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Spike: Shadow Puppets. Final review.
That title still makes me chuckle!
I will keep my page-by-page squee to a minimum, since I want to delve further into the different themes etc, and if I look at the shiny stuff I get distracted...
For neatness’ sake, links to my first three reviews:
issue 1
issue 2
issue 3
So, #4:
Intro: Ratio Hornblower!!! Especially liked ‘lady ninja who practices the ancient art of ninja by wearing a candy apple red costume’. Baddies should always be snarky. :)
Page 1. Tok’s story. I like. (Slightly confused by the fact that apparently Smile Time have been around for two years in Japan, since Framkin certainly wasn’t Japanese, but hey ho, who cares. Maybe the family had cable or satellite?)
Page 2. Upside down Tok. And talking about disembowelling. Nice. Also like her confidence in her own survival.
Page 3. Spike’s attempts to explain who/what he is gave me happy flashbacks to Wood’s confusion about the trigger/chip/soul at the start of LMPTM.
Page 4. Puppet!Angelus! *cheers* Love how his eyes stay red, and how his jaw is like twenty times the size of Puppet!Angel’s. Also like Spike’s swift grasp of the situation (a point I will examine in much greater detail below), and also can’t stop laughing at the thought of ‘Tickle Me Angelus’. If you are not familiar with ‘Tickle Me Elmo’, have look at this:
Now imagine *Angelus* doing that...
Page 5. Gunn joins. And I began to smile, but not as much as when I saw...
Page 6. The other Gunn! (Their different quips to having their eyes stabbed is priceless.)
Page 7. We see the result of Marco’s ‘facelift’. And (on first read through) I was confused by Angelus mentioning The Master. This was of course explained later with the ‘lousy at research’ comment. Oh and Dru...
Page 8. This has what is probably my favourite line out of the entire story. I will deal with the different reasons why further down (because it’s not just funny. There are layers! *is in comic heaven*) Also - Wesleys! :)
Page 9. We see Smile Time’s plan unfold. And Lorne? The Japanese Santa is called ‘Annual Gift Man’.
Page 10-11. I didn’t recognise Connor at first. But when I worked it out... Oh my there was much happiness. There needs to be icons! Funny how puppets can make the squickiest of ‘ships irresistible.
Page 12. Fred! (Poor Spike - and Wesleys and Gunns...) And then Illyria! (Changing down the middle is inspired! And freaky.)
Page 13-15. Lorne gets mad (and we all remember ‘Life of the Party’, yes?), Tok destroys Snuff and Ratio (more or less) and Spike has an epiphany (more on that later). It’s all good! *cheers the heroes on* Also adore ‘Official cannon is so complicated’ and the fact that Puppet!Angelus is such a Smile Time product that he knows all about their episodes.
Page 16. The Fred/Illyria line is *great*, but did make me wonder how Smile Time uncovered the Connor-mindwipe. This is a minor niggle though. And Dru’s line is *priceless*!
Page 17. ‘Save the vampire with a soul, save the world.’ *DIES* (I love Heroes very much. This was perfect! Silly and ridiculous, but perfect.)
Page 18. And Lorne acquires thousands of fans! This makes me very, very happy.
Page 18-19. “No I don’t usually glow, Charlie. No, not even then. Well maybe a little.” If I ever write any Lorne porn (oh dear, that was unintentional), I’ll definitely make him glow! ;) Love "Beck wells up. Lorne cries. I mock Lorne." Bless. And I love, love, love Tok taking over the ninja puppets, and the fact that they all say ‘Tok’ (reminding me of the soldiers at the beginning of ‘Asylum’ with their ‘hut’), and the Japanese Gentlemen still make me giggle. Oh and Lorne has a second career... (I have just developed the theory that post-NFA Lorne went to Japan!)
Page 20. Beck tackles the brimstone demon. And now wants to be Tok... *pets her* ”I’m sure the band will get back together someday. *sniff*
Page 21. The big sack and dripping axe are great (what’s in the bag???). And then... Spike plays Mah-Jong with Mrs Konikoff and her friends!!! Dude, this is seriously the most awesome thing ever. And so wonderfully in character - this is after all the guy who drank hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows in with Joyce, when he really *was* bad bad. *hugs Spike very hard*
OK, so onto the deeper thoughts. I was a bit worried that there wouldn’t be many, since this story has been so much fun that there really didn’t need to be anything more to it - but thankfully there was. *is very satisfied* Here come the subheadings...
OK, first of all it’s funny. Puppetizing the entire cast (in many different versions) is brilliant and fabulous and endlessly entertaining. But - it is a lot more than that!
First of all they’re meta-and-self-aware to a ridiculous degree, which of course started with Puppet!Angelus at the very end of issue 3:
”Our battle will be the stuff of legend and fanfiction.”
This could chafe and get old real quick, if it was just smart-arse stuff, but thankfully it isn’t. First of all, they’re just copies, ‘programmed’ to behave and react in certain ways (Wesley and Gunn love Fred, Lawyer!Gunn uses bigger words than Street!Gunn, Cordy and Connor get it on)... essentially two-dimensional characters, unable to escape from their scripts. But the fact that they *know* that they are copies just bends the whole thing that extra fraction, turns what could be stilted into something much richer:
“Why did Angelus have to be so rude? Official cannon is so complicated. So many people with so many opinions.”
