Matt's Buffy Season 8 blog

Buffy News: Charisma Carpenter, Husband Split

2007-11-28T07:43:00.000-08:00

People magazine reports that 'Buffy' and 'Angel' star Charisma Carpenter has split from her husband of four years, Damian Hardy. "They are separated and now living separately," Carpenter's rep Jeff Raymond confirmed tuesday. Carpenter, 37(that's hard to believe!), and Hardy married on Oct 5, 2002. They have a son, Donavon Charles. Carpenter fans will be able to catch her next as Christopher Titus' in ABC's Big Shots on Dec 13.

Well, it's sad to hear this. It would be nice to see a Hollywood marriage actually last for once. Damn, it's hard to believe that someone who was playing a highschool student not too long ago(at least it doesn't seem that long ago!) is now going on 40!

Issue #3

2007-11-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hats off to artist Jo Chen for giving us one AWESOME cover! When we left off, Whedon had packed a ton of action into the last several pages of issue #2. Not only was Amy attacking the castle with an army of undead soldiers, but she had also managed to sneak inside Buffy's bedroom and put our favorite slayer into a deep sleep. As if that wasn't enough, the last page left us with Willow and Amy squaring off for a magical battle between good and evil. Looks like things are about to get messy!

While the battle wages on in the real world, Buffy is trapped inside her own dream space. An area in her mind that is made up of her own dreams and nightmares. And, to my surprise, it looks like her guide is none other than Ethan Rayne! Ethan was always a favorite character of mine so I was glad to see him make an appearance in season 8. Hopefully he can help Buffy sort out what's going on.

Meanwhile, Willow and Amy are in the middle of some heavy duty magical fisticuffs. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what the hell is actually going on. Georges Jeanty has done a great job so far, but the fight sequence between these two witches looked more like a cheap light show than a magical battle. Lots of green and blue lights, and at one point it looked like Willow was actually turning into a human puzzle on the verge of falling apart. I guess Whedon couldn't really think of a good way to end this fight, so he just had Dawn(who is still a giant)step on Amy. Whatever works, I guess.

Meanwhile, Xander(I think) kisses Buffy and the spell is broken! With Amy and her zombie army defeated, things can get back to normal. Xander gives Andrew and his slayers a call to warn them about what's going on. I guess if there was ever any question about Andrew's sexuality, it's answered by the fact that he's actually bored while playing strip poker with a room full of slayers. If you look in the background of this panel, you'll notice one of the girls is reading "Fray," (Which is another one of Whedon's slayer comics, just in case you didn't know). Anyway, Willow figures out that Amy teleported into the castle and traces the portal back to its origin-a US military installation. But the whole thing was a trap and the portal sucks both Amy AND Willow out of the castle!

Well, it looks like Amy was smarter than we thought. Willow wakes up on some kind of operating table. Her hands, feet and neck bound with some form of magical energy. Amy is leaning over her, talking with someone hiding in the shadows. Our mystery man tells Willow how long he's been waiting for this moment, as he steps out of the shadows. It's disgusting! It's sick! It's bloody and skinless! IT'S......WARREN!!

Issue #2

2007-11-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Issue #2 starts off simple enough. Giles and Buffy doing the whole training thing. Xander listening to Dawn cry about how unfair everything is, how much Buffy hates her, how people act like she's just in the way, blah blah blah... She's just as annoying as ever. Then Buffy tries to get Xander to go to bed with her and the Buffy world, as we know it, begins to fall apart. Xander's head falls off when she kisses him, Buffy gets sucked out a window, impaled on the claws of a giant demon who then engulfs her in a ball of flame. As we turn the page we see Xander and a small group of slayers busting into Buffy's bedroom only to find Buffy tied to a bed with Amy about to shove a knife into her chest. I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Now, instead of killing Amy, Xander and the slayers decide to just stand around and have a very normal, "Buffy is in no danger" conversation with her. This gives Amy the chance to play the role of the typical scooby doo villain and explain to us her plan. Buffy is asleep and living in a nightmare brought on by magic. Only the kiss of true love can save her! Oh yeah, did I mention that the castle is now under attack by zombies? Apparently Amy has gotten pretty damn powerful while she was buried in the rubble of Sunnydale. It's gonna take some pretty serious magic to put her down. But who is up to the challege???

Let's pretend we don't know who's gonna show up on the last page, shall we? It's Willow!!! Bet you didn't see that one coming! So this issue leaves us with quite a cliffhanger. We're gonna have to wait for issue #3 to see the royal rumble between Willow and Amy.

The art of Georges Jeanty is a great fit for this book. The characters look like everyday people. Every female is not built like Wonder Woman and the men don't have muscles like Superman. This is a very hard thing to find in today's comics. But there is a pretty big difference between the scooby gang and the Justice league. And you need a different comic artist to show this. Whedon and Dark Horse made a great choice.

Whedon, on the other hand, is not doing so well. The dialogue that worked so well on the show doesn't seem to be a good fit for comics. It's like reading a very bad Brian Michael bendis comic. It's just too jumpy. It doesn't really have a good flow to it. Let's see if he can adjust in later issues.

Issue #1

2007-10-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Let's start with issue #1, shall we? Buffy has gathered together a large group of newly empowered slayers. Gone are the days of swords and axes, and all that good stuff. Now the slayers have more technology than you can shake a stake at. Helicopters, satellites, a command base, force field-destroying laser guns, etc.... These girls are decked out in so much gear they make agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. look like little kids playing laser tag. In fact, Xander is a little too "Nick Fury" for my taste. Eye patch and all. Though Whedon does poke a little fun at this fact. Not sure where Buffy and the scooby gang got all the money to fund this little operation, but I guess we'll just have to go with it for now.

Buffy and Xander make their appearances pretty early on. As well as the always annoying Dawn, who has grown to the size of King Kong for apparently having sex with a "Thricewise," whatever that is. One more thing for Whedon to explain later down the road. Willow and Giles are mentioned but they don't show up in this issue. Doesn't seem to be enough room for them in this first book. It seems like Whedon has a pretty big idea for this first storyline, but I'm not sure if he's gonna have the room for it all.....

It seems that the "big bad" this time around is The U.S. government. An army of slayers running around the world doesn't sit too well with some of the big boys. They've made it their top priority to take them out. And to make matters worse, while the U.S. Army is digging around the giant crater that was once our beloved Sunnydale, they uncover our favorite four legged witch, Amy. But, as we all know, Amy is no longer the cute and harmless little rat she used to be. It goes without saying that she has some unfinished business with the scooby gang. The scientists taking care of Amy mention that she was not alone when they found her. It seems that she used her magic to keep not only herself alive, but her "boyfriend" as well. Who could it be......

Buffy Season 8 - So far, not impressed

2007-10-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to say that Whedon has dropped the ball with his first six issue story arc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. While the art of Georges Jeanty has been GREAT, Whedon's storytelling has been very erratic. In fact, every page leaves me feeling like I skipped a page somewhere. It just doesn't flow very well. I've been reading and collecting comics for about 20 years now, and I was a fan of BTVS when it was on tv. My girlfriend is a HUGE Buffy fan and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get her into comics. Boy, was I wrong. It's like Whedon has this story in his mind, chops it up, removes pieces, puts it on paper and STILL removes every other page. The dialogue that worked so well on the show just doesn't transfer that well to paper. As much as I hate to say it, so far this is one of the worst comics I've ever read.