Loving this so far. Willow's breakdown is pretty damn emotional.

And it seems that, even when the situation demands it, Buffy is still not cool with guns.

UnpluggedCrazy | September 14, 23:51 CET

So, what looked like the worst plan ever right from the start turned out to be the worst plan ever. Duh.

Lie down with the dogs, etc...

[ edited by beergood on 2009-09-15 00:00 ]

beergood | September 15, 00:01 CET

The illustrations in this issue are MUCH better than some on the pages of the past few issues. The likenesses are perfect on many in this issue.

NathanG | September 15, 00:01 CET

Damn this looks good. The Willow scene? And Giles' line to Buffy? This arc is bringing the emotions in a big way. Can't wait to see where it's going.

erendis | September 15, 00:04 CET

Man.is Willow having a freakout.And it seems Buffy is still against using guns.

Buffyfantic | September 15, 00:08 CET

As am I, go Buffy!

Vortigun | September 15, 00:43 CET

By the way, how does the "you cannot access your powers in any way whatsoever once you've put them in the ground, no matter how much you need to" bit work with the bit in #27 where Bay can still turn into a wolf when she really needs to?

beergood | September 15, 01:02 CET

Who'll be the holdouts? How many girls have been going thru the motions and not doing the exercises? And just how much are the holdouts and the hiders going to blame the other for the unavoidable disaster this will be? Bored now.

DaddyCatALSO | September 15, 01:17 CET

whoa. I think Will is definitely losing it...

Jossfan_21 | September 15, 02:36 CET

I might be the minority but I'm not digging the art or the storyline. Willow's storyline yes, Xander's super exposition on guns, no. I get all giddy whenever Buffy and Willow are friends and comfort each other, I love this series for the friendships more than anything else. But Xander feels...different here. Not sure why, just, blah.

luv4whedon | September 15, 02:56 CET

maybe it'll feel better when you have the whole issue in your hands. :(

drvmyslfcrzy | September 15, 03:14 CET

@luv

Maybe you just don't know what it's like to be a guy surrounded by weapons. More specifically, a man who is a FAN of weapons, being surrounded by weapons. You're not the same when there's that much fun in one location.

Turbofist911 | September 15, 03:59 CET

Buffy's likeness is spot on in many places.

Riker | September 15, 04:41 CET

Am I the only one confused, frustrated, and bored by this arc? I'd give Jane my firstborn if she asked but the magic-loss-via-gardening conceit is paper-thin and feels a lot more plotty than anything else. It's like when Angel became human in the comics - shouldn't Buffy maybe not being a Slayer anymore be...bigger? More harrowing? Jeez, shouldn't we have had a quiet moment in the last couple of issues for her to think/talk about what in the world that means?

I know, I know, the mythology of BtVS has always been usefully fungible and secondary to the human stories. And I recognize the limitations of this monthly skinnybook format and all, and I loved the first year+ of this book, and I know there might be some residual 'Please don't change anything Joss!' crap in my response, but...it feels like something's missing. Maybe it's, er, reflection?

(Last issue didn't do it for me, can you tell?)

waxbanks | September 15, 04:59 CET

Am I the only one confused, frustrated, and bored by this arc?

Nope. More confused and frustrated than bored. But definitely confused. I agree it all seems totally random. Slayerness is magic that can be dumped at will. OK. Addendum to the rule: magic cannot be picked up again at the drop of a hat. OK. They've acquired a huge arsenal up in the remote mountains of Tibet and they didn't worry about giving away their position by launching an unusual flow of arms in their direction. Why not? Andrew has a magic word that will let them reacquire their magic at mach ten at a critical moment? Why not? Granted the show did play loose with lots of stuff. But somehow here it's to the point where I don't care about the situation because I don't believe it. The show never made me feel like there was *NO* basic logic to the world, but if there's a logic to this world it's lost on me.

[ edited by Maggie on 2009-09-15 05:58 ]

Maggie | September 15, 05:58 CET

Hm, ok, so no getting the magic back. Makes no real sense after so little time but was somewhat to be expected. Willow might be a bit overemotional about it, but she's pretty right.

Also if they planns to let them fight with guns, why did they not train them to use them, during the demagic fight session? It's not like artillery requires no training at all.

I wonder if Buffy really is that condifent or if the death wish is making an appearence and she just doesn't care.

Changeling | September 15, 07:42 CET

The guns sux, I know there will be a point to bringing them in that will cycle back to the whole, Guns are bad O'kay, But hating the guns and buffy on the same page thing.

treenie | September 15, 09:39 CET

Gee, anyone betting when this is all said and done, the slayerettes do not get the magic back? Buffy, yes. All the rest, no.

Dana5140 | September 15, 12:42 CET

I can't work out whether I'm enjoying this arc or not. Ask me again when it's done and I've read it a few more times.

Sparticus | September 15, 15:47 CET

No, I don't think Joss would undo the ending to the tv series like that, Dana.

Riker | September 15, 15:48 CET

He kinda has to. End target is 0 Slayers to get to Fray.

Buffy's always been unusual for a Slayer. If anyone breaks the rules it's her. Also she wants the magic back the least. The Way of the Buff is riddled with irony, pain, and exceptionalism. It's a possible outcome here.

Sunfire | September 15, 16:57 CET

How ironic it is this No guns story contrasting the recent discussion about Fox use of guns in the promotion of Dollhouse. Just weird.

Have yet to catch up with the season.

Numfar PTB | September 15, 17:09 CET

They don't necessarily have to depower all the other Slayers to result in Fray's future. They could kill them all off (gradually or in one fell swoop coming up maybe), which would really kinda kill the message "Chosen" may've been loaded with. It'd also be a wonderfully twisted and grown-up way about exploring the consequences of choice again, responsiblity forced on those who didn't ask for it, and probably parallel to mature figures (Buffy, Xander, and Willow in this case) drafting young soldiers (the former Potentials) into wars they're not prepared or fully equipped to win.

