Buffy the vampire slayer. Season eight, Vol. 7, Twilight (original 2010; edition 2010)

*possible spoilers*
Epic! The battles keep getting bigger and Buffy's abilities keep getting more powerful. It's too bad her character just isn't built to handle responsibility--she's reacts like a dictator or a twit depending on the situation (was the same in the TV show, so at least it's consistent).

I've been reading the comics for the peripheral characters--Xander, Dawn, Giles, Andrew. I really enjoy Xander's superhero tests and references in this volume, but I'm lukewarm about his new relationship with Dawn. Giles has become a background character by this time, and Andrew is underutilized. Too bad.

The art was a bit better in this volume; it was a little easier to tell the characters apart, although the dots for eyes in the background characters is still disconcerting. ( )

The reveal of Twilight's identity and part one of the big battle. More super-sad stuff and some super-sexy (although kinda cringeworthy in parts) stuff. I think the not-having-a-budget thing kind of works against the Whedon crew in this one. You can draw a gazillion impossible monsters, but you've still just got an army of super-strong girls to fight them. Which means, you've got to have super-stronger heroes. Which means big upon big upon bigger until you've almost jumped the shark. The best parts of this were the character interactions and the "exposition-y" parts. The worst parts were the super-huge monsters and the girls dying parts. Funny, there have been a few deaths over the series, but I don't think there have been as many in the whole TV series as there have been in the season 8 books. I still love it, but it made me a little sad. ( )

vol. 7

The season 8 storyline continues to move along and we finally find out who Twilight is. My only disappointment in that is I already knew who it was since so many people gave it away when it first came out. This is the downfall for not reading the comic as it comes out and instead waiting for the collected trade. I loved the humor in this volume, it reminded me a lot of the old tv show. One more collected volume to go to wrap up the season. ( )

Whedon's opening story in this compilation is a classic, and Brad Meltzer handles the Twilight arc with deft, ironic hands. This is certainly the best volume of Buffy's Season Eight so far. ( )

Crap. Is this about Joss losing the Wonder Woman gig or what? This is what a trainwreck looks like. I hate, hate, hate this volume. I'm a major Buffy fan--really I am. I adored the television show, and up to now I'd have said the last third of Season Six was the low point--and that the comic books had at least skimmed a bit above that line, while having a lot of the worst of its elements (Magical addiction, Dark Willow, Warren as Villain). And man, I've never much liked Jeanty's illustrations, and I think this is his worst to date.

Here's the thing. I'm a Buffy fan, not a comic fan, and I haven't been happy from the beginning with this format. And for me, one of the worse aspects of comic books are superheroes. Yeah, I know, and what was Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Well strong--just strong enough to fight vampires--which she did on patrol every night, and as Spike once said, all a vampire needed to take her down was one good day. And she lost her life more than once. She was vulnerable. There's a reason I prefer Batman over Superman and Kirk over Spock. I find it hard to see superheroes as really heroic. I thought part of the reason Hamilton's Anita Blake jumped the shark is she became too powerful. Buffy was so young when she started--and the television show was always about a lot more than fighting vampires--it was a metaphor for life, and Buffy on the show always stayed human. So, not in love with the whole superhero theme from the start. Although there's a moment where I thought they did a cool thing with it, one commensurate with the idea that with great power comes a great price--and then... Well, it goes off the rails. Into eye roll territory. Into cheesy soft porn. Into laugh out loud not because of intentional humor, but because it's ridiculous. I'm glad I didn't start to read these until I had gotten all of Season Eight. I can't imagine investing in this Season 8, following it for years and then hitting this. I'm going to start the next and last volume more in dread than anticipation.

I will say though this volume featured my favorite line in all of Season 8 when Buffy finally confronts Twilight. "My God, is that really the name you picked? Twilight? Y'know, I lived that idea first, right? (And my vampire was so much better.)"

He was Buffy, he really was. ( )

The secret of Twilight, and the truth behind life, the universe, and everything, is revealed! :) All this and Buffy gets superpowers? Loved all the hero gags and this collection surprised me as much as I had hoped. Now, we're ready for the grand finale! ( )

review posted here: http://book-splot.blogspot.com/2011/09/buffy-season-8-vols-6-7-joss-whedon-et.ht... ( )

I loved so much about Twilight, the next-to-last volume in Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I loved Xander and the way he dealt with Buffy's untimely over-sharing. I loved Buffy's powers ramped up to superhero levels and the reason behind it. I loved the arrival of Angel, even if I didn't completely love why he was there. I loved, in an extreme fashion, the arrival of the surprise Buffy alum at the end of the volume. I just didn't love where the overall series story arc ended up.

Who is Twilight? We've wondered through 6 previous volumes. The answer, well, is disappointing to say the least. The reveal will be a shock, followed by a groan. Because, really, haven't we already faced this villain before in another form? Sure, this is different. It always is. The person behind the Twilight mask isn't the actual evil Buffy and the gang face anyway. It's all leading up to an event. An event that changes the world. I find myself groaning again.

