Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 6: Retreat by Joss Whedon
Published by: Dark Horse Comics
Publication Date: March 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
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The official patter:
"Buffy Season Eight Volume 6 showcases the first failure of the Slayer legion. Vampires have solid footing at the top of the totem and Slayers have been crushed to the bottom - in short, no one likes Buffy anymore... least of all this season's mysterious Big Bad, Twilight, who is hot on her magical trail! Now that it's the world against Slayers, Buffy must find a way to return the status quo to... status quo - and keep her girls alive long enough to do it! Enter Oz, the only person/werewolf Buffy knows who is down with the suppression of magic, and can take the Slayer army off of Twilight's magic-specific radar. With Oz's assistance the Slayers and Wiccans try to become "normal" through meditation and hard labor - although, not everyone sees the advantage of being magicless, namely, Willow, Giles, and Andrew. And they could be right; after all, is a peaceful life for a Slayer even possible?"
So this would be the volume where they all go to Tibet! They try to be all magic free and end up fighting Gods. Really, while I love Buffy, and I have read this... it's just... not the Buffy I know and love. Sure we have Jane Espenson, she's got all the dialogue right and the character interactions down... but the overall arc is horrid. Also anyone feel while Andrew is funny, he's just repeating himself? As a side note, when they were published as individual issues my questions was finally "answered." I wrote in with: "
I am not one of the Buffy fans who is writing to praise season eight. I have issues with it, but that's really beside the point because while I do not love it as much as the show, having Buffy still in my life is a wonderful thing, and the knowledge that each month I'm getting something new from the Whedonverse brings a smile to my face. But the more I try to work out the intertwining plots and speculating as to where exactly Joss is leading us, one thing keeps coming back to me and that is Warren Meers. He can't be! This has nothing to do with the ick factor of the whole he has a magical skin that saved him from dying because of Amy, this has to do with show cannon. I'm sorry if I'm repeating what someone else might have brought up, I don't read the q&a section with as much interest or scrutiny as the comic itself, but the fact remains that according to the show The First could only appear as dead people, the first was Warren, so Warren has to be dead. Changing this, even if they think of some "magical loophole" like, I don't know, he's technically not human anymore would be stupid. They seem to have just thought this up because having Amy and Warren confront Willow would be great drama, but in my mind great drama still has to adhere to the fantastical world it is set in. So what's your take on this? Do you have any thoughts as to the Warren/The First situation? I guess I just expect more from writer's who know they have a loyal fan base that tends to be detail oriented and are fact checkers." To which I got the answer, "It's Magic." WTF! Because Buffy was dead and now lives that's the same as Warren being dead and now alive. NO NO NO! Mister know-it-all. The comic states Warren was saved seconds before he died, he was saved from death, it's not the same thing. Amy circumnavigated the death so the whole first thing couldn't have been. Apparently I'm not the only one who this is pissed off, due to the curtness of the response. But it was a thrill seeing my name in a Buffy comic, even if you didn't answer my question truly, because Joss is not infallible because he's Joss. I would write back, but I fear it would take over a year to get a response again, and you have bigger things to deal with, like how the identity of Twilight was leaked online. Doh! That's not very good for your 4 year build up now is it?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 2: On Your Own by Joss Whedon