They could also just gradually die off. Fray's time is, what, 500 years in the future or something like that (I may be confusing with Firefly) ? Plenty of time. We still don't know whose hand that was in the original Fray comic, presumably leaving Earth/this dimension along with most of the demons through some kind of portal, and which slayer was being spoken of in that brief flashback/tale-being-told sequence.

I know it's a popular theory that Season 8 will result in Fray being avoided, that it'll be an alternate timeline or a pocket dimension or whatever, not the path Buffy and co. are on anymore, but I think that's hugely lame. That 8-issue mini-series still works even just as a tale of the Buffyverse, but it carries far more weight if it's closely connected and certain (and I think Willow living that long is an awesome, sad, grave development that should stick. Imagine how impactful that would've been if we found out in the TV series. It was still really big for me in the comic and despite her fate, undoing it would suck. For those who hate it due to its depressing implications, hey, Willow could still have 300 years or so of good times in her until she gets like that).

Agree with not liking the mythology flung around in small bites and it feeling really kinda hokey and afterthought-ish. The kind of all-of-a-sudden that conveniently makes Olaf the Troll apparently a god of his kind in the season finale, despite not having that implied or stated outright in his introductory ep or anything after, and as a result his hammer is suddenly powerful enough to use as a weapon against hell-god Glory--convenient! But not as lazy-feeling as this Tibet/no-magic plot point might end up. But so used to it many seasons ago. Maybe retroactive explanations in future issues will clear it up better (despite Scott Allie saying that we shouldn't expect too much "puttying in" of the holes).

[ edited by Kris on 2009-09-15 17:31 ]

Kris | September 15, 17:28 CET

I have never been comfortable with Buffy's idea that guns are bad, but swords are okay. Guns are not bad. Swords are not good. They are devices, weapons to be used for defense or offense. As always, it's the human heart which is good or bad.

When an unarmed person is faced with an armed attacker, who do they call for help? You guessed it. Most would like those police to be armed. Yet when seconds count, the police are only minutes away, so many choose to arm themselves. As long as they use that right legally and responsibly, I have no problem with it.

If we could somehow change humanity's soul such that there were no sin left (i.e. as in the case of "Serenity", only with more success and less suck), then we might also get rid of guns and swords. Until then? Not so much. Even if we could change humanity, Joss agrees it would be too meddlesome a solution.

So there you are, on the raggedy edge, back against the wall. You aren't a slayer, and there's an armed lowlife in front of you, intent to do you harm. What's your decision, go armed or unarmed? I can't make that choice for you, but I know what mine would be.

quantumac | September 15, 17:47 CET

They don't need to do anything to get to Fray. I still think the point of the Fray arc was that it's now in essence splintered off into its own reality and no longer dictates how Buffy's time must progress.

The One True b!X | September 15, 17:50 CET

I don't see it happening this season, sunfire.

Riker | September 15, 18:08 CET

However, b!X, this is a Joss tale, and Joss is much the disciple of D'Hoffryn. Where is the pain if he lets Willow have a happy ending?

[ edited by quantumac on 2009-09-15 18:21 ]

quantumac | September 15, 18:21 CET

Avoiding the Fray future would't inherently mean Willow gets a happy ending.

The One True b!X | September 15, 18:31 CET

Sunfire kris: sorry, I'm still with b!x on this. The Fray Arc felt like this ceased to be Buffy's future when Buffy travelled back from it. But that's exactly what it is,a feeling, so you could be right.

Riker: I am much less sure about this than Dana5140 but I think it's very possible. I can see in my mind's eye Joss looking out at Us Audience and doing his usual "So you all thought Buffy's smile meant things ahd changed for her and Faith? Well, I gotcha again! Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah." Okay, maybe not the third sentence in that speech but still.

DaddyCatALSO | September 15, 20:48 CET

Heh, it depends on how time travel works in the Buffyverse, DaddyCatALSO. Is it circuitous like on Lost, where apparently nothing can be changed (we'll see for sure in Season 6) and characters traveling back to the past merely means fulfilling the roles they already filled anyway ? Or is it more like in the Terminator franchise, "no fate" ?

I like the interpretations that the art and panel layout when Buffy stabs FutureWillow imply a splintering off or a fading away (to white, I think it was?), but it didn't seem definitive. Fair enough, it's just a feeling some readers have, like you said.

To me though, visiting the future doesn't necessarily mean Buffy is armed with the knowledge to avoid it (nor are the rest of her friends, despite Giles, Xander, and Willow now knowing a bit about it). Maybe it's all part of the cycle. Guess we'll see...although I dunno if I'd bet on that. If they never revisit the Fray future storyline again in the main Buffy comic, I won't be surprised. Joss has said he wants to do more Fray minis in the future though, so there might be that, regardless of whether it still fits with the main Buffy timeline.

But it's just...y'know, the scythe was introduced there and I read Fray back when it was being released in issues while Buffy and Angel were still on the air and it really felt like a big, bonus, gift piece of the mythology from Joss and it'd be crap to throw it away. I hope he doesn't split it off due to feeling restricted by how things end up. Would rather see him work within the framework he's set up for himself than time travel/magic the main storyline off of that path 'cause he changed his mind.

Kris | September 15, 21:33 CET

Kris; Well, even if they split off it doesn't mean it went pfft. The last panels amde that pretty glear with Mel on the roof. Of course, not having seen Fray before that arc (or since) I was less invested.

DaddyCatALSO | September 16, 01:26 CET

Haven't got around to buying the Fray trade yet ?

Kris | September 16, 16:46 CET