I just got the issue tonight (no comic book store where I was staying, and couldn't get to one!) and it was torture to avoid reading the reviews. I haven't read Emmie or hayes' takes yet so this is pure me (so far):
I wrote a long review (kind of long-winded). I'm agnostic on the subject of Buffy. Buffy seemed very, very harsh to Spike on a first read, but on a reread it read differently. It's possible--just possible--that Buffy is post-Spuffy too; that she is trying to disengage emotionally from Spike because she knows she's already made her choice. So the curtness is Buffy-logic for protecting Spike. We saw how kind Buffy was to Riley a few issues ago, and we know she doesn't love him. So the difference is either because of super powers, or because she thinks (wrongly) that Spike is still in love with her.
Spike ramming into Big Ben made me pretty uncomfortable. (It reminds me of Willow: "Did I mention the random destruction of property? The Magic Box is not so much a box now.") But I guess the point is: Spike rams into Big Ben, does a lot of obvious damage, but no one gets hurt and it's just a building anyway; Angel and Buffy are being superheroes who are super and think of themselves as heroes and they are nearly destroying the world. I still say that Spike shouldn't have killed Big Ben though. (Also: Spike/Giles parallel! Both kill Bens!)
Note also that the bugs refer to Spike as royalty ("Your Majesty"), so he might be "the prince." Whereas Angel is not the prince; Willow turns him into a frog (he looks like the prince, but is actually a frog--reversal of the fairy tale).
All that said, I don't blame you for being disengaged. Buffy looks really bad in this issue. She looks so bad that it's absolutely deliberate; no one besides Buffy thinks that Angel is in any way okay. Why Buffy is being trashed so hard I'm not sure. Angel--he's always being trashed, here just more than usual. So dunno.
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Date: 2010-09-03 01:21 am (UTC)I wrote a long review (kind of long-winded). I'm agnostic on the subject of Buffy. Buffy seemed very, very harsh to Spike on a first read, but on a reread it read differently. It's possible--just possible--that Buffy is post-Spuffy too; that she is trying to disengage emotionally from Spike because she knows she's already made her choice. So the curtness is Buffy-logic for protecting Spike. We saw how kind Buffy was to Riley a few issues ago, and we know she doesn't love him. So the difference is either because of super powers, or because she thinks (wrongly) that Spike is still in love with her.
Spike ramming into Big Ben made me pretty uncomfortable. (It reminds me of Willow: "Did I mention the random destruction of property? The Magic Box is not so much a box now.") But I guess the point is: Spike rams into Big Ben, does a lot of obvious damage, but no one gets hurt and it's just a building anyway; Angel and Buffy are being superheroes who are super and think of themselves as heroes and they are nearly destroying the world. I still say that Spike shouldn't have killed Big Ben though. (Also: Spike/Giles parallel! Both kill Bens!)
Note also that the bugs refer to Spike as royalty ("Your Majesty"), so he might be "the prince." Whereas Angel is not the prince; Willow turns him into a frog (he looks like the prince, but is actually a frog--reversal of the fairy tale).
All that said, I don't blame you for being disengaged. Buffy looks really bad in this issue. She looks so bad that it's absolutely deliberate; no one besides Buffy thinks that Angel is in any way okay. Why Buffy is being trashed so hard I'm not sure. Angel--he's always being trashed, here just more than usual. So dunno.