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

[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).