8.36: The Preview Pages

[maggie2]

So with four days left to go before #36 finally comes out, I figure I'd waste some time pondering the preview pages.  They came out on a pretty crummy day, so I was grumpy when I first read them.  Random thoughts below the cut.

1.  So this is Angel from the future, or at least from 'a' future -- one where 'we' lost the war.  The war in question was in LA, but that may or may not be a purely local deal.  At the end of the preview we find out that future!Angel has some issues with the cheerleader.

The time travel angle has been in play all season long -- at least since #10 when Buffy talked about changing things if she was in a time loop.  Time travel gives me a headache, and I can only hope this is written in a way that doesn't boil down to some "the characters get an infinite number of chances to make things right so nothing really matters" sort of a deal.  The drama of life is that we only get one shot at it (says the woman who wishes she could have a do-over on a daily basis).  

2.  I love that Angel gets smashed by the O.  More call backs to season 2.

3.  DOG shows up.  His first line is "I know I'm a dog.  What a world, right?".  Reminds me of Spike in School Hard talking to Angel about what a world it is where people buy all that Anne Rice stuff.   There are a few other places where DOG sounds Spike-ish.  Fortunately there are places where DOG sounds not at all like Spike.

4. So the world's back the way it was supposed to be.  Fortunatley this is DOG speaking which means we don't necessarily have to assume that we really are playing the "reset and redo as many times as it takes to get it right" game.  The whole idea reminds me of fanfic, much of which is about resetting the game and getting it right.  Which is a perfectly fine and enjoyable game to play -- in fanfic.

5.  Angel pushes the O back into place.  Superpowers already in place then. 

6.  Another joke about balls!  Probably just the usual joke about why dogs lick themselves.  But it'd be cool if DOG turns out to be channeling Saga Vasuki -- a female type would probably be very entertained by the situation.

7.  Mention of Wesley.  Along with Angel's reaction to mention of Buffy makes me think that future!Angel isn't from so very far in (his) future.  The loss of the war rankles, and doesn't seem to be a dim memory.

8.  Angel is twitchy about "chosen".  Immediate reference is that he's twitchy about Buffy, which raises the possiblity that she had something to do with the war that was lost.   DOG asks what they're going to do about that, which Angel takes to be a threatening remark about Buffy.  I'd love it if the subtext here is that Angel is twitchy about who Buffy chose in Chosen, and that's what he ought to do something about.  Probably wishful thinking, since honestly having the first pages be about Angel was disappointing to my Spike-centric self.

9.  DOG is waiting for Angel to feel it.   Could mean Angel's superpowers -- maybe Angel didn't notice he had them when he pushed the O back up.  But this line resonates with FDW waiting for Buffy to feel it -- the weight of her failure.  In this case, Angel could be asked to feel something of how this world has changed.  Dunno.  It's pretty open ended.

There are two possible shoutouts to LOST: DOG looks like Vicent; there's an airplane about to crash.  Certainly the preview reminded me of the un-joy of watching LOST where questions piled up faster than answers were granted.  It's the last arc!  But we knew there had to be some big back story on Angel.  A war weary Angel who has lost everything makes some of Twangel easier to understand.  The cynicism about the inevitable deaths of mortals.  The lack of concern about seeing a world lost (since he's in a world that just got reconstituted after having already been lost).  

My big wish is that DOG be related to Saga Vasuki and/or Willow.  That's a plot line that needs to be joined.  Angel listening to chaos means that the story isn't necessarily selling Angel as the poor hero who just had to become Twilgiht to save the world.  And who knows, maybe they plucked the version of Angel who'd been through the crushing defeat because they knew that was the version that would most easily be their patsy?  Could work.  But time travel and alternative universes need to be employed with care.  Makes me nervous, in a grumpy sort of a way. 

Comments

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I like your point #2. Hope you are right about #5. To be honest, I wanted to start on the 'you're back' bit -- and the start here really raises the chance that she's known he's back all along. But we'll find out soon enough!

[angearia.livejournal.com]

5. It's also an important nuance that boinking is never inevitable. Buffy kissing Angel is what she tends to have happen. But boinking? That's a huge no-no. So on top of the fact that she immediately dives into sex with Angel, she never even questions if it's safe to have sex with him when she's always "oh god oh god, the curse". Yet another way she's OOC.

