Posts Tagged Buffy The Vampire Slayer

9 results.
Jan01

How Low Can You Go? – Amanda’s Picks For The Comic Book Low Points Of 2012

by Amanda on January 1, 2013 at 6:06 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews, Editorial

ComicBookGuy2012 is firmly at our backs. Congratulations, everyone. We made it.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but we had some real time encounters with abject, stinking failure in 2012 that make me all the more grateful to move on and away from it. From the weird decision to fire and then almost immediately rehire Gail Simone, to the baffling continued employment of Greg Land, to the need for some high profile comics creators to make odd and unnecessary comments about Batman’s sexuality because they can’t seem to stop giving Playboy interviews while in the thrall of a mescaline bender, there was plenty to color the comics enjoyment experience last year. And, after all the dust settled from the complaints of former employees about creator rights and other assorted Twitter bitching, sometimes, just sometimes, there were the comics themselves that were the problem.

Here are my picks for the top five comic book disappointments of 2012, after the jump.
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Jan01

Hangover: Rob’s Biggest Comic Disappointments of 2012

by Rob on January 1, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews, Editorial

nicolas_cage_supermanIt is New Year’s Day, and thanks to about fifteen glasses alternating between Milwaukee’s and Lynchburg, Tennessee’s finest products last night, it feels like my brain has been taken over and occupied by Doctor Octopus. Or at least part of Doctor Octopus. Part of Doctor Octopus after a meal of bad sushi and piss-warm Chango. And to add insult to injury, I flipped on the TV this morning to be subjected to Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which, as comic book movies go, certainly is one (man, Stringer Bell and Sailor Ripley sure have let themselves go).

Chuck on top of that steaming mess that there are no new comics until tomorrow, and nothing whatsoever apparently going on in the world of comics, and what we have is a new year that, so far, is… disappointing. And with that feeling in mind, and 2012 at our backs, it seems like as good an opportunity as any to revisit the biggest disappointments in comics and geek culture that occurred in 2012.

And given that the memory is so fresh, we might as well start with (although this list is in no particular order):

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Dec02

Alien Resurrection: Angel & Faith #16 Review

by Rob on December 2, 2012 at 8:05 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Editor’s Note: If I ever want to hear your spoilers Spike… come to think of it, I’ll never want to hear your spoilers.

Well, I certainly didn’t see that coming. I probably should have, given how similarly weighty events have recently played out in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but what the hell. We’ll get to that in a minute.

We’ve spent sixteen issues watching Angel and Faith off in England, trying to work out how to bring Giles back from the dead. And during that time we’ve met some interesting new characters and we’ve come across some old familiar ones, and some weird shit has gone down, but that first statement has been our core mission: Angel and Faith are trying to resurrect Giles. And that has made Angel and Faith, to me, more compelling than the core Buffy Season Nine title, because of what that mission entails: doing some dark shit, shit that the Buffy TV show, in Season Six, showed us was difficult on a good day, impossible on a bad one, and dangerous, ill-advised and rife with bad, bad unintended circumstances on every day. And this story has worked for me because if anyone knows the dangers behind raising the dead, it’s members of Buffy’s Scooby Gang, and yet they were doing it anyway. And the promise has been that we will eventually see them on the precipice of darkness, with Giles’s body and some magical McGuffins, and having to make the conscious decision as to whether to proceed or not, and face those consequences.

Well, that’s over now. While the conclusion of Angel & Faith #16 delivers one hell of a twist and teases a possible big bad for Faith and Angel that I didn’t really see coming and which could well wind up with an emotional and affecting climax. However, by taking that course, writer Christos Gage has let the air out of the story so far. He trades the weird, sick momentum of the story so far for a twist and an “oh shit!” moment. And while that moment has some promise, it doesn’t trade even in my ledger.

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Sep11

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9 #14 To Introduce Gay Male “Slayer”

by Rob on September 11, 2012 at 8:20 am
Posted In: Comic Book News

Here’s how you start a quickie, unfounded Nerd Rage in a comic / genre geek when he reads just the headline of a story before he’s had coffee like a civilized person, or at least like a person who needs coffee to keep from dying: you have him spend fifteen or so years knowing the following quote by heart:

Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.

…and then you show him this headline, completely without context:

EXCLUSIVE: Buffyverse Gets It First Gay Male Slayer

Dark Horse Comics announces the introduction of Billy in Buffy Season 9 #14

First, you feel the Continuity Hate: “But… but… the slayers have to be female! That’s been how it is not just since the series, but since Donald Sutherland was teaching Kristy Swanson how to shank Pee Wee Herman twenty fucking years ago!” Then, you feel the Pandering Seeth: “Wait a second… are you telling me that somebody expects us to believe that the forces of magic can’t tell the difference between a girl, and a gay guy? Are you honestly expecting me to believe that I’ve been buying into stories about female empowerment and overcoming gender expectations for twenty years, only to find out that all that matters is what you choose to put in your mouth in the privacy of your own home? Are you telling me that gay men might as well just be women? Does this means that we can expect Willow to get the nod as the starting center for the Oakland Raiders? You condescending bastards!”

And then you actually, you know, drink your coffee and read the fucking story and discover that the whole thing actually makes a lot of sense, given the circumstances and the long-term themes of the Buffyverse.

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Apr16

Ghost In The Machine: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9 #9 Review

by Rob on April 16, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

EDITOR’S NOTE: Into every generation a spoiler is born: one in all the world, a chosen one. 

