Sunday Splash Page #98

"Surprise In Stereo", in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #7, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Georges Jeanty (penciler), Andy Owens (inker), Dave Stewart (colorist), Richard Starkings and Jimmy (letterers)

There had been other comics based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer while the TV show was still going, but they focused on stories that could fit somewhere within the margins of the episodes. This was the first series that was really a continuation of where the show left off after Season 7, with Buffy now in command of an army of 500 Slayers, attracting the enmity of all sorts of people.

I didn't give a shit about that. As far as the series went, I was always much more interested in Faith than Buffy (likewise more interested in Spike than Angel). So, when they solicited an arc focused on Faith, written by Brian K. Vaughn, whose Dr. Strange: The Oath mini-series I enjoyed, I was all in on that.

In this case, Giles tags Faith to go kill some high-born, British girl who's teamed up with a vaguely Gambit-sleazy warlock to kill Buffy. Love how the Scoobies always give her the stink-eye for her past fuck-ups, while also figuring it makes her perfect to do the work they rather not dirty their hands with. Faith has to learn to pass as aristocracy herself, but befriends the girl and tries to divert her off the path Faith's walked already. It doesn't work, because those sorts of things never do for her.

Anyway, it was an fun little 4-issue arc, which didn't convince me to continuing buying the series regularly after it concluded. I did pick up one more issue about 18 months later, a one-shot that focused on Faith and Giles and their traveling "help lost Slayers" road show, but it was written and drawn by someone else and not nearly as good. Season 8 eventually ended, and then Season 9 kicked off. That included Angel and Faith, which we already looked at in Sunday Splash Page #28.

That does it for the "Bs", other than the current Black Cat series, which I probably won't double-back to until after it's finished.

All Life Is Meetings, And Partings, And Reunions

I'm probably going to refer back to this post. I think that scene, and the one I want to discuss today, from Angel & Faith #25, make nice bookends for the Faith and Giles interactions. I've included to two relevant pages. Yes, the photos are a little blurry. Sorry. You can click on them to make them larger, though.

We start with Faith walking away from Angel and towards Giles (he was resurrected as a 12-year old, if you were out of the loop). Faith has just affirmed to Angel that she's still his friend, but she needs to get away for awhile, figure out who she is on her own. Working with Angel cost her everything of the life she'd managed to build around herself, with the younger Slayers and whatnot. That's pretty important by itself, since Faith has often seemed to be stuck with the castoffs other people didn't want, or if she starts to gather friends, she's accused of stealing them, as Buffy frequently (sometimes validly) accused her. Nadira and the other girls were hers, but getting wrapped up in Angel's quest to undo his screw-ups cost her them.

Anyway, Faith is resigning herself to working for Kennedy and going forward alone, but here's Giles - waiting for her, asking if he can accompany her in panel 2. Isaacs makes it clear Faith is both surprised, and touched. The smile, the hand over the heart gesture, this wasn't something Faith was expecting, but she's glad to hear it. Also, the shift in viewer perspective emphasizes how close they are at this point. Faith has definitely narrowed the distance between them from panel 1 to panel 2. One might even suspect the possibility of a hug. But panel 3 brings us Giles alone, as he lays out his current difficulties adjusting. By panel 4, as Giles admits to his need to find a new path, we can see Faith still looks relaxed. Her stance is easy, leaning slightly forward, there's what I'd describe as a curious look on her face, like she wants to see where Giles is going with this. But the perspective has shifted to a bird's eye view, which is more impersonal, making us less a part of the conversation, and more the audience in the balcony. It increases our distance from them, reducing the intimacy, and I think it makes the distance between the two characters appear greater as well, without either having to move.

And then in panel 5, Giles comes right out and says it: He wants to go back to Buffy, and we get a close-up on Faith's reaction. It's hurt, maybe angry, mostly resigned. This isn't really new for Faith. One of the other recurring themes of her life has been to be compared to Buffy, and be found wanting. Never as good, never as welcome, never anyone's first choice. It's what helped the Mayor sink his hooks into her, that he made her feel second to no one. It's part of why she's so ride or die for Angel, not just because he stuck up for her, but he did it against Buffy. Look back at the page in the older post. Where Faith comments she hasn't heard from Giles in a while, and he tries to apologize, she states it outright: 'You can skip the friendly uncle routine. I ain't your beloved Buffy.'