I don't like where the story went here and I'm very afraid of where it's going to take us in the last volume of Season 8. Everything was coming along nicely and then this is what we get. What the hell? This is one of those rare instances where I wish everyone wakes up realizing it was all a dream. I want a do-over. Continuing on this path, all that's left for the next volume is cleaning up the mess they made while Buffy struggles with her love life. I desperately hope Whedon has something amazing up his sleeve.

Twilight is so close to perfect while managing to allow for a large amount of wrong to work its way into the story. I couldn't help but love this volume, while simultaneously hating everything Twilight related. ( )

Buffy comes down to earth with Whedon at the helm in the first issue here, with strong dialogue and humor carrying the story of Buffy's mysterious new found power. However, Meltzer takes the helm starting in the second issue and the writing becomes flimsy and imprecise. The emotional impact is stunted when Twilight's identity is revealed, and a complex plot twist ripe with fantastical shifts in Buffy's metaphysical reality is given a feeble explanation and very little fleshing out. In the hands of a more capable writer, this arc could have been one hell of a ride. On the other hand, Karl Moline gives us some redeeming pencil work in the pre-season eight Willow one shot after some shoddy art in the Time of Your Life arc. In the main issues, Jeanty's artwork is still great even if I'm not too keen on his rendering of Angel. ( )

If this were an actual television series, these issues/episodes would have aired during a sweeps month. Big reveals (particularly -- who/what is Twilight? What's he/it all about anyway?) make for a lot of exposition. I'm not sure I get and/or buy all of it. I think I'll need to re-read it before the next volume comes out.

The biggest delight for me with this issue is that two of the books ("Turbulence" and the one-shot "Willow: Goddesses and Monsters") were scripted by Joss Whedon. The dialogue between Buffy and Xander in "Turbulence" is pitch-perfect Whedon. True to both characters, and alternately hilarious and heartbreaking.

Update -- there's a soundtrack! Awesomesauce: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150089214584101 ( )

This series makes you realize that television has the power to limit some people's creativity. While I am soo glad that Joss Whedon has an avenue to create another season of Buffy, I realize his vision would have never transferred to the small screen. But that's alright. It is the graphic novel world's gain. *SPOILER* All I can say is.....yay Spike. ( )

collects season eight 31-35 and willow one shot ( )

REALLY hope that this continues...I feel like I am dangling on the edge of a cliff... ( )

Buffy confesses recently developing feelings for Xander, who now has a thing going with Dawnie, and she gets a bit of a dressing down. The earth Goddesses are subdued when Willow and the other Wiccans get their powers back, and Buffy shows and explores her new Superman-like abilities with Xander, who's really loving this, of course. We then find out who Twilight really is (did NOT see this one coming), and learn that Buffy's new powers are a step in her evolution toward a higher plane of existence, which unfortunately brings about lethal changes in the existence she left behind, which her friends must deal with. A bit confusing at times, but well-written, laden with ironic and cultural humor, and a satisfying sort of conclusion to the Twilight storyline, although there are lots of loose threads to ravel into place yet. ( )

The penultimate graphic novel in the latest series of Buffy which carries on from where the television show finished. The identity of Twilight is revealed finally. This was pretty rubbish to be honest. The cover gives away a major plot point and I was really unimpressed. ( )

[SPOILER ALERT]

Buffy has superpowers. She can fly, run faster than a speeding bullet, lift a train, etc. etc. Xander is geeky and over the moon, spending lots of time comparing her to Superman. Buffy and Willow fly around and beat up ancient goddesses with a couple of punches, wrapping up the previous cliffhanger with ultra-ease. Also, Buffy is jealous of Xander and Dawn, but not really. Why no, I did not understand the point of her sudden-but-not-really-real-infatuation with her best friend. Then we learn who Twilight, the super villain who has been organizing armies against the Slayers worldwide, really is and things take a plunge from the ridiculous to brain-breakingly inane.

The "shocking twist" that Twilight is Buffy's old lover, Angel, would have had more impact had there been any sort of explanation given for his behavior. Angel is a good guy, busy doing his own good guy things in own series, set in Los Angeles. So how does he get the time to become a super villain and why does he try to get the world to hate the Slayers? Maybe it explains this to greater length in the Angel comics, I don't know. What I do know is that in the Buffy series, for which this twist is a major plot point, all the explanation the reader gets is "I was in L.A. Things got very funky. I'm okay now. I'm better than okay." (p.74) and some vague, cryptic crap about using his super villain status to distract world governments from targeting Buffy's girls, even though over two hundred Slayers are slaughtered by angry, Twilight-inspired mobs in this volume.

