Monday, June 9, 2008

Wolves At The Gate #15 Buffy Comic

There seems to be an odd sort of competition out there among Buffy Season 8 comic book fans in regards to the Faith, No Future For You, arc and the latest Wolves At The Gate arc. The former was penned by Brian K. Vaughn and the latter by Drew Goddard. Honestly, I don't know how anyone can, or would, compare the two. They're very different in tone and execution, both brilliantly conceived and brought to fruition, and comparing one to the other is a ridiculous exercise in epic nothingness. I'm not going to even go there because honestly, I love both arcs - in different ways, but equal love nonetheless. Kinda of like how I love the cat and the dog equally, but for different reasons.
I had some real qualms initially with Wolves. I read spoilers so I knew that Buffy and Satsu were going to get nuded up together and get all nasty with their hot selves. That didn't freak me out, and I've slept with enough 'straight' chicks to know that straight does not mean narrow, or exclusive. I was fine with the first book in the arc, issue 8.12. But, I was less fine with the follow-up, 8.13. It did a fine enough job of setting up the action for the two subsequent books to follow, but it felt like set up. Just like the second, and horrid, Matrix movie. It read weakly, in comparison to the other issues we've been given. Make no mistake, I'm not discounting #13 out of hand, I probably just expect more from the Buffy comic than I have from any other comic in my long history of reading same.
Fortunately 8.14 ratched up the action, the funny, and the inescapable pathos that is the axis on which the Buffyverse revolves. I wasn't wrong to place so much trust in these guys! And that trust paid off in spades with 8.15. If a giant Dawn is going to stomp all over Tokyo, it was inevitable that we'd get Mecha-Dawn as her nemesis. Brilliant and touche! I never saw that homage to Godzilla coming, even though I should've. How could anyone resist the urge to create a Mecha-Dawn? You can't.
Overall Wolves drew to a satisfying conclusion, if Satsu's exit seemed a tad pat. I didn't want to see her go, but who am I to dictate such things?
Next up: Joss returns to write the Buffy/Fray crossover arc. I had to dig out my old Fray issues to reaquaint myself, and acquaint Miss Kitty, with that storyline. It should be exciting! But one plea from me to the uncaring ether of the internets - Give us more Faith at some point this season!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stumbled across this little gem on youtube this AM--thought of you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lpaXO7HoY. haha!

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

That was a howl! What did the dead guy look like? A dead guy. :) Thanks for sharing!