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Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part 4

Willow: "Buffy, look. We're not even slowing them down."
Buffy: "Yeah. I'm starting to think there's a reason no one's written a suspense novel where the conflict is wolves vs. tanks."

Synopsis:

The Scoobies, slayers and Wiccans try to prepare for war without powers and magic.

Apparently, it didn't take months to lose the magic; it's gone already. And as expected, Willow's baby-phoria is gone and she's furious, angry and frustrated with herself for thinking things could be different. She now believes she's destined to be killed by Buffy in the future, after all, and normal life will never be for her.

Xander, still able to channel his Halloween soldier persona, gives the slayers training with assault rifles, mortars and grenades. He and Dawn, acting couple-y, consider themselves in charge now, since they know what it's like to cope with being the only two humans among a bunch of superpeople.

Buffy consults Andrew about trying to make it look like they still have magicks, in order to throw the enemy off. Andrew asks Buffy if she's okay about seeing Xander and Dawn kissing. Buffy says she's fine with it.

Finally, everyone is in camo, suited up and armed, waiting, when radar spots incoming planes and tanks. Monroe shows up with his werewolves, ready to help. (I thought Bayarmaa had killed Monroe. Guess not.) Much fighting. Twilight's army just keeps coming. Buffy asks Xander to launch his secret weapon, which turns out to be a torpedo that they kind of push downhill toward the enemy. Boom. Torpedoes work on land. Who knew.

The slayers and Wiccans regroup, and Buffy, Giles and Willow talk tactics. Buffy realizes that the magic has been "redirected," and runs off to find Oz holding Bayarmaa, who is injured. Buffy says that the chants are invocations, and who are they invoking? Bay says, "Wrathful goddesses." Uh oh. Bay says it was in return for protection, which the slayers weren't getting.

The fight outside continues as Buffy and Willow do some angry invoking with scrolls. Three immense three-eyed goddesses decorated with skulls suddenly appear on the battlefield. To be continued.

Review:

More giants? Really? I know this is comic book world, not television world, but more giants? Really? And can I say that seeing everyone wearing uniforms and fighting with guns isn't my thing at all, and that it seems very unBuffyverse-like?

"Retreat" has been about not being able to put the genie back in the bottle, you can't go home again, pick your metaphor. There is no retreat from magic and the supernatural. Oz tried, and look what just happened to his honey; it came back and bit him in the end. As was obvious to everyone before this story even began, giving up their power isn't feasible. It wasn't even kosher, since they were unconsciously invoking power goddesses of sorts.

And why, oh why, make Xander and Dawn a couple? If it's permanent, though, at least it'll make Xander officially part of the family. And I'm assuming that this time his love object won't die horribly, seeing as it's Buffy's sister... or not? Maybe there's a good side to this romance, after all.

Quotes:

Buffy: "We have to be ready to fight with every weapon, everything we can throw at them."
Willow: "But it seems to me that we don't have the one thing that matters. A chance in Hell."

Andrew: "Colored steam! Magickal glints! The heavy odor of dangerous potions!"
Wiccan: "More yak hair!"
Buffy: (holding her nose) "Lose the heavy odor of dangerous potions."

Bay: "But those are just the ancient names for the forces of the earth."
Buffy: "Or the earth is just the modern name for the local crazy wrath goddesses."

Giles: "Will that work? Going from pulling back to... full-throttle forward?"
Buffy: "It does when I punch someone."

Eh. On to part five,

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

8 comments:

  1. I am not enjoying BUFFY SEASON EIGHT at all. It started off strong and interesting, but it has dragged on for too long.

    The rotating writers are not all of the same quality and the decompression doesn't work for all of them.

    My biggest gripe is the identity of Twilight.
    This is a comic book, not a TV series. We've been waiting over two and half years (issue 31 drops next week) already for his/her identity to be revealed and that is far too long.

    A season of a network TV series last nine months tops. Waiting that long for a reveal like this is ok, but it's pushing it in this day and age if not handled properly. 31+ months has destroyed the momentum and suspense for me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do have my guess as to who Twilight really is:

    I posted this on on the DC Comics Message Board on 10.23.2009 so the truth about Riley has since been reveled.

    As I was taking a shower a few minutes ago, the ONCE MORE WITH FEELING soundtrack came on my iPhone and as I was belting out WALK THROUGH THE FIRE and SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT, I started thinking that maybe Twilight really will turn out to be Tara.

    We know that [Joss]Whedon wanted Amber Benson to reprise the role of Tara for the Seventh Season episode CONVERSATIONS WITH DEAD PEOPLE, but she refused and The First had to appear to Willow as Cassie.

    Maybe, with that in mind, Whedon decided that Tara would be Twilight. I'm not saying that Joss is vindictive or is holding a grudge, but I can't think of anyone else that if revealed to be Twilight would have any type of impact at all.

    Twilight's main allies are Amy, Warren and Riley and all three have direct connections to Tara.

    (1) Amy caused Willow to fall of the wagon in Season Six and I remember some type of confrontation between Amy and Tara over Willow.
    (2) Warren killed Tara.
    (3) Riley and Tara were both often third wheels in their relationships with Buffy and Willow, respectively.
    (4) Twilight is prepping to attack the monastery where Oz has been living.

    I think Twilight is Tara.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OOPS!!
    I meant to mention that I am loving LOGO airing BUFFY every night.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HellBlazerRaiser,

    Just FYI, there's an article that just came out revealing Twilight's identity. And I couldn't help it -- I looked. Frankly, I'm pissed about it.

    Spoiler warning. Seriously. Don't look if you don't want to know. It could be a misdirect, but it sounds like the real deal.

    http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24354

    ReplyDelete
  5. OMG!!!

    Thanks for the link!!!
    I don't know what to make of it if it's the real deal.
    I won't spoil it for anyone reading this.
    I have to mull this over.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's odd that CBR already has the April solicits for Dark Horse.

    Most solicits are not usually teased/released this soon into the month. DC, Marvel, Image and Dark Horse usually start to tease us around the 13th, 14th, 15th of the months for their next set of solicits.

    The March PReviews just came out this past Wednesday.

    Hmm.... This is curious. The solicit is real, since it also includes some TPBs I have been waiting for.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Shucks!!! I wish I could edit comments.

    I forgot two things in my post above:

    Billie - YOU ROCK!!! I am loving, Loving, LOVING your LOST Rewatch Notes. I finished up with my rewatch a couple of weeks ago (I've moved on to THE X-FILES Mythology DVDS and my VHS copies of FARSCAPE), but I am seriously thinking about watching LOST seasons 2 to 5 over again.

    I just noticed that Brad Meltzer is writing the five part Twilight arc. I’ve yet to read any of his novels, but he's been uneven with his comic book work at DC.

    IDENTITY CRISIS was excellent. There's not much more to say about it. It was an excellent story.

    GREEN ARROW was good. I enjoyed it and it was a solid read.

    His JUSTICE LEAGUE run was about 75% abysmal and about 25% superb.

    JL 0, 8, 9 and 10 were outstanding with 0 being so stunningly brilliant that it ranks for me as one of the greatest single issues of the JLoA ever.

    On the other hand, JL 1 to 7 and 11 & 12 were about as bad comics book get.

    So I am not sure how to feel right now about him writing th Twilight arc.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Read it, blogged about it (without revealing the spoiler) and it's idiotic to put it mildly. Thanks for the heads up.

    ReplyDelete

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