The monstrous regiment

[hazelk]

From the top:

Bored Now.

The immortal words marking the end of Warren’s human life. So what has he become? Whatever it is the transformation happened in the 4 second window before shock would have killed him. Technically, shock is the clinical syndrome that results from inadequate tissue perfusion or more simply not getting enough blood. In the Jossverse vampires are turned at a similar point, as the heart begins to slow. Warren’s not a vampire as such (maybe a home made version) but there are intruiging similarities.

Initially he may simply have seemed a natural ally to Amy (plus cheating Willow of her full revenge) but we can also see how he appreciates her as no-one ever has before. Her own mother thought her a useless waste of space but now “This is the girl.” Warren is more spectacular but I think Amy will prove the more significant villian, her SO somewhere between extremely gross pet and darling boy almost cute when he’s talking about never getting tired of his exit line. There’s a definite Spike'n'Dru vibe between them I'd love to see explored. She's his other mummy.

As Willow was Dawn’s and the mom references continue to accumulate, Buffy missing hers in issue 1 (I said that was important) Willow comparing Amy to Catherine in their first fight, Joyce taking centre stage amongst the dream cubes, even the joke about Dawn not being mama’s little girl begins to take on a new significance. Meanwhile I want Buffy’s waiting-to-teleport top and her dark face calling for Satsu. And the mathy elemental (anybody recognize those equations?)

Satsu tastes like cinnamon and has purple teddy bear armour plating. Looks in the mirror and am I bad for loving the way the Buffster says

No.
Panic.

She’s hardcore and even the mercy shown humans is a bargaining chip on the way home. Channels black-eyed Willow - she's the one monsters have nightmares about and there’s that mom motif again. Sweet.

Smart chicks are not only hot but can count to 30 in Roman and recognize a beautiful sunset when they see one. She would have saved Ethan and now she’s rampant. Heal the soldiers, set the people free. That’s my Buffy on the final page. She listens, she hesitates almost and then she decides. It’s war.



The Buffy of it all
I admit I was doubtful about the whole comics thing in the beginning. Training troops of Slayers or so the rumours went and I’d always thought things would follow a less hierarchical model. But I was won over by the voiceover on first page:

The thing about changing the world…
Once you do it the world’s all different

Somewhere between a poem and a joke it’s interesting to compare with the two other voiceovers in the book, Xander’s

I used to be in construction…

which is much more straightforwardly an example of self-deprecating humour and Giles’s

Scales have tipped of late.

which is so dry it’s no wonder he drinks so much tea.

Physically there are yet more contrasts. Xander is down in the basement looking up at a screen, Giles is up on his balcony gazing down at the masses, Buffy liminal as ever is falling from high to low but not alone.

In the first issue it might have seemed that we were back with mid-S7 Buffy. Her thoughts tinged with self-doubt and regrets certainly recalled the self-relevation in CWPD and Touched. As then she’s the appointed leader of a monstrous regiment, as then there’s a mysterious big bad aiming to rid the world of them all. But by the second issue the difference in the details is clear. This time around she knows her Slayers’ names, she may not braid their hair but she comments on it and later she even shares their lip gloss. This time she’s treating the other Slayers as equals not cannon fodder even though they may not respond quite in kind.

Relationships with Willow and Xander are much more straightforward and again in contrast to the suspicion and distance-keeping of the final season. There’s clearly more going on with Willow (no voiceover for her) in terms of the increase in her powers, able to heal any fresh wound, bring Kennedy back from mystical death and commune with elemental spirits on first name terms. Certainly material for a few issues of her own. Xander on the other hand seems to have settled in well to the trusted sergeant role. He still only has two commando outfits and a tendency to panic and yell for help but he’s doing pretty well on the whole. Dawn is a ‘bigger’ problem but although she and Buffy seem back on terms of sisterly misunderstanding that’s not surprising with all the new sisters to compete with and she seems perfectly at ease with Willow and Xander. Her giantness is another issue to be continued but I do like her strength not being proportional. Dawn's arc from S5 on has been to move away from her supernatural origins, to ally herself with Xander not Spike and deal with her own extraordinary ordinariness.

