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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Joss Whedon ends the first story-arc for Season 8 of "BtVS", June 7, 2007
Having watched seven seasons of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" fans are familiar with the way Joss Whedon structures a season, which affects are expectations for his comic book series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Eight." We know that whatever gets set up in the first half of the "season" on "BtVS"" (e.g., Spike and Drusilla, the Initiaive, the Trio), will merge with something else in the second half (Angelus, Adam, Wicked Willow respectively). So, here we are with issue #4 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8," and the final part of the opening story-arc, "The Long Way Home," and by the final page we appear to know what is up for the first "half" of this particular season.
All of this is qualified, of course, because we do not really know how many issues there will be in "Season 8," let alone how long Whedon will do the writing. I have heard that originally there were going to be about two dozen issues, but editor Scott Allie has confirmed that there are at least double that number planned to work out Whedon's master plan here. But then I have also heard that the second arc is going to be about Faith in England, to be written by Brian K. Vaughan (presumably a tradeoff because Whedon is currently scripting "Runaways"). As long as Whedon is still functioning as creator, letting others write stories here the same way he never found time to write every episode of the television series, that will be okay.
I was happy to see that "The Long Way Home" ends with the "Big Bad" coming from what I thought was the most interesting sub-plot from everything Whedon was laying out in these first four issues, even though it was a relatively minor part of these early festivities. At this point the idea that Amy the bad witch has paired up with the flayed Warren seems like a second-rate version of Spike and Dru as a tag team, but then I am still not really clear on the how and why behind his apparent resurrection, let alone why Amy likes Warren now that he is skinless. Actually, I am not totally clear on what Warren did or did not do to Willow in this issue, so while I understood the rescue mission that Buffy and Xander launched to get Will back I was not exactly sure what they were rescuing her from. Consequently, I got to the payoff for the rescue mission and I am not sure why Willow looks the way she does.
All things considered, I would have liked this better if it was not the final part of "The Long Way Home" story-arc because there is a sense that everything that has happened in these first four issues is but the prelude to what is to come. I have to think that down the road I will look back at this initial story-arc and it will make more sense to me than it does today. I know that my expectations for this title are sky high, but at this point from my perspective things are going good and not great. Now we just have to wait until August 1st when "Buffy: The Chain" #5 comes out, not just to find out what the title signifies but why the cover art has Buffy apparently about to peel off her face from the neck up. Given what I said above I suppose it could be Faith, even though there are no tats to be seen on those arms, but we just have to wait and see, which, in the end, is part of the fun.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Conclusion to "The Long Way Home" Arc, June 7, 2007
This issue, more than any of the others, needs a second reading to appreciate it. In the first read, the story is way too fast paced, too many things are happening, and it is a bit confusing. By the second read, everything should fall into place. But that still doesn't make up for the first read. While this is a good conclusion to the first arc of season eight, I felt that Joss could have kept it a bit more straight forward.
However, the set ups for the Big Bad are amazing, as is Buffy's reaction to the reveal in the end. The shocking death of an established character only causes the action to heat up, and subtle reveal of who kissed Buffy is Issue #3 was well worth all the fan debate.
On the negative side, the scene-cuts are awkward at best in this issue, and it became apparent on page six. This is how the page is set up.
Panel 1: Warren comes down on Willow.
Panel 2: Buffy calls the name of a slayer.
Panel 3: Five new characters (elements) who've never been seen before, appear with no explaination and say "For goodness sake, yes. Grant her access." It is unknown at this point where they are, and it throws the story off majorly.
Panel 4: Buffy, off screen, tells Satsu what to do.
Panel 5: General Voll's assistant tells him that he hears screaming.
Later on, the switches between scenes get better because there are less scenes to switch to. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm pleased that Giles or Andrew weren't in this issue. Things would have been way too crammed.
Don't get me wrong. It's Buffy, it's canon, and it's Joss, so you can't really go wrong. It's almost as good as issues #2 and 3, and as good as #1. The fight with Buffy/Amy, short as it was, was stellar and revealed something about Buffy that I never suspected. The final four pages make for a more shocking conclusion than I expected, and really make the whole arc make a lot more sense than it might have initially seemed.
Petty gripes aside, the only real problem I have with this issue is waiting for two whole months for the 40 page Issue #5: The Chain to come out.
9/10
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great, March 25, 2008
The next best thing to the TV show itself. You can actually hear the characters in your head as you read it. Great artwork. The characters are spot-on. Definitely recommend it.
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