But a lot had changed since then. She and Giles had worked together for months, independently of Buffy. Even so, at the end of the previous season, there was a sequence where Giles rushes up to her, and Faith begins to assure him she's fine. But Giles is there to retrieve the scythe, because Buffy needs it. So he runs off to get killed, and leaves Faith with a bunch of burning Slayer corpses. But now she'd helped him return from the dead. Not as either of them would have liked, but still, it has to count for something. And still he wants to go back to Buffy.

Incidentally, I've been trying for some time to figure out the panels where the background is just one color, with no details. The best explanation I've managed is that it's designed to focus the reader's attention on one specific thing, typically a character's reaction. In this case, Faith's. Why wouldn't you? Her face is the only thing in the panel, so it gives the reader a chance to look it over a bit, let it sink in.

The second page starts with us back in the balcony. I think we're in essentially the same spot, but they've moved beneath us. Faith has backed up to the foot of Nadira's bed, and Giles is advancing, a bit of entreaty in his posture. I'd like to think he recognizes his mistake and is trying to mend the damage, but mostly he's offering more justifications for why he should get what he wants. A true adolescent. I wonder if the perspective, which lets us survey the whole scene, is meant to make us impartial? Giles does have a good point about being in an unusual circumstance and needing some help. That's about as impartial as I can be, I'm in the tank for Faith, if you hadn't guessed. Note the placement of Nadira and Angel in the upper right corner. Faith had been walking away from them originally, towards a future, possibly a very different one. But confronted with Giles using her as a way to hitch a quick, discreet flight to the States, she's backing up, falling back into her past. Heck, you even have a Slayer in a coma with a well-meaning (but seriously messed up) father figure next to her. Angel isn't anywhere near as close to Nadira as the Mayor was to Faith, but in each in his own way contributed to the girls' self-destructive paths that put them in those beds.

From there, we get another close-up of Faith in panel 2. The color choice is curious. Yellow seems like too cheery a color for a response whose word balloon could have those little icicles hanging off it. The angle is different from panel 5 on the previous page. We seem to have shifted into Giles' position, so that we're looking up at Faith. I think it's to set up panel 3, as she walks out past him, the old Faith armor firmly in place, trying her best to appear as if nothing's bothering her. Of course, Giles has spent enough time around her to know better, and his posture makes it look as though he wants to follow. Or at least raise an arm to call after her. But he doesn't. Maybe he knows better at this point.

What it boils down to is, Faith stopped retreating into her past and went forward, on towards that future she was headed to before this whole conversation. She goes right past Giles and out of the tent, leaving him with Angel and Nadira. All important parts of her past now, but not her future.

You can chart a difference in Faith in how she reacted in the older scene and this one. In the older one, she brought up that Giles hadn't been in touch, as a way of pointing out the distance between them. But when he tries to address it, she throws Buffy up as a wall, and tries to brush him off. Now, when Giles makes the initial point that she has people who care about her, Faith accepts it easily. There's no defensiveness to it, until she gets her hopes about Giles, only to have the dashed against the rocks of Buffy Summers' continued existence. She's progressed, but she still has trouble with getting too hopeful, and the letdown that comes with it.. However, whereas in the older scene she turned away from Giles, looking backwards to keep people at a distance, now she's moving forward, and if other people don't accompany her, so be it.

When The Universe Drags You Back Home

The name of the current (and final) arc in Angel & Faith is "What You Want, Not What You Need". Near as I can tell, it's all about pitting the characters with that choice between the two, wants against needs.

Sophie and Lavinia have to decide whether to bail out on the whole conflict or not. Despite not being fighters, or having any magic to draw from, they opt to help, rather than thinking strictly of themselves. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they can't find a way to get the various altered citizens to lend a hand against Whistler.

Alasdir is presented with the chance to regain some of his past prominence, and Giles with a chance to be an adult. each of them sees a chance to get something they want, but recognizes the risk, and passes. I mean, they blew by dithering around for so long Nash could steal the orb back, but they came to a decision at least to not use it recklessly for their own benefit.