Back to the Buffy of it, the mother issues (where Amy comes in) and the Buffy-spawn terrorist army (to paraphrase General Twilight). The opening episode of a season has the job of setting out the themes and underneath the whiz-bang plotting pyrotechnics and somewhat ribald sensibilities of these first four books what I’m seeing are the beginnings of a story about what happens when archetypes grow up. Buffy’s life used to be defined on a spectrum that ran from girl to Slayer, between pampered princess and warrior maiden. Now those opposing forces have been resolved and she’s growing into another kind of archetype that of the ruling queen, mother not maiden, with all the attendant issues of responsibility and celebrity that entails.

She may or may not prefer to run things as a democracy but the outside world insists on its hierarchies and representatives. The new Initiative seems to believe its problems will be solved if it takes out the head, the whole true love’s kiss turned out to a problem not so much of who but of who would be prepared to admit it in public, even her dreamspace seems uncovered by the Freedom of Information Act. Public versus private personae, masks and assumed identities are also rumoured to feature in the next two stories. Things are about to get very interesting

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Fascinating analysis of the message behind the storyline - thanks! As for your comments on the episode itself, all I can say is 'word'. Or even 'Sir Wordy McWord, Baron Word, of the clan Word.'

[yourlibrarian]

One of the things that struck me about this larger arc about Buffy being part demon is how often I've seen interesting repercussion stories in fanfic, post-Chosen. And I rather wonder if part of my ambivalence about this has to do with the fact that it's been four years and there's been so much fanfic speculation on "what comes next" and some of it has been at least as interesting in terms of the big picture.

Which then brings things down to, not ideas, since those have either been explored or forseen, but their execution. And this is something in which I've so far found the comics less than gripping.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

If I thought the main thrust of the larger arc was about Buffy being part demon I might agree that it's not terribly well executed but I don't think it is. I think the demonisation of powerful women and the insidiousness of that belief will feed into it but the main story arc will be about exploring what it means to have power and not hidden power that your enemies invariably underestimate but if anything the reverse.

As I tried to convey at the end of the post I think what the comics mainly aim to address is the next stage in Buffy's growing up arc in a way that I haven't seen any fanfic attempt. I have read a few that look at the demon/human issue. Some seem to use it as a way of having demons stand in for innocent Other types, which always strikes as having an inadvertant element of implying that such groups are comparable to murderous souless types. Others treat the issue more in a Jungian style as a metaphor for having to integrate your darker impulses which just confuses me as analytical psychology always has. I think my collective unconciousness is broken.

[yourlibrarian]

exploring what it means to have power and not hidden power
that your enemies invariably underestimate but if anything the reverse.

Heh, well that would be a politically timely theme.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Excellent tour through your thoughts. :D Makes me look forward to hearing more meta about the comics!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

It's been so long{g} It's just frustrating that there's so much time between issues.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Very interesting comments. I wasn't as convinced as you are about Warren and Amy getting on so well but good points about authority. Buffy to be honest recalls not so much the S7 version as the mid-S5 version before Joyce's death, as if she's finally had some time out to deal with all the piled-on disaster after disaster of bereavement/death/resurrection/depression/bad sex/authority.

I liked Joyce in Buffy's dream cubes. I'm not that keen on the portrait of Joss towards the bottom right, strikes me as fourth-wall-breaking in the bad way.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I can see the S5 thing too and that's a good point. She was just beginning to find her vocation before everything went to hell and beyond but she's got that back now. With things like the Joss cube (and I think one of the Slayer's with Andrew was reading Fray) I definitely agree that these comics aren't perfect but I do think they make a good season opener. It could all go horribly wrong, they've let the General score some good points but he's no Agent Brand in terms of audience sympathy. Then again neither was she in the first book.