Then there's a bunch of crap about how the universe is pushing them together: it's destiny, they can never be happy with anyone else, blah blah blah. Then they have sex. A lot. A lot of gratuitous, not particularly gracefully illustrated sex, all whilst flying around with superpowers in outer space. Seriously, and this lasts for about twenty pages. And the power of Buffy and Angel having sex? It rips apart the universe and propels them into a higher plane of existence.

The plot, if you can call it that, is rushed and chaotic, with Angel apparently knowing everything but not really explaining it, Buffy go along and having sex with him anyway, even though he's been trying to kill her for the past year, and meanwhile this is interspersed with Giles narrating the history of the universe to the other characters. I know it sounds funny, but it's so randomly thrown together that it doesn't work. Giles tries to explain that Angel and Buffy have "evolved" into a godlike beings and are creating an entirely new reality. This shiny new reality unfortunately means the death of everyone and everything, because while Buffy and Angel reach a sort of "heaven" (blank white space, yo) demons start raining down on their friends and destroying the universe. But they still had to do it because it's like destiny, or whatever.

Maybe this could have been an interesting, trippy experience in the hands of a more elaborate or experimental artist. I wonder how the sex scenes and universe merging panoramas would have looked had they been rendered in, say, J.H. Williams's (Batwoman and Promethea) vibrant, psychedelic spreads. But Jeanty's overly simplistic, cartoon-like renderings only make the chaotic, random story seem even more jumbled and pointless.

The most worthwhile thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight: Twilight ends up being Jo Chen's gorgeous paintings, which serve as title pages for each chapter. His rendering of Buffy and Angel for Chapter Three (see page 80) is gorgeous - sensuous, warm, lifelike and beautiful. It's romantic and powerful in away that the rest of the chapter is not. (Note: the chapter is even titled: "Them F#*%ing - and yeah, I know that it's meant to be funny, but the whole thing is just so painfully without class.) What I would really like to see is a compilation book of Jo Chen's breathtaking artwork, then I can cheerfully leave the rest of the Buffy: Season Eight books behind. ( )

Summary: In the aftermath of the battle with the goddesses, Buffy gets her Slayer powers back... and then some. But even as she's adjusting to her new superpowers, Twilight shows up, and unmasks. And then things start to get really weird.

Review: Really? REALLY? I've been reading this series for years now and this is where it goes? REALLY?

Okay, so, I've suspected who Twilight (Season 8's Big Bad) was for a while now, and while this volume proved me right, I was also expecting a better explanation for what the hell was going on with said Big Bad. Or, at least an explanation that made, y'know, *sense*. And I know, yes, there are vampires and demons and I need to suspend my disbelief, fine. But there is suspension of disbelief, and then there is all of this woowoo cosmic "the universe has been preparing for this for millions of years" nonsense that saturates this volume. I spent most of the explanatory narration wanting to yell "That is not how the universe works. Also, please stop using the word "evolution", because I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS." Gah. And, to top things off (as it were), there are also about eight pages devoted to what is essentially soft-core comics porn. I'm not usually particularly prudish about sex scenes in my books, but in this case it felt a little gratuitous and overdone.

That's not to say that there wasn't anything worthwhile about this volume. There are two whole issues before the pseudo-evolutionary exposition and porny bits start that are quite good. Buffy and Xander testing out her new superpowers was hilariously awesome, and there were at least two separate lines of dialogue in this volume that literally had me roaring with laughter. It's just that the good parts got kind of overshadowed by the parts that made no frickin' sense. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Urgh. I will keep reading the series to see how it wraps up, but I would really appreciate it if Joss (or someone else) would take the reins and keep the whole thing from plummeting straight over the crazy cliff. ( )

So, this volume has some really fun scenes, and some decent character stuff, and lots and lots of that wonderfully entertaining, pop culture-savvy Buffy dialog, and it made me suddenly realize just how much I missed all these people between volumes. But as for the plot... I think the writers were smoking some bad, bad drugs. ( )

I have often found Buffy Season 8 storytelling too rushed in comic format compared to the TV series, so I liked the slower, more character-focused approach in this volume, even though a major plot development revealed herein is ... puzzling. ( )

Oh, the perils of only reading comics when they come out in trade paperback. The big reveal of the identity of Twilight was ruined for me before I could get to this one, and if it hadn't been, one glance at the cover of the tpb might have done it as well. So, disappointing in that respect, but otherwise very fun. Geeky fun. Comic book references out the wazoo as Buffy develops classic superhero powers just in time for the big showdown with Twilight.

This story gets trippy, to be sure, but I love the places a comic book can go that the TV show was unable to, and by the end of this volume, I am still eager to see what happens next, which is always a good thing.

The one-shot, Willow: Goddesses and Monsters, was also interesting and a nice inclusion, although extraneous to the Twilight plot. ( )

Please, for the love of... just no. Nonono. Now where did I put that bottle of brain bleach? ( )