Thoughts on Buffy #34.

[fenderlove]

Okay, I seriously am laughing so hard after reading this book. You know, I thought when it was over I'd be mega-pissed, like pissed like a Mega-Shark going after a Giant Octopus pissed, but instead I'm literally ROTFLMAO.

I thought I'd share my thoughts, which I wrote while I was reading, so they may seem kinda hateful and filled with rage at decent characters being destroyed before my eyes, but add three cups of mirthful, head-shaking laughter and that's kinda where I am right now.



Issue #34 Thoughts:
1. If you're going to show spit and jizz flying at Buffy's mouth, red-band the damn book and just show all out tits and ass and penis everywhere. Just fucking have a spine and do it. If Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose can have bloodied haunted vaginas, then so can you. For pity's sake, you can show ass without a red-band. Spike: Asylum basically got away with that even. Still can't show peen without the red-label though, which is just tragic.

ETA: Did this issue seriously get an M rating? For serious? There's not an ass nor a girlie nipple nor a peen in sight! If you want to see a seriously M-rated comic, check out Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #53. All I'm going to say is bloody. haunted. vaginas. I'll say it again- bloody. haunted. vaginas. Okay, I'm done. XD

2. WTF Buffy? Shame on the writers for turning both Buffy and Angel into victims of mojo'd date rape. It's just as bad as the Biley poltergasm episode. Don't turn the hero into a sex battery for the universe, kthxbai.

3. Why is there a Sweeney Todd vampire? Stop with the stupid celebrity cameos. It stopped being funny after Jeanty was too lazy to look up what "Little Women!Christian Bale" looked like.

4. The whole balance argument doesn't hold water. One Slayer versus thousands of vampires, any one of them having a good day could take her out. That is not balance. It's the law of the jungle/survival of the fittest, but it's NOT balance... and it's a stupid plan anyway. :P

5. Soooo... can I blame Hurricane Katrina on Bangel sex? Should Al Gore be notified? Does that mean that Fox News can blame Spuffy sex for healthcare reform? *imagines Spike forcing Glenn Beck to eat a piece of chalk and gets a happy* *imagines Spike and Angel having a fourway with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and gets another happy* :D

6. Slayers are the next step up on the evolutionary ladder? So they're like mutants? And unlike the X-Men, Buffy's already begun to put herself above homosapian law. Great. Buffy's Magneto. Wait, I figured it out- Joss is getting two franchises confused since he wrote for the X-Men series. It all makes perfect since now! Angel has gone Dark Phoenix, Spike is Emma Frost, and Buffy is Scott Summers stuck in the middle. Nice try, Whedon.

7. GILES! Do you not remember that Slayer poison from S3?! Why not just slip it into the damn water cooler before it got this far, you son of a bitch!? ARGH!!1! I do not understand what the point of this is! If there are too many Slayers, why encourage so many to take up the banner and colours?! Just start mass-producing that power-nullifying stuff and hand it out to the women who don't want to be Slayers! They would have made a conscious choice in using their powers, and the universe wouldn't have to worry about an imbalance of power. Although this does lend credence to my theory that the real Giles has been dead a long time, and this is crazy pod!Giles. He ain't been right in quite a while.

7. Since Spike is uncharacteristically wearing green in both the panels that feature him, which he usually only does in altruistic moments, does that mean that Spike represents the Earth? Like, does Eco-Boy have to save Buffy from herself before she and the mutie Slayers and psycho Bangel sex destroy the world?

8. Buffy's going to wind up pregnant. Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus, I'm going to actually have to make a poster about Unwed Pregnant Slayers, aren't I? Buffy is the Bristol Palin of Unwed Pregnant Slayers.

9. What the hell did I just read?!

I literally have no idea what I just read. I think someone threw BtVS, X-Men, an Al Gore documentary, 2012, the Joy of Sex, and a teen pregnancy pamphlet into a big blender and hit puree. This is your fur-pie, Joss; eat it! With Cool WHip. I put a lot of emphasis on the H just for you.

