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

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

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.

Also, it'll solve something else: if he meets Dawn and doesn't immediately start babbling about yoghurt and green glow, we'll know she's not the Key. :)

I like that Spike's steampunk ship is actually literally steam-driven.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

ha ha! But tests are always good!

I suppose it's the steampunk ship, but I initially read it as a regular ship. This is Spike starting to track down what's going on and I figured he'd get the ship later on when he knew what he was up against. But I often read these things wrong.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I figured he'd get the ship later on when he knew what he was up against.

Hey, Angel hired someone to make the suit before the voices were done explaining to him what he had to do. Compared to that, I have no trouble buying that Spike would stumble on a Yellow Submarine and go "Right. That's mine. Might be useful sometime."

ETA: And now I have this image in my head of Spike hearing Angel explaining all this and going "...Right. Y'know, Dru used to talk to birds, too. And stars. And pixies. And the kitchen table. And..."

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

You're missing the batshit insane explanation. Angel's hired the tailor and is hallucinating what he's saying, the way he's hallucinating the bird talking. What's driving the hallucination is anybody's guess, but that's my story for the moment. That's my explanation for why we have the panel of Angel being told to make a costume by the guy Angel's already hired to make the costume.

Doesn't mean that can't be Spike's ship. But I like the idea of him sailing to Scotland. (He's too late, of course, the castle is already blown up -- but he doesn't know that. And I like the very neat trick of explaining in one panel without words why it is that Spike hasn't showed up until now. By the time he got on the trail, Buffy was already in hiding).

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

You're missing the batshit insane explanation.

I hope not; that's been my explanation since at least #34, and it's nice to have it confirmed. I'm just saying that even mad people usually work their way from A to 36 with some sort of internal logic - in which case it would make sense for him to come up with the idea of dressing up as Deadpool before dressing up as Deadpool. But maybe he's just mulling the same 3-4 idees fixes over and over in his head.

[shapinglight]

:snorfle:

This comment had me in stitches.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how different all of this is from your epic fic. Angel being distorted by some force, buying into a narrative that is tailor-made for him. I'm curious what you think of that. (Your fic made an impression, in case you can't tell -- there was something in it about Angel's predicament that seemed rather profound to me -- the way it resonates with his basic themes).

[shapinglight]

Um, are you talking to me or BGF here?

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

You! (Sorry if that wasn't clear.)

[shapinglight]

Ah, okay. Will do my best to answer.

One way in which I would have said, until no 34 came out, that this story would differ from mine would be that there would be an awful lot less sex. :)

Seriously, though, I can envisage Angel going down a very dark path in order to protect his son, who IMO, means more to him than anything, I can't see him doing that for anyone else, not even Buffy. This is not because I think he doesn't still love her, or the idea of her at least. In fact, it's more that I think he does still love the idea of her and he would know that the path he appears to have chosen in this comic would be abhorrent to her.

So this is certainly not a path I would see Angel taking, unless he really has gone mad. I don't see him buying his own hype quite that much.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Lol about the sex.

I very much get that you see Angel as driven by a different set of motives.

I guess I was more thinking about the blend of influence and going with the grain of Angel's personality. It was the external-internal combo that struck me as somewhat similar, though obviously the content of the motives are quite different. Also the way Angel can block out things once he's set on a path. It's just kind of strange that what I most admired in your epic is something similar to what I think might get played out here, albeit in a very different key. (I'm obviously a weird sort of reader).

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

What I had in mind is that something has caused Angel to think all these crazy thoughts. It drives him to order the costume, and then 'supplies' the narrative of why as the costume is being made. The panel is just meant to make it clear that it's not actually the universe straight-forwardly telling him to do this stuff (in case the talking bird wasn't sufficient -- which given some of the WTF reactions, it wasn't).