Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Vol. 4
It's been over a year since I read vol. 3, but I have a pretty good memory. I have to say, however, that this was definitely an interesting ride, to put it mildly. The final installment in the saga that is Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
To begin, we pick up at the ending of the last volume, where the remainder of Buffy's Slayer group headed to Tibet to learn how to mask their magic. This is in part to Twilight -- the military faction that has been opposing the Slayers -- being able to track their magic. So they learn this from Oz, however Twilight manages to track them anyway, and a huge battle breaks out. The girls, not having access to their Slayer powers (or witch powers, in the case of Willow and the other wiccans), put up a decent fight...until it's revealed that the reason the land absorbs their magic is because there are a couple of raging goddesses underneath the ground that eat magic. So this volume picks up at that moment, having awakened the goddesses, Buffy and the others tending to both their own forces and Twilight's forces. This includes Riley Finn, who had been posing as a double agent within Twilight for Buffy. Anyways, Willow fights the goddesses (for multiple days, it seems), while the Slayers recover. Buffy eventually gains superpowers, and by that I mean a massive upgrade in strength, speed, and durability while also gaining the power of flight. She helps Willow, who has also gained a massive power boost from a "temporal backlash" or some such nonsense, beat the shit out of the goddesses and seals them back underground. Afterwards, they leave Tibet and go find another base of operations (I think it was their old one? I had a hard time following), where Xander tests Buffy's newfound powers. As he does this, Willow attempts to find Twilight while Amy, Warren Mears, and some defunct Twilight soldier track down the Slayers. During this time, it's revealed that Buffy's powers seem to be coming from all the dead Slayers -- that their powers are amplifying Buffy. Buffy thinks she's a vampire of a sort, when in reality it's not that she's stealing the powers, it's just that when the Slayers dies that their powers go to Buffy. Also Willow has weird visions or something.
Anyway, they all join up, but not before Andrew, Giles, and Faith are teleported right into Twilight's base. It's here that Twilight is revealed to be Angel, and Buffy shows up to save the day along with Xander, Dawn, Willow, and a couple of other Slayers (including Kennedy, I think? I don't know. Hard to follow). So Buffy and Angel have a superpowered brawl, revealing that they're a part of some grand cosmic prophecy (who knew?) and they are supposed to bring about a new status quo. After this revelation comes Twilight Part 3, quite possibly one of my least favorite issues of a comic that I have ever read. Why? Because it isn't good.
So at the very end of the last issue, everyone notices that the sonic booms caused by Buffy and Angel fighting had stopped, and they all took guesses as to what had happened. Willow of course, decides that they must be fucking. Indeed, they are. So this entire issue consists of Buffy and Angel engaging in superpowered coitus. This coitus involves fucking in various positions whilst flight through mountainss, over rivers, through woods, and aaaaaaaaaaall the way up into the stratosphere and aaaaaaaall the way back down. During this, we receive news that a bunch of geological and meteorological events are occurring. You know, volcanos being volcanos, oceans churning, climates changing, storms happening. It's like The Core, only fucking is the cause of the world's problems and it can't be solved via drill train and nukes. Oh, and Giles does a real shit job of explaining exactly what's happening, because all we really learn is that Giles had been spending a lot of time solo (and with Faith) attempting to find a weapon that could kill a god. We also learn that apparently this event is an ancient theory that was so feared amongst Watchers that a shitload of them took their own lives when they found out a Slayer and a vampire with a soul having sex could destroy the world. In fairness, that's a pretty reality-smashing revelation for a world-organization dedicated to stopping supernatural threats using Slayers. We find out the reason that Buffy and Angel were chosen to do this super sexy time was because apparently Buffy living for so long, dying and coming back multiple times, and using the Scythe (stupid name that to this day I will not get over) to activate all the Slayers was a massive gamechanger and shifted the balance of power. Also, vampires with souls are big anomalies. What is the result of this prophecy you ask?
