One Page Preview for #36

[maggie2]

sueworld2003  pointed to this one page preview for #36

http://forum.slayalive.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=buffyseason8&thread=10896&page=10#228614

A few reactions below the cut:

 1.  OMG, it's so good to see Spike again after all these years.  And that's *so* very, very Spike.

2.  Angel is obviously insane.  OK.  Not *obviously* insane.  But insane is a pretty good explanation for those three panels.  He's already at the tailor having the costume made when he 'hears' the tailor telling him to have the costume made.  Also?  Talking bird?  Usually evidence of being batshit insane.  To me it matches his expression in the reveal panel in #33 -- which always struck me as batshit insane.  We still don't really know, though.  But you know where my money is.

3.  Sooooooo good to see Spike again.  I guess I already said that.  Look! He's drinking!  IDW forgot that Spike drinks.  a lot.  Look!  He's not hitting on the girl who is definitely making herself available.  IDW forgot that Spike can sometimes talk to a woman without wanting to hump her.  Look!  He's in a ship's cabin alone!  IDW forgot that Spike spends a hell of a lot of time alone.  And white socks.  So cute.  I just want to nuzzle him.

4. Love, love, love the way the last two panels play.  And that line is just exactly Spike.  I love that he IDs Angel right off.  I love the implied contrast with Buffy who so didn't ID Angel even after a whole battle/conversation with him.  Spangels 1, Bangels 0. 

5.  Timing.  The Angel panels are well in advance of the Spike panels.  The Spike panels are all post Harmonic Divergence.  I'm pretty sure that's Harmony's magazine on the bed next to Spike.  The protest follows the Harmonic Divergence stuff -- and the girl has incorporated Twangels propoganda -- the men in the castle are now the 'slayer's victims'. 

Joss has a big mountain to climb in this arc, but boy this one page is great.  Did I mention that it's Soooooo good to see Spike again?

Comments

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

It's nice to see you back. I've read your other post and found it very interesting, but not reading season 8 does often make commenting on it quite impossible for me except for little things or things that tie in to the TV series. So yay for Spike return! It's curious to how in only three panels he has shown much more layers than the boring dumb jerk IDW is trying to make us think is Spike.

And apart Spike, this page is decidedly full of interesting and intriguing potential. And yay for the little touches of humour too, like the superposition of the two last panels: "No one can know"/ "Ooh, that'd be Angel, then". Perhaps I'll buy this last series though I'm not keen on the characters turned from living actors to flat drawings. There'll always be something essential lacking for me from this POV.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

My brother never could handle the transition to comics either. I certainly haven't pushed him -- I'm hanging in with the comics but I don't go around trying to get innnocent bystanders to read them!

I love the humor of the last two panels!

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

"I don't go around trying to get innnocent bystanders to read them!" The "innocent bystanders" had really me laughing out loud.