Attempting a Season 8 Re-Read and already giving up

[Btvs fan]

@NoShip @thetopher @hoponlilmama @Joan the Vampire Slayer @NotASlayer

Ok so I thought Id attempt a re-read of Buffy Season 8. After all this was Joss Whedon (and various Buffy writers) without Actors or Networks and there rules or Budgets.
All he had to do was think it up and it could be drawn.
Well pretty much straight away I tried it and am struggling and might give up.
The Panel Art is terrible, Buffy and Dawn and co look nothing like how they looked on the show. Now was that intentional so he wouldn't get sued by Sarah for using her likeness ? I don't know but either way it pulls me out.
As for the story, it just pulls me out, you have the obligatory "you must work together" line to the Slayers before Buffy proceeds to beat them all up together.
That would've worked so much better if she'd beaten them individually THEN gotten them to work together to beat her ! Anyway from robbing banks and using human decoy body doubles and sleeping with a student, Im not sure Im a fan of this Buffy.
Giant Dawn is meh and old very fast. Amy and Warren (who I do remember Joss saying he'd forgotten he'd killed) as the villains are meh
The whole Twilight mystery is groan inducing especially given I know its Angel and the future space sex to come!!
Faith and Giles have great chemistry but thats it and Im honestly struggling to get through to the end so I probably won't finish it through to San Francisco.
In short do I find the Comic Re-Read as enjoyable as the Rewatch. Nope

It also made me appreciate that a lot of the checks and Balances he had for a TV stopped him producing any old crap that this is.

 

[NotASlayer]

Comic books are not my thing - I own 1 slash 2 - and nothing I have read about the official ones has given me any interest in even trying.

 

[Btvs fan]

Comic books are not my thing - I own 1 slash 2 - and nothing I have read about the official ones has given me any interest in even trying.

Trust me you're not missing much. I prefer books to comics anyway too.

I think it was more a desire not to have the rewatch end but reading this I now think yeah it does 😄

Also the scene of Buffy imagining she's having sex with both Angel and Spike, was eye rolling. See shippers Joss loves you all, please read his comic

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

I subscribed to the comics and have most of them but after trying to read 8 & skimming some of the rest, i think it is just Joss badfic and i wont bother ever.

I mostly learned more about Joss thsn I ever wanted or needed. A world of yuck.

 

[wolfheart]

So...i can skip this comic? Maybe someone can do a do-over for this comic?

 

[Btvs fan]

So...i can skip this comic? Maybe someone can do a do-over for this comic?

I mean its entirely up to you. You might read it and enjoy it. Personally Iv not and it doesn't hold up well

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 5:55 AM

I subscribed to the comics and have most of them but after trying to read 8 & skimming some of the rest, i think it is just Joss badfic and i wont bother ever.

I mostly learned more about Joss thsn I ever wanted or needed. A world of yuck.

These comics feel like he just threw any crap out there because he could. Then at the end he pressed a reset button and Buffys working at a coffee shop in San Francisco. Though her basically abandoning all the girls under her care is actually horrific that I don't think Joss considered or was bothered by the implications of.

This and Dollhouse (he said he identified with Topher) showed that.

 

[thetopher]

Overall I was fine with about...the first 2/3rds of S8; sure the art style wasn't my brand of tea and some of the OT moments were dumb- such as Giant!Dawn- simply took you out of the story because you couldn't imagine them happening on the show. The voices of the characters- especially the interplay between Buffy, Xander and Willow seemed peak though, and is the kinda thing we should've gotten in S7. Plus I like some of the callbacks to the show; Buffy and Willow playing the 'anywhere but here' game is a great example.