Creating a new reality. See, every universe is eventually supposed to die. That's where Twilight comes into play. Whenever a massive status quo changing event occurs, then Twilight arrives to choose its players and forge a new reality in which its chosen ones decide the new status quo. In this case, it's Buffy and Angel (though still not entirely sure why, because the exposition has been bad). Demons begin pouring into Earth as Earth begins to die. As the remaining forces of Twilight and the Slayers fight back, Buffy and Angel contemplate giving up their new reality that gives them pure happiness. Something they could never have. They say "fuck it" and decide to help fight. Eventually Spike shows up and saves the main group in his spaceship piloted by bugs. No, it is not revealed how he got that, though I'm pretty sure there's a solo series that explains it. Anyways, Spike reveals that he found out about the prophecy through various demons, and discovers that the one way to stop this is by destroying the Seed of Magic. The Seed, as it's explained, is the source of all magic in the world and the source of the world's creation, as well as its connection to all other dimensions and universes. The demons that are swarming in due to Twilight are going to attack it. We also learn that the Seed resides in the Master's former residence: a sunken church in the middle of Sunnydale's Hellmouth. So the last stand is made here, with Willow finding out from her demon love buddies that if one were to destroy the Seed, Earth would exist and the demons would leave, cancelling out Twilight. However, Earth would lose all magic. This means exactly what it sounds like: universal connections gone, magic is gone, but all beings that are superpowered i.e. Slayers and vampires remain as such. Willow decides she can use the Seed to fight back, given that it is its own power source. So everyone fights back to give Willow time, while Angel is convinced by the new universe that he and Buffy fucked into existence to go after the Seed and remove it. This universe is Twilight, and it takes the form of a flaming griffon that possesses Angel. Oddly enough, Angel originally got his Twilight (this word is used too much for multiple things) powers because a being showed up and gave them to him. This being is also Twilight.
It's fucking stupid. Anyways, fights happened and Giles shows up to stealth kill Angel with the Scythe, since Giles knows that Buffy can't. Angel somehow gets behind Giles (still really confused about this, since it doesn't make sense) and snaps his neck. Buffy then takes the Scythe, but instead of killing Angel, she destroys the Seed. The battle over and Angel no longer possessed, we cut to some time later, where Buffy is now a waitress at a coffee shop in San Francisco (familiar, no?). She lives with Dawn and Xander now. She also learns from Spike that people are gunning for her because of what she did. Willow is mad at her, but overbearingly mad. Buffy and Faith attend the reading of Giles' last will and testament, wherein we learn that Giles has left Faith everything except the Vampyr tome, which is left to Buffy. This gesture effectively says that Buffy is the true Slayer. Faith however, decides to use her resources to help Angel redeem himself, because we need to do this again, but also because nobody can seem to deal with Angel. Not even Buffy. Anyways, we have the one crazy Slayer chick who loved guns going after a select few targets, one of which is revealed to be Buffy. Buffy goes out on patrol and is attacked by a gang of former Slayers (who don't call themselves Slayers in order to distance themselves from Buffy). Buffy kicks their asses, declaring herself Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she will damn well do what she needs to. The end. Oh, we also get a short story that shows Angel setting up the Twilight faction using the help of Whistler (Angel's original conduit to the Powers That Be before Doyle) that also shows how Riley became a part of the faction and Buffy's double agent. Which apparently Angel knew the whole time.
So yeah, this was super disappointing. I feel like, at its core, Season 8 is really cool. The idea of the Slayer organization and all the cool things it sets up -- rogue Slayers, massive battles, a lot of world political scenarios -- are really cool. It really is cool as a whole, and the whole "destroy all magic" thing is a concept I'll always enjoy. For the most part, the entire season is really enjoyable. The Yakuza vampires, traveling to the future, zombie army, rogue Slayers, Tibet, and Faith and Giles are all really good arcs. They really are, and they're all contained in the first three volumes. Seeing BtVS being able to go so big because of the medium is a really nice change of pace, but that's sort of the problem. It's a "where do you go" sort of situation, and I think the writers, Joss in particular, fell into that real hard. Like I said, a lot of the prophecies and whatnot are really cool, but the ending doesn't really fit the build-up. Not because it's not big or bombastic enough, because it certainly is. I mean, it's like four issues of just fighting demon armies. The main problem is that they sort of clunk their way there. Twilight's forces get dropped real quick, a lot of scenery changes with no real flow, and just a lot of jumping around that made it hard to follow. Oh, and the dialogue is fine, but the expositional dialogue is not. Way too much love for the pop culture references and quips here guys. Like I said, Twilight Part 3 is absolutely terrible because of this. Don't get me started on Spike's unexplained bug ship (and how Willow knows about it) and the horrendous explanation for how Angel got to be Twilight. However, how they got there doesn't change the fact that what they got to was pretty cool: the death of magic. A great way to bring the series back down to its roots in a way that most series that attempt this (comics, shows and the like) fail.
Character arcs are a whole other thing, which as far as this volume is concerned, really just amounts to nothing more than some insight into Dawn and Xander's relationship and how they interact with Buffy. Not much else of note. Oh, also Willow's pretty much dead inside now and Faith has a purpose. Angel is a wreck. THAT'S everything.
All in all, the volume on its own has some decent art accompanied by solid writing that sadly could not live up to what the rest of the season had been building up to. I frequently lost track of characters and plot beats, which hurt my experience overall, though I'm not sure if that's an art, writing, or a me problem. Regardless, the experience was still damaged. It's upsetting, but I love BtVS and to say I didn't enjoy all of it, even this volume, would be a lie. I can't wait to start Season 9, though maybe I should read it quicker than I did Season 8, which most certainly needs a re-read.
