Buffy the Vampire Slayer - A Beautiful Sunset

By: Merin
Date: Friday, February 08, 2008

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 8 Issue 11
Writer: Joss Whedon ; Penciler: Georges Jeanty ; Inker: Andy Owens
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Roll Call: Buffy Summers, Satsu, Xander Harris, Dawn Summers, a cast of a thousand Slayers, and the mysterious Twilight.

One Sentence Synopsis: Twilight makes an appearance and Buffy confronts Satsu about cinnamon lip gloss.
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The Meat: Things are well underway in Season 8. We're just a couple issues past Brian K Vaughn's Faith arc and back to Buffy proper. This series is one of the strongest ongoing comic series I've ever read. Honestly. I hope its around for years to come.

Praise aside, this is supposed to be The Meat. We start off with Buffy reviewing with Xander about the empowerment of young girls with Slayer abilities that Buffy caused back at the end of Season 7. And we find out a punk slayer has gone rogue and is using guns to rob places. Oh, we learned last issue (and Buffy brings this up in the conversation) that her whole Slayer Army is funded by money that Buffy and the other Slayers stole from a bank. Bad Buffy!

In any case, Xander tells Buffy that there's a vamp nest nearby that needs cleaning, and Buffy decides she'll bring Satsu along to help – needs to talk to that girl. But in the morning, as Xander has organized a big party for the slayer girls and the big girl, Dawn (still a giant, and now downing giant-size keg-like cups o' ale.) Steam-letting-off time.

Next day sees Buffy and Satsu on the way to the vamp camp. Satsu pushes herself too hard to try and keep up with, and impress, Buffy and ends up falling in a bunch of mud. Buffy is helping her get cleaned off when she sucker-punches Satsu. Both figuratively and literally.

Literally, she kicks Satsu into the vamp nest without warning.

Figuratively, she tells Satsu that she knows she is in love with Buffy.

Buffy is touched, moved even, and it makes her feel less alone – but Buffy's not gay. Satsu starts getting a lecture and thinks she's being kicked out, but Buffy explains that its bad for Satsu to love her because those who are close to Buffy tend to get killed. Or sent to hell. Or various other Really Bad Things. Which turns into Buffy getting worked up about everyone leaving her, though she didn't mean to start singing “woe is me.”

Oh, and in the midst of all that, they exterminate the vamp nest, too.

As Buffy starts to cry, enter Twilight. At least, I think he goes by Twilight. Dude wears a leather mask so we can't tell what he looks like in any case. He decks Buffy, breaks Satsu's katanna and drops the Japanese slayer like she was a sack of noodles. Minor scuffle later and Twilight is flying across the sky, Buffy in tow. After ramming Buffy into a few buildings then throwing a church steeple at her (while claiming he just came to talk), Buffy gamely keeps fighting on. Twilight reveals he's part of Twilight, or that Twilight is him – really, he just has that symbol on his chest – but then Twilight plays the card he came to play. “Have you made a difference? Have your Slayers helped change anything in this world? Have they helped you?”

Twilight, speaking to a group of assorted demons and, even worse, American military officers, let's them know his plan wasn't to kill Buffy. “Been done before.” No, he's looking to demoralize her and attack her strength – her moral certainty that what she does is right and good.

He also starts to raise his mask at the end of one page, classic cliffhanger, as if to reveal his face. However he's just scratching his neck then lowers the mask. Nice jerking around the audience maneuver there. :)

Satsu is in the infirmary, being visited by an also very bloodied Buffy. Buffy is being very kind to Satsu. Then she's off walking and talking with Xander (apparently Harris is not only Sgt. Fury, he's also Ducky from Pretty In Pink) and she brings up the question that Twilight dropped on her about if they are doing any good. Xander points to all the girls training and tells Buffy, in no uncertain terms, that she has helped empower countless girls with purpose, courage and strength and how can that be a bad thing? They've given all those girls a connection – one that Buffy herself doesn't feel, but Xander says maybe the leader doesn't get to.

And thus ends issue 11.
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Favorite Lines (Whedon is too good at dialog): “Stupid lip gloss.”
“Stop changing the subject to true things.”
“Oh GOD! Nobody cares about your wrath!”
“Yeah, the good folk who think we're not human. They're gonna love it when we start acting exactly like we are.”


Favorite Exchanges:
-Buffy– No, the Willow thing is . . . it's complicated.
-Xander- It's always complicated with girls. That's why I need a man.
-Buffy- That would be nice . . .
-Xander- I mean a guy. Not a man, a guy, for the guy bonding.
-Buffy- Well, Andrew . . .
-Xander- Do you really intend to finish that sentence?
-Buffy- No, it's a nice length now.

-Buffy- And what have we learned?
-Satsu- That Scotland is slippery?
-Buffy- Do I look amused?

Favorite Moment: Buffy and Satsu at the vamp nest.

Favorite Image: Twilight about to throw the church steeple at Buffy.

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Overall Grade: A+
- This series continues to be as perfect as I've ever personally experienced a comic book. The Whedon love may get a bit much and one reading this might think I'll praise anything the man does. Well, no, not really – I think the majority of what he does it great, but let's focus on this book.

Jeanty's art. I still love it. He pacing is perfect, he choose all the right moments to depict, leaving the correct ones to our imaginations in the gutter. I think Scott McCloud would be proud. His character designs are very good, and he knows how to make action sequences look exciting. If you read my review of UXM 495, you might notice that I feel the opposite about Mike Choi on his depiction of action scenes and sequences. Jeanty does it, IMO, just right. It doesn't hurt that everytime I see Buffy she reminds me a bit of Katchoo from Terry Moore's EXCELLENT Strangers In Paradise series.

The line work and the color are great, too, so props to Andy Owens and Michelle Madsen. I have no complaints about how this book looks, nor how it flows.

The story is excellent. This issue feels like a stand alone issue, I could read it by itself and enjoy it. I could pick it up and be interested in the series. But it is part of an ongoing story and carries it well. Whedon really has come a long way in his comic book script writing (or at least plotting, as I've not looked at a script yet) as if you look back to older books (which I liked, but weren't nearly this polished) like Angel or Buffy pre- Season 6 / Season 8 (respectively), Fray, even most of Astonishing X-Men . . . the individual issues were more decompressed and less stand alone. With Angel Season 6, and especially Buffy Season 8, Whedon has gotten his comic writing stride. As much as I like Vaughn, his Faith arc broke this feel – the issues themselves didn't stand alone nearly as well. They were still good, but not quite great.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop there. If you aren't reading Buffy Season 8 from Dark Horse Comics, you better either not like good comic books or hate Joss Whedon on a deep personal level. I cannot recommend a comic book higher.