Good review! The sort that gets people wanting to re-read and re-assess things. :) I didn't think 'Asylum' was perfect, but it's certainly the best of the 'Spike' comics I've read so far (including 'Shadow Puppets', at least to date - though did you notice two of the Smile Time puppets make a cameo in 'Asylum'?) and reading meta about the significant bits never hurts.
Mind you, something you didn't mention that almost spoiled my enjoyment of the whole story was the treatment inflicted on Carol the wiccan secretary; I just felt too bad for what was happening to her to really appreciate the rest of the plot at first. And Spike couldn't save her in the end. :(
Some specifics:
Oh and Biv staring at her chest later... The scary thing here is that if men could turn invisible in real life, this probably is how many of us would use that power... :)
And we get the reveal about Ruby. This is *excellent* I have to admit I didn't see it coming. And I immediately saw the parallel to Dana when it did.
And it freaks me out. Like ‘Damage’ - but worse. (This is what the Willow torture scene in s8 lacked It just seemed a faintly bizarre idea to me, whereas someone sticking a scalpel through your eye into your brain is brutally real. (Probably too real, to be fair - the ick factor could make people stop reading, whereas carving off a vampire's forehead is too fantastical to be scary. At least, unless the human-face vampire would also have no forehead and look like Warren).
Lorne is great See, he worked perfectly for me here, which is why I disliked the very different character portrayal in 'Shadow Puppets'. Still, perhaps he's hiding a big secret there.
“I’ve partied with the Boogey Man. We look nothing alike. He’s taller, bit of a limp.” This is such a *perfect* BtVS/AtS line. To be fair, it's a perfect Spike line. If you want perfect Buffy, Xander, Willow or Dawn lines you have to look elsewhere. :)
And this is where Beck’s comment is so *perfect* (“Spike - those stories inmates would share to give everyone nightmares? The ones about what would happen if you ever came here? They’d help me sleep better at night.”) That's actually the one line above all that made me throw my hands up in despair, because Beck's insight and understanding of Spike is so perfect and true that she's not afraid of him at all. Instead she alone can see him as the true Champion and protector he is, and so it's thanks to her pure love that he is able to help her escape so she can save everyone in the final act... *Ahem* Sorry. I've clearly got issues here. :) It doesn't detract from your point about Spike embracing his true self, though, which is a good one.
Though Beck's tale could be read another way - that she was so despairing of her life, and so hated everything around and about herself, that the thought of somebody like Spike coming and killing everybody (including her?) was actually a comfort. But I don't know if Lynch intended her story to get so dark.
Your comparison of Angel and Spike's differing motivations was excellent, BTW.
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Mind you, something you didn't mention that almost spoiled my enjoyment of the whole story was the treatment inflicted on Carol the wiccan secretary; I just felt too bad for what was happening to her to really appreciate the rest of the plot at first. And Spike couldn't save her in the end. :(
Some specifics:
Oh and Biv staring at her chest later...
The scary thing here is that if men could turn invisible in real life, this probably is how many of us would use that power... :)
And we get the reveal about Ruby. This is *excellent*
I have to admit I didn't see it coming. And I immediately saw the parallel to Dana when it did.
And it freaks me out. Like ‘Damage’ - but worse. (This is what the Willow torture scene in s8 lacked
It just seemed a faintly bizarre idea to me, whereas someone sticking a scalpel through your eye into your brain is brutally real. (Probably too real, to be fair - the ick factor could make people stop reading, whereas carving off a vampire's forehead is too fantastical to be scary. At least, unless the human-face vampire would also have no forehead and look like Warren).
Lorne is great
See, he worked perfectly for me here, which is why I disliked the very different character portrayal in 'Shadow Puppets'. Still, perhaps he's hiding a big secret there.
“I’ve partied with the Boogey Man. We look nothing alike. He’s taller, bit of a limp.” This is such a *perfect* BtVS/AtS line.
To be fair, it's a perfect Spike line. If you want perfect Buffy, Xander, Willow or Dawn lines you have to look elsewhere. :)
And this is where Beck’s comment is so *perfect* (“Spike - those stories inmates would share to give everyone nightmares? The ones about what would happen if you ever came here? They’d help me sleep better at night.”)
That's actually the one line above all that made me throw my hands up in despair, because Beck's insight and understanding of Spike is so perfect and true that she's not afraid of him at all. Instead she alone can see him as the true Champion and protector he is, and so it's thanks to her pure love that he is able to help her escape so she can save everyone in the final act... *Ahem* Sorry. I've clearly got issues here. :) It doesn't detract from your point about Spike embracing his true self, though, which is a good one.
Though Beck's tale could be read another way - that she was so despairing of her life, and so hated everything around and about herself, that the thought of somebody like Spike coming and killing everybody (including her?) was actually a comfort. But I don't know if Lynch intended her story to get so dark.
Your comparison of Angel and Spike's differing motivations was excellent, BTW.
(To be continued)