Angel confronted Whistler with the cost of his plan, hoping to make him abandon his plan. Angel's contention is Whistler just wants his pain to stop, and the plan Whistler's set on, with its considerable death toll, isn't necessary to save the world. So far, Whistler is unmoved, still believing this is the only way. Both of them think they're acting on a needs basis, and that the other is doing what they want. Angel thinks Whistler wants to end his pain, Whistler thinks Angel isn't willing to do what it takes, so to speak.

Pearl and Nash are after their mother's goal of a world with people and demons combined, and it's right there. But Nash dies, and that's the cost. The siblings always had each other, and if they'd stuck to more gradual, quieter plans, they might still have each other, and still be working toward their goal.

All that's preamble, because Faith is the one I'm really interested in. Her moment of clarity in #24 was recognizing that she ought to have been more concerned with stopping Pearl and Nash (and Whistler, I suppose), rather than on Angel's latest attempt to, in one big act, Fix Everything he screwed up the last time he tried to Fix Everything. Well, she only says she ought to have been after P & N, I'm editorializing about Angel, but that is what she's been concentrating on. Instead of stopping the people putting together a plan that will kill billions, or even helping the young Slayers under her tutelage, she's been helping Angel sort through his depression by resurrecting someone who would not have wanted to be resurrected.

Because she felt she owed it Angel, and because she wanted Giles back. For better or worse, she's a Slayer, she's supposed to protect the world by killing monsters that threaten humanity. I don't imagine she could handle Whistler, given how strong he seems to be, but if she'd worked with her Slayers, I think they could have dispatched Pearl & Nash. And maybe doing that while Nadira still had a support network would have stopped her self-destruction.

It's disappointing for Faith, though. For her, it always seems to come down to killing. That's what people see her as, and that's part of why she started trying to help other Slayers, and part of why she helped Angel. It's nice to do something that wasn't about death. So this is a rude reminder that she's still a Slayer, and there are certain responsibilities that come with it. She can try and step away from it, like her proteges, but it's too much a part of her to ignore it entirely. Trying to do so just makes things worse. I worry where this is going to leave her for the next season. The Slayers are gone, I'm not sure what's going to happen with Giles, so that's leaves Faith with what, Angel? Given I expect he'll have some new mess to clean up, and I think she'd be better off getting well away from him for awhile. Focus on herself.

What Makes A Memory Yours?

If you remove the emotions associated with a memory, is it really your memory any longer?

There was something Jamie Madrox said early in the current volume of X-Factor, that he didn't remember whether it was him or a duplicate that got a law degree, because all the memories mix together inside his head. He added it wasn't so different from anyone else, that when you try to remember something, you reconstruct the past out of a jumble of memories.

But when you do that, there's no guarantee you'd reconstruct events properly. You might forget something, or your perception might be altered by your state of mind at the moment you're attempting the reconstruction. And how you proceed can be impacted by how you reconstruct your memory of whatever it is you're trying to recollect. If a person you have spotty history with asks for a favor, you might think back over that history. Maybe you're in a bad mood, and forget some kindness they showed you. Or you're feeling good and only remember the good times, or minimize the significance of the bad times.

All this come to mind because of Faith going to Drusilla and asking for the Lorophage to draw out all the pain and hurt she's had*. What interests me is the idea of identity, and what makes a person who they are. Certainly our experiences, the effect they have on us, and how we react to them are a part of it. If you take away emotions associated with an experience, be they good or bad, that changes you. That's the whole point of why these people come to Drusilla. They can't handle the pain, they need it excised to go forward. Having done that, do the experiences that brought about the emotional distress play any part in making them who they are any longer?

It puts me in mind of that line from that Bruce Lee movie. 'What is this, an exhibition? You need emotional content.' If you remember something, but feel nothing when you remember it, does it have any impact on your life? It might as well be a story you heard about someone else, or a movie you watched. It's life at a remove, and how much of that can you make of your past before you're unrecognizable? Every change made produces a shift in the person as a whole. Enough little changes, and are you even the same person anymore?

