....fun.

 As a kid from a struggling blue collar family growing up, I always tried to spend my allowance on comics that had a lot of characters so that I would get my money's worth. Had Batman Universe been around back then, it would be the first book I would have grabbed from the spinner rack. Batman and other cool characters? Score!