Giving into smoochies is what often happens with Buffy and Angel, not boinking, and certainly not immediately after Buffy's feeling angry and betrayed. On top of that, she never mentions or worries about the curse, something that's scarred her badly and was a sword of Damocles for all of Season 3. Buffy didn't up and forget about the curse--so why is she acting like it's a non-issue unless she can no longer think coherently enough to worry about the curse or question if it's safe?

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure how this Angel could be from the future or even a different future. After all, he's clueless about everything, as we see here, and also in the other preview panels from a month or so ago where things are being explained. Whistler tells him that he's seen the outcome of other futures, not Angel himself. I really think this is just going to a flashback to how it started and this picks up right after AtF at some point, perhaps. Otherwise it's a pretty big narrative fail, I think. Of course he does seem to have powers already...

Angel is twitchy about "chosen".

What I find interesting about that line isn't that he was chosen, but why he was chosen. To me it reads like an insult, that Angel is malleable. It fits along with the other preview pages where the voices are telling him Buffy did this great thing, but as we learn from the Twilight arc, the Universe really doesn't seem to think so. I take this to suggest Angel is being played by the PTB or someone posing as the PTB.

Certainly the preview reminded me of the un-joy of watching LOST where questions piled up faster than answers were granted.

I actually think this might be the point of the Lost shoutouts. There just isn't enough time to explain all the hanging threads and this might be Whedon's way of acknowledging it. Sort of like the Third Act joke in Chosen.

We've seen pretty much 1/3rd of the issue so far and it looks like it will be all exposition. There has to be at least 2-3 more pages of Angel stuff and then the Spike stuff. Whatever isn't answered in this issue regarding all Twilight setup probably isn't going to get an answer, IMO.

What's sort of irksome is that the summary for this or the next issue says Spike knows the source of all Buffy's trouble--and it's not Angel. So in the end, all this is really about whitewashing him after the fact. Within the story itself, it really doesn't matter what his motivation was, no one knew it. It bothers me as a Buffy fan to see her character inexplicably being chucked under the bus for the sake of the story and then Joss going to such lengths to slap a white hat on the bad guy.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Like stormwreath says this is a valid nd even quite likely interpretation of what's up with Angel. But it's one that's based on information in the Riley one shot and the #36 preview that Buffy have no knowledge of. She doesn't even know the half of what Angel's done since he left Sunnydale. All Buffy has to go on is the Angel who wanted to kill himself out of remorse,who tried to save Faith when she was too wound up to be able to, who comforted her when her mother died and brought her the amulet to help fight the First. Alternately petty and taciturn isn't evil. So like any good Buffy qua Buffy fan I'd ask myself how all this reads to Buffy. In particular a Buffy who's near the end of her rope but has psyched herself for the fight to end all fights only to find her Snark is a Boondog.

It looks to me as if she's focussing on the in character sense making part of Boondog Angel's account of himself. The part where he says what he was doing was making himself a figure head for the forces already ranged against her in order to divert them from making the 206 a round 500 and much sooner. True she's not pushing him on why he didn't do a better job of it but my reading is that she's more consumed by the godawful mess she's made of her girl's lives (she balmes herself for the war remember). The allusion he makes to "while I push" gets lost in the confusion over not pushing her to soak up power from her dead friends. They end up in Twilight but Angel's seems as surprised that they got there as she is ergo not planed even if he does know more about the place than she does.

Angel is Superman in this scenario. Angel could pretty much stop anything from happening.
But Superman hasn't been able to stop pretty much anything from happening. Spiderman and most of the X-men are hated pariahs, fine for beating up bad guys but with minimal influence on society and public opinion. Buffy herself has had superpowers and hasn't been able to save any Slayers with them and has no plans to use them force or manipulate humanity into changing its opinions. Why should she blame Angel for not making like Dr Manhattan or Ozymandias?

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm confused about how you are reading this. To me this scene is set before the Whistler scene in the Riley one-shot. Angel is clueless because he's been thrown back into a world that's been reset. Whistler later tells him about a bunch of other possible timelines.

Angel did get insulted about being doggedly simple (i.e. the easiest pasty for the PtBs to go after).

I share your worry in your last paragraph, but an waiting to see.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's before. But if Angel is from the future, why is Whistler later explaining all the things about timelines after? If this in these panels is Angel from the future, it wouldn't be needed to explain it to him later since he'd already know, right?

This is also why I hate time travel stories. :P

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly excited about the time travel thing. I think we can square the two by saying that Whistler is explaining time lines (plural), while future Angel has only seen the one. But who knows. The whole thing makes my head hurt.