But Buffy continues her slide from heroine to mere protagonist and by the end of the season she's impossible to like or root for. Even worse when you consider that she gets back the things she lost- the scythe, Giles- without doing a single thing to fix what she'd done. She just whines about everyone being mildly mean to her by trying to hold her to account.
Weirdly a lot of the other characters fair better; Xander is his best self, Faith and Giles have the best arc, Willow's grief is explored better here that in S7. Although Dawn is wasted and her arc here does not line up with the comics. Feels like regression.
As do all the Buffy and Faith interactions, which, honestly, make me really sour on Buffy as a person. She's the worst hypocrite about Faith, especially post-Twilight but simply put there's absolutely nothing here remotely interesting.
The 'Buffy is getting more powerful because she's absorbing the power of dead slayers' is both incredibly dumb whilst also being self-indulgent on Joss' part so he can do some meta jokes. Plus new!Buffy makes it all about her. Again.
More Harmony. Yeesh.
Twilight is a terrible idea and seems merely an excuse to outdo Jasmine and spite the Bangel fanbase.
And I think its clear that Joss used S8 to sink any ship that wasn't Spuffy; no Xander (he's now with Dawn), no Angel (that's apocalyptically evil) and no other slayer (Buffy sleeps with another slayer she knows that is in love with her for emotional comfort/support) clearing the decks for the remaining comics to focus on the most boring pairing you'll ever read in a comic. A pairing that breaks up offscreen just before the finale season of comics. Beyond a joke.

Looking back S8 indicates exactly where the whole comic series was gonna go; some okay character moments and few decent arcs but catastrophic world building, plotting and terrible titular character being whiny, irritating and morally bankrupt.

 

[Btvs fan]

Overall I was fine with about...the first 2/3rds of S8; sure the art style wasn't my brand of tea and some of the OT moments were dumb- such as Giant!Dawn- simply took you out of the story because you couldn't imagine them happening on the show. The voices of the characters- especially the interplay between Buffy, Xander and Willow seemed peak though, and is the kinda thing we should've gotten in S7. Plus I like some of the callbacks to the show; Buffy and Willow playing the 'anywhere but here' game is a great example.

But Buffy continues her slide from heroine to mere protagonist and by the end of the season she's impossible to like or root for. Even worse when you consider that she gets back the things she lost- the scythe, Giles- without doing a single thing to fix what she'd done. She just whines about everyone being mildly mean to her by trying to hold her to account.
Weirdly a lot of the other characters fair better; Xander is his best self, Faith and Giles have the best arc, Willow's grief is explored better here that in S7. Although Dawn is wasted and her arc here does not line up with the comics. Feels like regression.
As do all the Buffy and Faith interactions, which, honestly, make me really sour on Buffy as a person. She's the worst hypocrite about Faith, especially post-Twilight but simply put there's absolutely nothing here remotely interesting.
The 'Buffy is getting more powerful because she's absorbing the power of dead slayers' is both incredibly dumb whilst also being self-indulgent on Joss' part so he can do some meta jokes. Plus new!Buffy makes it all about her. Again.
More Harmony. Yeesh.
Twilight is a terrible idea and seems merely an excuse to outdo Jasmine and spite the Bangel fanbase.
And I think its clear that Joss used S8 to sink any ship that wasn't Spuffy; no Xander (he's now with Dawn), no Angel (that's apocalyptically evil) and no other slayer (Buffy sleeps with another slayer she knows that is in love with her for emotional comfort/support) clearing the decks for the remaining comics to focus on the most boring pairing you'll ever read in a comic. A pairing that breaks up offscreen just before the finale season of comics. Beyond a joke.

Looking back S8 indicates exactly where the whole comic series was gonna go; some okay character moments and few decent arcs but catastrophic world building, plotting and terrible titular character being whiny, irritating and morally bankrupt.

I don't think Joss was setting up Spuffy, given Spike doesn't show up until the end of the series and thats simply to give her transportation with the Bug Space Ship. He's also the guy who had Souled Spike immediately sleep with Harmony on Angel S5 which even David Fury was against.

I do recall Buffy has a boyfriend whose a cop in Season 9 which leads to the horrendous Abortion Robot storyline.

The Angel stuff is weird. One minute he's under mind control, then he isn't and he and Buffy are having Space sex (he'd literally killed hundreds of Slayers at this point) then he is again and he kills Giles, then he isn't again and is guilt ridden.
You then have the Angel/Faith comics which show that it wasn't mind control he was more against what Buffy was doing then it was again 🤷‍♂️ So basically all over the place in terms of motivation!

Giles is brought back to life as a kid anyway. Which Im sure Joss thought was hilarious!

What I do remember (I don't plan to re-read it) is that this ends with Buffy in a coffee shop in San Francisco, she beats up some Slayers she'd abandoned and then Joss copies from himself and uses the same end line from Not Fade Away "Lets go to work"

Oh yeah he brings the Master back as well I remember that. He does the same with the Mayor in S12 too

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

¡Basura!