As I've said many times, I'm not a shipper. I could give a squatter's piss about who Buffy winds up with, though I'd really prefer if this "icon of feminism" didn't constantly need to be defined by the man she's fucking... I'd also like Spike and Angel to live together in contented, monster-fightin', crime-solvin' urban bliss while Connor finishes up his B.A. in English... or Journalism. The idea of Bangel sex doesn't bother me in the slightest, but what does bother me is the fact that apparently "the universe" prevented Buffy from using common sense and just staking him on sight. I don't care if Spike was Twilight I would have staked his sneaky, backstabbing ass... and then his heart! Angel killed 205 of her Slayers! He's responsible for what's happened even if "the universe" is convincing him he did the right thing or that it would have happened anyway and would have been worse if he hadn't stepped in. "The universe" is allowing Buffy to play the fool, to accept what he says at face-value, to go under the effects of the glowy yellow Zydrate and literally fuck the world.

34 issues, 34 months, and literally nothing makes sense. From why Buffy had to rob banks and have a castle and helicopters in the first place to Xander and Dracula being bestest buds to anything to do with Dawn (how can you tell if someone is a thricewise? and why did the Japanese vampires make an annoying MechaDawn?) to Andrew consistently being mentally deficient yet still being in charge of a group of young women and teenagers to Giles still never learning he should just tell Buffy everything he knows when something bad is happening because it always royally fucks things up so much worse when he doesn't tell her to the whole "Twilight is tracking our magic! Instead of walking somewhere, let's take a big giant sub magically to Tibet so that instead of tracking one blip, he gets a big giant sub-shaped bloop" to Angel being Twilight to this issue. Has everyone lost their damn minds?! This isn't a writer being subversive about shipping! This isn't good storytelling! This is pure and unadulterated batshittery! (THIS. IS. SPARTA!)

That last bit? The bit about Sparta? That's why I'm ROTFLMAO because I started imaging King Leonidas's head on Angel's body why he and Buffy were screwing. Heehee! Seriously, picture it in your head and try not to laugh. XD I'm also laughing because Angel can apparently shoot little balls of vampgasm in the air about two or three feet to land on Buffy's lips. Don't tell me that was supposed to be spit. It was jizz... magical pregnancy-inducing jizz. I fear for the penguin fetus now lodged in Buffy's womb.

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

This isn't a writer being subversive about shipping! This isn't good storytelling!

And therein lies the rub.

No matter how much fun we have mocking it (there's some real action in 2maggie2 's second post about the comics, about here, and be sure to watch the clip beer_good links to; then it all goes downhill on the boards), it's still a really poorly written comic. I've used the Iraq War analogy to describe Season 8 before - a really bad idea executed really, really badly - but this issue takes the cake. How it can be taken seriously is anyone's guess, but it ain't my Buffy, so why should I worry if she's OOC and so OTT I go OMGWTFBBQ?

If all this crap helps you to draw more comics, then maybe it serves a purpose for good not evil - but the jury's still out on that one.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I sincerely thought about taking the framework of S8 and trying to redo it, but... I don't even think that the framework is anything to work with. O_o;;; I just don't know what I, as a fan, am supposed to make of these 34 comics that have been dreadful in writing, execution, and pacing from the very beginning.

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

OMFG! You have got to be kidding me?! Seriously?! These people are professionals and they wrote/drew this shit!? My God!

I am so glad I switched to another fandom. Supernatural may have it's race and gender issues but at least it's entertaining to watch. This shit isn't!

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I wish I had another fandom... I guess I have Caprica, but... I think I should just return to drawing my Spike/OC comic and my fanfiction-writing. It's safer for my sanity rather than trying to figure this monstrosity out. XD

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

You voiced it! Top it off with a sexist marketing/advertisement strategy, mixing romanticism and esotericism (which leads, when put into an actual political ideology, to ... well you know it. Look at history) it is so bad i actually cannot eat as much as i want to vomit.

Even if the remaining 12% of the "story" turn out to be brilliant (and i suppose it will be better than what we had, Whedon at least knows how to write a punch line) it will not be able to draw this one out of the gutter.