And the thing is - the whole thing is one of the most fabulous commentaries on fandom and fanfic I have ever seen, raising all sorts of questions. Which Wesley do you prefer? Classic Wesley (S1-2), Spoiler Wesley
Because we each see something different when we look at the show, and who’s right? So far too often we end up with this:
‘Wesley wouldn’t do this’, ‘Fred would never say that’, ‘I read a horrible story where Connor did such-and-such...’ etc. Writing true-to-canon, 3-dimensional characters, both flawed and real, takes a lot of work. Compare Spike and all the Smile Time puppets. See what I mean?
Finally, this is one of those things that works really, really well in a comic. In a written story it would be nigh-on impossible to cram all the characters in, and on TV it’d take an insane amount of work. I love it when a medium is explored to the full. :)
Lots of thoughts about Spike, because I adore how he’s been written here, showcasing some of his best traits. And I’ve had to indulge in more subheadings.
The fact that Spike is very insightful when it comes to people is something that’s long been established. From ‘Something Blue’ (BtVS 4.09):
Buffy: She [Willow] still has a way to go, but yeah — I think she's dealing.
Spike: What, are you people *blind*? She's hangin' on by a thread. Any ninny can see that.
This is showcased *beautifully* here. Beginning with:
“No. Angel wouldn’t tab me in the back.”
A simple deduction. He knows Angel, and doesn’t (like so many characters who get dumbed down for the sake of a plot) endlessly wonder why someone they trusted is suddenly betraying them. Spike and Angel aren’t exactly BFFs, but (esp since the death of Fred) know where they stand. So, having eliminated the impossible, Spike comes to the only answer left, however improbable: It’s Angelus. But - as he points out, obviously suspicious - Smile Time apparently did a lot of work in one day. So when the Gunns turn up he swiftly works out that they’re just copies, and thus any power they might have held over him vanishes into thin air.
Of course he does get very affected by Puppet!Fred, despite knowing that she’s not real, and one wonders why Smile Time didn’t make a Buffy puppet. (I’m am very glad that they didn’t though - because it would have changed the dynamic of the whole thing. Angel’s team are his friends, and all belong to his current world. Buffy was his *love* and a part of his past and, maybe, his future. She wouldn’t have fitted in at all. Neither dramatically or thematically.)
However I have *no* complaints whatsoever about Dru, even though she doesn’t ‘fit in’... as a matter of fact I am currently praying very, very hard that once ATF is done, Lynch will write a Spike/Dru story, because his Dru is utterly delightful, even as a 2-D copy (“Would you like to be hurt by something else? I’m good at that.”). And also she was the reason for my favourite line:
Spike: “If you were really Drusilla, you’d be so orgasmic that you were turned into a doll you couldn’t bloody well function.”
Dear line, how much do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
1) It’s very funny. The thought of the actual Dru being a doll... just fabulous! She might spontaneously combust from happiness! *g* There should be fic.
2) It shows just how deep Spike’s knowledge goes, how well he understands his old love. Even The First Evil couldn’t pull off a Dru that could convince him (Spike: “She was crazier than you.”).
3) We see that Lynch understands how Spike works, how well he has managed to get under the skin of the character. No 2-D copy for him, oh no. (Also he really ‘gets’ Dru. He needs to write more of her.)
The point about Spike’s understanding is of course demonstrated again with the next line:
“And if you were really Angelus, you’d be killin’ everyone, not just me.”
Which is very true:
Gunn: That Angel talking? 'Cause it sounds a lot more like Angelus.
Angel: Oh, if I were Angelus, half of you would already be dead, just for the fun of it.
‘Power Play’ AtS 5.21
So I love what all the puppets say about Spike, how they showcase his smarts. :) Entertainment with depth, what could be better? Well...
Now, first of all let me say how absolutely impossibly happy I am that Lynch gets the fact that Spike is a good planner and general! *applauds* Far too many fans think of him as easily bored and distracted, but that’s not it. What Spike is, is opportunistic and impulsive. He’s capable of seeing new possibilities and changing tactic in a moment if need be. But he’s also a sound planner, and, as he’s developed, so has his planning. Now let me use ‘School Hard’ (BtVS 2.03) and ‘In The Dark’ (AtS 1.03) to illustrate my point.
In SH we had St Vigeous coming up, and although I’m sure Spike *was* bored of the chanting and self-flagellation (presuming he joined in the latter?), he played along until a better idea presented itself: Because Sheila obviously must have told him (or Dru) about the Parents’ Evening at the High School. And Spike grabbed the chance to ambush the Slayer, to catch her unawares and turn the tables - to turn the hunter into the prey. The attack on the High School shows great planning and good leadership. Spike very nearly killed Buffy - but for two things:
1) She had family and friends helping/saving her.
2) Spike’s minions were ‘idiots’, as he so kindly termed them himself, running away when things got too ugly.
