Buffy season nine discussion thread

As much as Robin resents Niki, from the way he was speaking to Buffy about her...it sounded like it isn't as strong as it once was. It was great to see her confide in him. Spike looked like he was about to cry when Buffy mentioned the abortion. I wonder if this will be a plot device used to bring them together finally?? The teasing has been increasing in my opinion as we've discussed before. I think I might have been too hard earlier...this season plot wise and character development has been great. It certainly is more low key, but that doesn't mean that stuff isn't happening!

Dark Horse May solicitations.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36914


You know I was just thinking about Angel's plan to resurrect Giles...don't know why I didn't think about this earlier...this just seems like another one of his plans that is well intended but will end up having disastrous results. I can't imagine that Buffy will be pleased about this, given her own experience with her friends resurrecting her. Has Angel learned nothing? It will be interesting to see what actually happens.

 

Huzzah. Robin Wood. I'd been wondering where the hell he'd gone, since appearing in two panels of Season 8 #6, he vanished and was never mentioned again. What was he doing during all the S8 shennagins.

I only got the issue last night, and have just been looking through some of Whedonesque (as I avoided it having not read the issue) gee people seem to be trying to make a bigger deal as possible about this. Sick of reading stupid interviews with Joss, Andrew Chambliss or Scott Allie asking "who is the father?" "will Buffy go ahead with the (spoiler)?" etc
What a stupid question, like they'd just reveal it.... although saying that they were dumb enough to spoil the Twilight reveal so maybe, I look forward to a future new cover image revealing who the father is months before I read it in the issue

 

They've revealed other spoilers though for this season that have been documented in this thread through conversation or interviews as I believe Devil Eyes has pointed out before. Totally avoiding mentioning spoilers these days is nearly impossible IMO, being a spoiler junkie myself I don't mind much, but understand those who like to be surprised would go ape shit about it.

Re: Robin...I could be wrong or just not remembering at the moment, but I don't think we know what Robin has been doing since he was last seen. In fact I was pleasantly surprised that Buffy confided to Robin in the first place and wasn't expecting to see him. It makes total sense now, but for whatever reason I didn't think about Robin. It was really nice to see him and get some more awesome back story for Niki.

 

Oddly enough, they

Spoiler: future issues

released a cover spoiling that Buffy will lose her arm in battle, and then Scott Allie confirmed it via Twitter.

 

June previews for Angel and Faith and Buffy...Buffy has a pretty neat Crisis on Infinite Earths homage cover.

http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album_view.php?gid=4067&page=2

 

So Angel's back in LA...

Here's hoping then there'll be at least an appearance of one of the gang

 

It might also be an homage to Marvel's Dark Phoenix saga:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Uncanny136.jpg

 

^ Oh yeah that is more likely given Joss's affection for the Marvel U.

 

The first miniseries of season 9 is announced... and the character it focuses on is (be careful, this is very spoilery)

Spoiler: miniseries

Drusilla.

article

 

That makes sense given her appearance recently.

 

Written by Juliet Landau, no less. Sweet.

 

Interview with Juliet Landau, Christos Gage and Scott Allie about Drusilla.

 

Angel and Faith #7: Well the thing with Faith's dad was pretty obvious. I really enjoyed seeing Dru again and am looking forward to checking out the mini. I'm more convinced than ever that Angel is deluding himself into thinking bringing back Giles is going to provide him with the peace of mind and redemption he needs. He is really screwed up right now and truly unable to let go of the past. Buffy not talking to him right now most likely doesn't help this. The dynamic between Faith and Angel is still the best thing about the book (Rebekah Issacs artwork being the second best thing ). Also I got the sense that bringing up Conner was obvious foreshadowing and as mentioned we're going to catch up with him at some point down the line. Anyone else still reading?

 

I agreed with Angel's decision not to have his pain taken away and that it is a sort of lobotomy, but thought it was interesting that Angel was saying that, since it's pretty much what he did to Connor. Or rather, he went even further with Connor, removing all his traumatic memories and replacing them with fake, happy ones - practically remaking him into Connor 2.0. I wonder if this will be mentioned at any point, or is it building towards some sort of resolution later in the season? (There are also people who think that Gage didn't even notice the irony, but I have more faith in the writing team.)

Drusilla saying that soulless people "tend not to feel pain" but that she did anyway is funny since she just seems to be repeating what she's heard, since her own experience is very different. We know that it's not true - besides Drusilla, Spike was an obvious example, and we've also seen James (from "Hearthrob"), Harmony, Darla and even the Master show emotional pain (the Master cried when Darla died). They may not be tortured by conscience since they don't have one, but they sure feel emotional pain for other reasons.

I always thought Drusilla was a lot more rational than people gave her credit for, so I don't think this Drusilla is such a departure. She still has no conscience ('soul') so she doesn't think there's anything wrong with all the evil things she did in the past or that Angel(us) has done, but she's always had a good sense of self-preservation so of course she would try to fit in the new world in her own way. Drusilla always had the reputation of a masochist, but she obviously she doesn't value emotional pain as much as Angel does.

It's interesting that so far we've had people offering to cure physical ills (the Mohra blood) and now to cure psychological pain (the Lorophage demon).

Judging by the cover for #9 Daddy Issues part 4,

Spoiler: #9

it looks like Faith is going to finally decide to have the Lorophage demon remove her pain. I presume that Angel will try to stop her, or she'll change her mind in the end.

"The abused kid becomes the abuser". Angel would know about that - it's the story of his life. He had an abusive father and daddy issues of his own that he has never resolved. Story of Faith's life, too, when you think of her behavior in her evil days. I wonder how bad her dad was back in the day? We know that her dead mother used to hit her. How much was her dad even around? How much are we going to learn about her background? A lot of people think there have been hints on Faith's behavior that she was sexually abused at some point.

 

well I was doing doing some diging on my nook color and found out that season 8 and angel after the fall is now on the nook. very cool also the original buffy series is also out now.

 

So, uh... How about that twist ending to 9.07? WTF moment if there ever was one...

Spoiler: twist

How about this as the theme song for season 9? Who would've thought it would get so literal...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_oMD6-6q5Y[/yt]

 

Interview with Scott Allie about 9.06. and 9.07 (SPOILERS)

http://persephonemagazine.com/2012/03/interview-with-buffy-editor-and-writer-scott-allie-part-one/

 

Wow. This season has been all over the place so far...I'm going to take a bit to digest this and will give my thoughts on the weekend.

 

Okay so I have read the issue again and yeah this is pretty crazy. This is near last year's level of craziness. I guess the obvious question is:

Spoiler: Buffy

Where is the real Buffy? Captured at some point?

 

GODAMMIT!!!! I left the newest issue of Buffy in my car, forgot to put my window up (never a bright move here in the PacNW), and it got rained on all over it.