Well that's what Faith's shooting for, obviously. She doesn't want to be this person who can be manipulated by her desire that just once an authority figure would actually care about her for who she is, not what she can do for them. But law of unintended consequences and all, what if she loses parts of herself she likes? That's the trick, it's not so simple to determine what events, and what emotions are connected to what personality traits. Your significant other cheats on you and you break up. This produces a more cynical outlook in you, which makes it difficult for you to trust others. Removing the trauma of that breakup might change that, but you might also learn that while you found it difficult to place trust in others initially, once someone had earned it, you would trust them implicitly. What if that's lost in the process, because you don't have that moment when it was so clear to you how important people you can really trust are?

Which goes back to whether someone who changes like that is really the same person anymore, or are they someone entirely new standing where that old version did. Is there a line, some percent of the total parts of a person that once changed, equals a new person? Or is it something that varies with the observer, each one comparing this version of their friend to the one they think they know, all coming to different conclusions?

* I think it might be a ruse, that Faith needed a way to get close to the demon without arousing the suspicion of Dru or her followers. Something about her tearful, kneeling posture seems so over-the-top. She knows Dru's history, how she thought her gifts were a curse (and how Angelus played on that). Faith might figure a young woman with powers which carry a terrible burden would be someone Dru would instinctively want to help, since no one helped her.

Some Pasts Don't Take Kindly To Being Ignored

Angel & Faith #6 offered a pretty solid rebuttal to Harmony's "don't waste time thinking about past mistakes" philosophy from the previous issue. Which was fine with me, as that attitude had really bothered me. Not surprised me, this is Harmony we're talking about, but it did irritate. Maybe because I have a tendency to dwell on missteps myself, but more because coming from Harmony, it's a feint.

Harmony doesn't look back on all the people she killed as a vampire because it would take away time she could be spending thinking about herself. She can try and frame it as concentrating on what she can do, not what she did, but it's a matter of self-absorption. Just as Harmony doesn't espouse this idea of not siring or even biting without permission out of some high ideal. It has the benefit of a) maintaining her celebrity, and b) keeping her from being staked by some Slayer who, unlike Buffy, doesn't regard her as a complete joke. I'm surprised she was so worried about that video. Seems like the sort of thing a celebrity would play off as a youthful indiscretion, or as a weakness she could play for sympathy in some public apology which ends with Harmony pledging to go into rehab. Works all the time in our world with drugs, booze, and politically incorrect statements. Why not in theirs over vampiric-related issues?

Beyond that, the reason Faith and (especially) Angel can't ignore their pasts is because their pasts are still an active threat. Sure, Angel could just try washing his hands of Drusilla. That's what he did for the first century after the curse dropped the Soul Hammer on him, but that didn't mean she stopped killing people, with or without Spike and Darla. Now she's here, and she's sane, so I'm curious to see how Angel deals with her. Hopefully more efficiently than that half-assed immolation he tried on her and Darla during, what Season 2 of his series? I don't mean kill her necessarily, it might be possible to reason with her. So far, if she's breaking the "no siring/no biting without consent" rules, she's being sneaky about it.

As for Faith, she tried ignoring past mistakes, and it lead to her working for the Mayor, ending up in a coma, and then in prison. Going the other direction is producing substantially better results thus far, even if she did befriend that snooty British Slayer, only to end up killing her. And she's using her mistakes to guide these younger Slayers so they don't step on the same land mines. That being said, this appearance of her "father" is definitely trouble, and you could consider that a part of her past she's tried very hard to forget. I don't know whether he's real or a fake, though my money's on fake. Even if he is real, I have doubt he's there out of some altruistic desire to reconnect with his daughter. More likely he thinks he can get money or fame, or even more likely, he's in debt to some demon like Vinnie the Shark. Perhaps Angel can try the immolation thing again, only on the alleged Mr. Lehane?

Just don't do another half-assed job of it, Peaches.

Some People Are Hard To Be Friends With

I really enjoy the dilemma Gage and Isaacs have presented Faith with so far in Angel & Faith. Namely, the dilemma of how to be a good friend to someone making bad decisions.