In ITD Spike wanted the Gem of Amarra back. To this end he captured Angel and tortured him, hoping that he’d fold or that his friends would find it for him. It would have worked, but...
1) Angel’s friends were willing to risk their lives to save him.
2) Spike’s hired man double-crossed him.
We of course have examples of Spike’s plans working - finding Dru’s cure and, later, the Gem of Amarra, to mention the most obvious examples. Anyway, in this story we see the Smile Time puppets have been planning in exactly the same way as Spike did in my two examples above - and failing for the same reason.
1) Spike has friends helping him, busy doing most of the work while he’s being distracted.
2) The evil puppets start infighting, rendering them practically useless and easily dispensed with.
And now we have Spike in the same role Buffy and Angel had in SH and ITD respectively - the hunted one, the one the focus was on, so much so that the bad guys couldn’t see the rest of the team...
‘Save the vampire with a soul, save the world.’
He is - just like Buffy and Angel - simultaneously the hero and the damsel in distress. If a feisty damsel who’s good at defending himself, and not in need of rescue. :)
Also I can’t help but notice how he has no problems delegating - he gives Tok and Beck the most difficult tasks, because (despite knocking out that monkey in issue 3), he knows that as long as he is a puppet those two are far better fighters than he.
So, Spike realises that he needs people.
“You’re right. I really don’t like working alone. Thankfully I’m not alone. And you know what? Having back-up? It has its benefits. All this time, following around you and Buffy, I kept telling myself I couldn’t wait to go solo. But I get it now. I’m people who bloody damn well need people. I’m just not a big fan of you.”
But, I can hear many of you say, he *always* knew that. Well... yes and no. To quote James Marsters himself (getting it right for once!):
"There are very, very few people Spike connects with actually. His connection with Buffy is one of the reasons he was so attracted to her."
We know that right from the beginning Spike wasn’t much for company. William was obviously not popular, and he saw himself (and his love interest Cecily) as different. And I’m sure his mother’s doting added to this. Cecily of course turned him down, but along came Dru, reinforcing the view that he was special. Ditto Angelus. So the people he was attached to were his lover and his family.
Then came Buffy - and right from the start there was a connection. Through her he came into contact with her family and the Scoobies. When he speaks of ‘following Buffy, but wanting to go solo’ I don’t think he means that he doesn’t want to be around *her* (hello? Love of his life?), but that he’s fed up with all the others, with (until S7) being ‘just another helping hand’. Yes he likes to be a part of the team, but I think he won’t really admit it to himself. His connection always comes *through* Buffy (or, on AtS, Angel).
But what we see on AtS (more and more so in the last third of the season) is Spike playing well with others. Being a full part of the team, and enjoying it. So, again, this story fits beautifully with the timeframe.
In conclusion, I’ve realised that I love this story for the exact same reason I love ‘Spike: Asylum’ - it takes a development that we can see having happened, and makes the reason behind it explicit. In Asylum it was Spike’s Angel issues, some of which he obviously got out of his system off screen (and a lot of whom were just his own issues, as Asylum shows so beautifully), and here it’s his growing attachment to team Angel. We see the end result of this in ‘Power Play’, where Spike is a full member of the team, confronting Angel along with the others. (Compare for a moment with his role towards the end of S7, where he was very much Buffy’s man, through and through. Of course the differences are too many to count - esp the fact that Spike was the one person Buffy wasn’t pushing away - but it makes for some nice juxtapositioning.)
But - to get back on track. Apart from being a well-told story, with fabulous artwork, a myriad of delightful details and a LOT of laughs, this comic tackles a very particular development and creates a point of realisation for Spike - a specific moment of change. We don’t *need* it per se (what’s on screen in S5 is fine), but it is lovely nonetheless. It does the job of a FitB (Fill-in-the-Blank), but rather than expanding on something mentioned in passing, it takes character development and creates a story around it. And that is, quite possibly, my favourite thing of all. :)
Thank you Brian and Franco, and keep up the good work for ‘After the Fall’.
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angel6_atf.
no subject
Isn't it just? I almost drooled (Urru is my new God!) - and I just can't wait to hold it in my hands!
And I had real problems reading some of the lines too - being on a screen doesn't help.
But it looks like AtF may go a long way to make up for my disappointment in S8 (and I'm sorry, but I've seen grade schoolers who draw better than Jeanty.)
I'm just annoyed on Buffy's behalf - it's not fair that Angel gets an awesome story, and she gets s8.
Yes, please link to the meta! I love meta.
As you wish! :) (The fact that it is *possible* to write meta about 5 pages bodes well... I'm sure I could say *something* about the first 5 pages of s8, but I'm honestly not sure what it would be. I guess I'd talk about the ret-con and the helicopters and the kevlar outfits... none of which can count as 'meta'.)
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Oh, and don't forget the "thunder thighs"! If Buffy was upset because Giles had drawn her hips wider than she thought they should be in "Hush", can you just imagine what she would have said about Jeanty's renditiona in the initial pages of S8?
no subject
See this is where Urru is made of win, because his women are always drop dead gorgeous, but our vampires are hot and yummy too. :) (There are shirtless!Spike images in Asylum that I could lick! *g*)