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Ah yes, the Seed of Wonder. To be fair, getting rid of all magic in the universe is the ultimate admission that you overused the concept and are so creatively bankrupt that nuking a core concept is the best you can do. Which means they kind of agree with us.

 

[NoShip]

@NoShip @thetopher @hoponlilmama @Joan the Vampire Slayer @NotASlayer

Ok so I thought Id attempt a re-read of Buffy Season 8. After all this was Joss Whedon (and various Buffy writers) without Actors or Networks and there rules or Budgets.
All he had to do was think it up and it could be drawn.
Well pretty much straight away I tried it and am struggling and might give up.
The Panel Art is terrible, Buffy and Dawn and co look nothing like how they looked on the show. Now was that intentional so he wouldn't get sued by Sarah for using her likeness ? I don't know but either way it pulls me out.
As for the story, it just pulls me out, you have the obligatory "you must work together" line to the Slayers before Buffy proceeds to beat them all up together.
That would've worked so much better if she'd beaten them individually THEN gotten them to work together to beat her ! Anyway from robbing banks and using human decoy body doubles and sleeping with a student, Im not sure Im a fan of this Buffy.
Giant Dawn is meh and old very fast. Amy and Warren (who I do remember Joss saying he'd forgotten he'd killed) as the villains are meh
The whole Twilight mystery is groan inducing especially given I know its Angel and the future space sex to come!!
Faith and Giles have great chemistry but thats it and Im honestly struggling to get through to the end so I probably won't finish it through to San Francisco.
In short do I find the Comic Re-Read as enjoyable as the Rewatch. Nope

It also made me appreciate that a lot of the checks and Balances he had for a TV stopped him producing any old crap that this is.

YES!!!!! 💯

I never made it thru S8 the first time. The Retcons & Recharicterizations & Rediculous Plot & Just Bad Artwork killed it for me. Same for S9 & S10. After S10 I didn't waste any more of my money.

 

[Btvs fan]

YES!!!!! 💯

I never made it thru S8 the first time. The Retcons & Recharicterizations & Rediculous Plot & Just Bad Artwork killed it for me. Same for S9 & S10. After S10 I didn't waste any more of my money.

Iv already given up, I was on the first part, I tried to re-read it but the bad artwork, I even got AI to make photo realistic images of the drawings and they look nothing like the characters ! Have just put me off. Faith and Giles are decent together but how Buffy behaves to her is like how she was in S7 which was bad enough.

 

[NotASlayer]

Ah yes, the Seed of Wonder. To be fair, getting rid of all magic in the universe is the ultimate admission that you overused the concept and are so creatively bankrupt that nuking a core concept is the best you can do. Which means they kind of agree with us.

Did that kill of all the vampires and demons? After all, those are beings where magic is a fundamental part of them; remove magic from a vampire for instance and what you're left with is a long-dead corpse. Slayers would become vanilla humans.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I read Season 8 and the first thought I had was:

DON'T DO DRUGS

If whatever the writers were on caused them to put out this kind of garbage, I don't want anything to do with it.

 

[thetopher]

I don't think Joss was setting up Spuffy, given Spike doesn't show up until the end of the series and thats simply to give her transportation with the Bug Space Ship. He's also the guy who had Souled Spike immediately sleep with Harmony on Angel S5 which even David Fury was against.

I disagree. Spike was purposely left out of all the S8 shenanigans so he could sweep in, provide some exposition and remain morally untainted by anything. He ends the comic by being Buffy's greatest cheerleader again. *yawn*
And by the time of the comics it was obvious that Joss was more invested in Spuffy than any other relationship. "Buffy and Angel is for the masses. Buffy and Spike is for me." is something certain sections of the fandom loved to quote before everyone found out what a piece of work Joss was. He's a Spuffy.

I do recall Buffy has a boyfriend whose a cop in Season 9 which leads to the horrendous Abortion Robot storyline.

Not really a boyfriend, a faux romantic interest for a few issues before he gets hospitalized by 'zompires' (ha! terrible plotline number 972). He was no more a romance option than nurse Bun or Principal Wood. Less so even.