Friday, July 03, 2009

Panel Discussion: Buffy Season 8 #26 Special!

The start of Jane Espenson's new arc on Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8 was so full of in-jokes and easter eggs, I had to give it it's very own Panel Discussion. Medium spoilers for the issue.

Project Runway Award
Andrew has the heart of a nerd and the eye of an aesthete (because gay guy = automatic fashion fan in popular media) , so of COURSE he's got the Ecko Boba Fett Sweatshirt! I see a million of these at every convention I go to, and you know, usually the guys wearing them look pretty damn good in them.

Here's a shot of Andrew's full ensemble, which includes the essential brown pants. Check out the real sweater on the Ecko site, or just look at this photo from the 2009 NY Comic Con. I'm telling you, it really is a good look.




Easter Egg Alert
Maybe you just looked at this sequence and said "Sexy!" and moved on, but I said, "Sexy! Hey, what book is that on the table?"
Aww! Of course Willow is reading Wicked, not only is it about cool teenage witches, it's also nerdy and full of lesbian subtext. Willow is so a fanfic writer.

Best Series Callback
I don't think Andrew ever adequately repented for killing his best friend, but I have to admit his fantasy about what he thought would happen after killing Jonathan was a definite highlight of Season 7. So I was really pleased to see it rendered here in panel form; check the scene below to see how precisely Georges Jeanty replicates.


Untold Stories
This is all very sweet in the foreground, but what exactly is the drama in background? Why is Kennedy glaring at Faith? Am I forgetting something that happened in the series between them, or does everyone still just hate Faith so much they're openly hostile to her at all times? Poor Faith, she's always failing at life. Or maybe she just hit on Willow (speaking of fanfic).

Double Standard Alert
As much as I love this issue, I must call continuity on this plot point. Willow has just disappeared into some torture dimension to subject a captured demon to some patented Rosenberg Enhanced Interrogation tactics. Everyone acts like this is some sort of unheard of war crime, but Buffy TOTALLY killed a vampire prisoner like ten issues ago! I believe it was in Wolves at the Gate, but basically Willow traps a vampire in a box, and Buffy interrogates him, and when they're done they set him on fire and he dies and they all walk away looking really badass. At the time I was all, "DAMN! The Scoobies are hardcore now!" But no, apparently only Buffy is allowed to abuse prisoners, cause you know, she's Buffy.

To be fair; Willow's tendency towards evil (Oh, Willow!) is a theme of Season 8, so I understand that it's concerning when she specifically uses her powers to torture a prisoner. But still. There's no precedent for any of the White Hats giving a shit about killing and/or hurting demons, so I maintain this moment doesn't work.


Second Best Series Callback
Xander's line on the left, "It's always good to ask" and Dawn's "Yes it is" recalls the fact that last time these guys all busted into Buffy's bedroom unannounced, Buffy was naked in bed with fellow slayer Satsu, aka A LADY! Wow this was the most lesbtastic Panel Discussion ever, no wonder I liked this issue.

2 comments:

Lena said...

Aaaaaah you finally posted on Buffy!!!

And I haven't read it yet. Crap.

Anonymous said...

It is told that in medieval England, full lace wigsthere was a tradition to pile small buns in front of the marriage couple. full lace wigsThe pile was stacked high enough so that the bride and groom could barely see one another. If the bride and groom managed to share a kiss over the stack, lace wigsit was supposed to symbolize a lifetime of prosperity. However, during the reign of King Charles II, a French chef paid a visit to London and he observed the cake piling ritual. The chef found this ritual inconvenient and he decided that he would use short lengths of broom sticks to separate the layers.wedding invitations The cakes had to be prepared in advance and due to the lack or refrigeration, they had to be frosted in lard to stop them from drying out. Before the wedding ceremony, the lard was scraped from the cake, however, cheap wedding dressesin later years to improve the taste of the lard, sugar was added and the lard was left on the cake as a form of decorative icing. These cakes must have resembled the more familiar wedding cakes which we are used to seeing today.