I'm glad for you that you are able to laugh. I cannot. Which is at least part due to me being mad at myself for investing time and money into "season 8", being lured that way by the names of "Buffy" and "Whedon".

Ok, enough ranting here ;-) I'm sure i(t) will get better...

Thanks for your thoughts!

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Not to be a Negative Nancy, but I doubt it will get better late in the game. Even if it had an amazing ending, would the ends really justify 34 issues of bland, subpar dreck? XD

This whole comic reminds me of a comedy bit by Lewis Black about someone hearing something so stupid that it gives them an aneurysm and they die of stupidity. In his bit, he told of how he overheard a conversation at a waffle house that nearly caused such a calamity for him. He heard a woman say, "If it wasn't for my horse, I would have never spent that year in college." WTF? It's like you want to go and ask what that means, but you don't because you're at a waffle house and it would be impolite to ask. That's what this comic is to me- "If it wasn't for my horse, I would have never spent that year in college." It makes no sense and provides only questions and no answers. XD

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

5. Soooo... can I blame Hurricane Katrina on Bangel sex? Should Al Gore be notified? Does that mean that Fox News can blame Spuffy sex for healthcare reform? *imagines Spike forcing Glenn Beck to eat a piece of chalk and gets a happy* *imagines Spike and Angel having a fourway with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and gets another happy* :D


Bwha! This is win. I WANT this! Seriously, someone write it. :)

7. GILES! Do you not remember that Slayer poison from S3?! Why not just slip it into the damn water cooler before it got this far, you son of a bitch!?

JOSS: Continuity is for wusses.

8. Buffy's going to wind up pregnant. Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus

No. Oh, dear sweet mystical death baby Renesmee Cullen! (http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Renesmee_Cullen)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I unfortunately know who Renesmee is. I just hope that Buffy's penguin baby doesn't tear and rip its way out of her uterus. That would suck. XD

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

Buffy is the Bristol Palin of Unwed Pregnant Slayers.

I am writing this prediction down.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I can just imagine big ol' pregger Buffy trying to talk to the young Slayers- "Being unwed and pregnant and young with no income or prospects is WRONG!... except when I do it... but that's because I have a support system of friends and semi-family, so it's okay. Sure, I should have been more responsible since Scott Allie says I know all about Angel's son, so the possibility that he could have impregnated me was there, and maybe I should have reconsidered sleeping with the man who butchered so many of my sisters-in-arms, but... Where was I? Oh, yeah, you shouldn't get pregnant!"

[elisi]

34 issues, 34 months, and literally nothing makes sense. From why Buffy had to rob banks and have a castle and helicopters in the first place to Xander and Dracula being bestest buds to anything to do with Dawn (how can you tell if someone is a thricewise? and why did the Japanese vampires make an annoying MechaDawn?) to Andrew consistently being mentally deficient yet still being in charge of a group of young women and teenagers to Giles still never learning he should just tell Buffy everything he knows when something bad is happening because it always royally fucks things up so much worse when he doesn't tell her to the whole "Twilight is tracking our magic! Instead of walking somewhere, let's take a big giant sub magically to Tibet so that instead of tracking one blip, he gets a big giant sub-shaped bloop" to Angel being Twilight to this issue. Has everyone lost their damn minds?! This isn't a writer being subversive about shipping! This isn't good storytelling! This is pure and unadulterated batshittery! (THIS. IS. SPARTA!)
This! Just all of it! (Appropriate icon is appropriate.)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I love that icon, and it totally applies. :D

[shapinglight]

After all the hype, the last thing I expected to get from this comic was a barrel of laughs, so I'm putting a tick in the plus column. :)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I have to believe that this is some kind of surrealist experiment in writing. I really do. This whole thing has more plot holes than what the prequels created for the original Star Wars movies, and I didn't think that was possible. XD

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Slayers are the next step up on the evolutionary ladder?