The kid in me says: “You’ve been willing to accept the concept of a robot Buffy since at least season five. when the Buffybot was introduced. And then, you accepted that a Buffybot was built well enough to fool even close friends, and anatomically correct enough to satisfy Spike’s carnal desires, despite the inevitable sheet metal barbs always found in home robot construction. Why is it so unbelievable, should Buffy’s consciousness be placed into a Buffybot, that she wouldn’t notice the difference between the robot and her body?”

But then the grown-up in me says: “Even if I were unaware that my consciousness had been transferred into a robot, as a human being older than seven, I would notice if I hadn’t taken a dump for several weeks.”

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Apr11

Geek Penthouse: Joss Whedon on Buffy Vs. Black Widow

by Rob on April 11, 2012 at 7:34 am
Posted In: Geek Culture, Movie News

If you’re anything like I am, you watched that teaser clip, from Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers flick, of Black Widow tied to a chair and still kicking the shit out of three or four guys and you wondered: “Why can’t I control when I get an erection? I’m a fucking 40-year-old man!”

However, if you’re anything like Amanda, you wondered who would win in a fight: the Widow, or Whedon’s most famous creation, Buffy The Vampire Slayer? I know she wondered this because she asked me while I was drafting the above-linked article; I sat quietly for a moment after her question, and after some intense consideration, I could only reply: “…I gotta go put on clean pants. New rule: don’t ask me about purely theoretical superhero girl fights. No, this does not supercede the existing rule to not ask me to solve complicated mathematical word problems in front of you and your friends.”

Thankfully, Whedon has responded directly to the question to USA Today, saving those of us wallowing in the realm of superhero geekdom the heartbreak of hours of heated bar debates, ill-advised and extended podcasts, and shameful and furtive midnight laundry sessions.

To wit:

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Jan31

Forward Into The Past: Faith & Angel #6 Review

by Rob on January 31, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Remember that episode of Buffy where Willow got all twisted on dark magic and couldn’t leave the house? And she was willing to ignore anything else that was going on in the Buffyverse because she was just too willing to roll around in the darkness in exchange for a free taste for a load of evil across her naked chest (Perhaps I’m misremembering the episode… but if I am, don’t you fucking dare tell me)? Yeah, that’s what Angel & Faith #6 is: the crack of the Buffyverse.

Whereas the actual Buffy The Vampire Slayer comic feels committed to advancing the Buffyverse and showing the Scooby Gang pushing forward into adulthood, Angel & Faith as written by Christos Gage, particularly in this issue, feels committed to beefing up and filling out previously mentioned areas of the Buffy mythos. On its face, this can be dangerous; any storyline that is less concerned with advancement and more concerned with its own continuity runs a serious danger of crawling up its own ass and dying (hello, Grant Morrison’s run on Batman!).

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Sep16

Buffy Summers: Party Slayer: Review Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9 #1

by Amanda on September 16, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Fun Fact Of The Day: today, I discovered that my taste in classical music runs toward pieces that involve string instruments, restrained use of the woodwind family, and, are actually Led Zeppelin. Mostly the latter, actually. I determined this during a brief, but abortive attempt at cultivating a taste for classical music while trapped in traffic gridlock on the I-95 corridor. This may not have been the best time to make the attempt, but it’s not like I had anything better to do. I was trapped in a sedan sandwich between what appeared to be a head made mostly of cell phone in front of me and a morbidly obese individual in a Toyota Yaris who seemed to have dozed off in back of me. He would appear to wake every now and again to shovel a fistful of Funyuns down his head and then drop right back to sleep. It was fascinating except for that part where I worried he’d lose control over the brake pedal and smash me into Funyun dusted road pizza. I needed something to distract me.

There are seven television seasons that one could point to in the Buffy-verse as being “Classic Buffy”, as opposed to the comic book Season 8, which I consider to be “New Coke Buffy”. I wanted to like it, but even Whedon has said in interviews that by the end of Season 8 things needed to be reined back in and brought back to basics. But hey, sometimes, you just have to try. For every instance of “No, I think I need something that rocks a little harder than Mr. Vivaldi here”, there is also an “anything goes” reverting back to “basics/world with no magic”. Sometimes the classic is better.

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Sep05

I Live Through Angel and Faith #1

by Amanda on September 5, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Emo Angel is emo.

I’ve noticed, in the short history that this site has been live, that my posts have been DCnU centric. That’s a shame, because there’s certainly a wealth of other comic book business that is managing to make it out into the world, despite the sucking vacuum of the New 52. Did you know, for example, that a comic book store is launching in Toronto that is intended to be specifically for kids? This is exciting, because I often find myself standing in the middle of a comic store in downtown Toronto pissed that they won’t let me do keg stands because of all the teeming, unwashed masses of children that cling to my ankles like so many fleas. Now I can be surly in public in Toronto in peace.

What? Your comic store doesn’t let you do keg stands? You need a better comic store.

Did you know that Image Comics plans on releasing “Morning Glories” #12, “Screamland” #4 and “Spawn” #211 for sale September 7, 2011? Yes! New Spawn! The one thing in my life that is 1992, every day, all the time.

And, meanwhile, Dark Horse released Angel & Faith #1 last week. Part of the “Season 9″ arc of the Buffyverse, “Angel & Faith”, written by Christos Gage with art from Rebekah Isaacs, finds Faith in possession of Rupert Giles’s mysterious journal of mystery. This is because Angel killed Giles at the end of Season 8. BUT! It’s not his fault, you see – he was under the influence of Twilight and, as we all know, Twilight ruins everything.

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