And how can a population that cannot reproduce, since by definition it's limited to one sex, be a step on the evolutionary ladder at all? Middle school biology fail. And they're seriously hanging the entire season arc on this?

I fear for the penguin fetus now lodged in Buffy's womb.

K-k-kaaark...? Poor penguin. Do you think it got enough oxygen in outer space? Buffy and Twangel clearly don't...

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

And how can a population that cannot reproduce, since by definition it's limited to one sex, be a step on the evolutionary ladder at all? Middle school biology fail. And they're seriously hanging the entire season arc on this?

I think that what's going to happen is that all the Slayers are going to be able to reproduce with vampires. First will be Buffy and the rest will follow. I just wonder if they're going to start capturing males vampires and starting some kind of vampire pound. Aww, instead of Pound Puppies, they'll be Pound Vampires in a totally creepy all-powerful female with forced reproduction from the males society that Joss probably believes is the epitome of grrrl power. The girls born from these unions will be brought up to be demon-fighting glamazons while the boys are left on a rocky mountainside to be devoured by Scottish wolves. And only Spike and Angel can stop it. See? It practically writes itself.

K-k-kaaark...? Poor penguin. Do you think it got enough oxygen in outer space? Buffy and Twangel clearly don't...

I think the poor baby penguin fetus is going, "Hey! Hey! What's this thing that keeps poking me! Stay out of my room!" XD

[next_to_normal]

Did this issue seriously get an M rating? For serious?

I'm guessing it was less about the nudity and more about the child porn, since Buffy looks about 12 years old every time Jeanty draws her.

Just start mass-producing that power-nullifying stuff and hand it out to the women who don't want to be Slayers! They would have made a conscious choice in using their powers, and the universe wouldn't have to worry about an imbalance of power.

That's... a very logical idea, actually.

Since Spike is uncharacteristically wearing green in both the panels that feature him, which he usually only does in altruistic moments, does that mean that Spike represents the Earth?

In issue #36, it will be revealed that Spike is Captain Planet.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

That's... a very logical idea, actually.

Thank you. There's this kind of irksomeness when I feel like I came up with an idea that the writers should have. It's like, "Try harder, writers. You can make Joss look like a creative genius by falling back on ideas from previous seasons!" Throwing in little bits and bobs from Sleepless made things later seem so well-thought-out even though most of them were accidents, and it was the fans making the connections. XD

In issue #36, it will be revealed that Spike is Captain Planet.

He's not Captain Planet. He just jumped into a chlorinated pool and forgot to wash his overly-bleached head afterwards. XD

[(Anonymous)]

WORD!!! Agree on all points. And seriously professionals are writing this crap? People still think JOSS IS GOD? My respect for Joss went out the window a long time ago , and this drivel just sent it down the toilet too. OH GOD, plz for the love of penguins don't have Buffy be pregnant. But that's probably what will happen and she'll give birth to little Renesmee Summers Penguin Glowhypnol. UGH!! I have read a ton of fanfic that's better than this utter shit. The good thing about this issue is that the PrOn (if you can call it that) had me LMAO!! I was literally gasping for air,it was soooo bad. The people at DH are frakkin idiots, they honestly thought this was some sexy shit. BWAHAHAHA! And yeah if you're gonna do porn, have the guts and do IT. SMG and DB should sue their ass for putting their image to this dreck (wait...since they look like a kid and a monkey demon, I guess they can't...too bad. ) I just pictured Angel with King Leonidas' face HAHAHA! Thanx for that visual.
I still think SMG would be pissed if she saw it tho. LOL

I am a Spuffy shipper, and I don't like Angel with Buffy but what they did to Angel's character here is beyond fucked up, cause I do like Angel and what he became on his own show, and they have just ignored all that for this fuckery.:( And Buffy looks like an immature kid once again, but this time it's the Universe that wants her to have magic sex.If it was Spike, I'd be royally pissed, but somehow the Bangels think this is the BEST THING EVA! Joss really likes his hero to be " date raped" doesn't he? Asshat. Sorry for the rant..I just had to delurk and comment on your post of Awesome.

~Ami