It didn't do Angel any good to sit around brooding (even if he is very good at it), so anything that gets him up and moving sounds good at first. Then it turns out he's decided resurrecting Giles will fix everything. Which, look, back when the Scoobies brought Buffy back, Spike was the only one who realized it was a stupid idea. When even Spike - impulsive, damn the consequences, do anything for love, including that, so whatta ya say now, Meat Loaf? Spike - knows something is unwise, that should be a tipoff it's not the smart play.

You'd think Angel, after all the time he's spent 'helping the helpless' to atone for his centuries of horrific acts, would know it can't be made all better with one stroke. He's the one who told Faith they never stop paying for their crimes*. Still, the big, grand gestures are a lot easier than the daily grind, so it's understandable he sometimes forgets.. It's just forgetting usually involves distancing himself from his friends, or taking over an evil law firm.

Now the problem becomes how far to support him. Faith knows this is a bad idea, she had a discussion with Giles about the very subject (with regards to the vulcanologist she killed in Season 3 of Buffy). She also knows Angel is too bull-headed to be talked out of it easily. If she threatens to withdraw her help if he doesn't drop this, she knows Angel will just go on without her. So she sticks with him, and makes her own plans to make him human with the Mohra demon blood.

I wouldn't say it's a good plan. There are people Angel could save as a vampire, that will die if he's only human. Not that he wouldn't try to save them, which is the critical flaw in her plan. Just because he wouldn't be a vampire, doesn't mean he'd stop trying to fight evil. Which means he'll wind up dead for real soon enough.

Also, if Faith succeeds, there's a very real chance Angel will get his nose bent out of shape over it, which could cause a rift between the two. This probably wouldn't be good for either of them, since neither one has a lot of people they can call friends, while they each have enemies lining up around the block. I think it'd be worse for Faith, to lose one of the only people who ever believed in her, or gave any sign they cared about her. I believe the official list is her first Watcher (Dead), Giles (Dead), Angel**. Maybe she'd be OK with it, feeling she did the right thing, but if he goes out and tries to fight evil as a human, and winds up dead, I could see her taking that badly.

That's kind of how things go for them, they support each other, regardless of what it costs them. Angel protected Faith from the flames of Buffy's self-righteousness, which didn't do the tentative "exes as friends" thing he and Buffy had any good. And Faith nearly killed herself capturing Angelus so he could be reensouled. Which is one of the things I like about those two, that they'll go to the wall for each other. This situation's a little different for Faith, though. A grand sacrifice isn't likely to straighten Angel out. If anything, he'd add Faith to his list of people to resurrect. What she has to do is figure out some way to convince him to redirect this drive towards something constructive. Which can be tricky. If she pushes too hard, he'll get defensive, and trying to force him off this path (by making him human) won't do anything but breed resentment, and lead him to carry out his plans on the sly.

Words have never been Faith's strong suit, so it'll be interesting to see if she can talk Angel down, or if she'll even try.

* Back in Season 4 of Angel, when they took the magic drug fueled trip through Angel's head.

** Xander might have qualified briefly during Season 3, but she blew that to Hell with the nearly killing him and all.

My Scott And Jean

I've been debating throughout the day whether to get with this meme, or do the post I originally had planned, but I finally figured I might as well. I haven't taken part in a meme for awhile, and I haven't really ranted about anything too recently, so why not?

So here should be the link to the description of what "Scott and Jean" means (as I type this, my computer keeps telling me there's an internal server error every time I try and load the page. It's basically something geek-related you feel so strongly about, you can't really debate it, rationally, I think. I have a few of these, of varying intensity, so I've been trying to decide which to focus on. I thought about "Cassandra Cain as a villain/killer", but I don't get angry about that anymore, so much as I just ignore stories which don't jibe with my view of the character (Beechen's Batgirl mini-series, for example). Maybe One More Day, since I don't see why it was necessary to remove the marriage so Peter Parker can have a supporting cast. Hey, I'm glad Pete has a supporting cast, but when JMS put Pete and MJ back together, Paul Jenkins kept including the wacky apartment neighbors he created previously, so I don't think the marriage was the issue, as much as the unmasking and having him move into Stark Tower. But I chalk that up to lazy writers and move on. I guess with anime there's my distinct feeling that as far as the Tenchi Muyo series go, Tenchi ought to wind up with Ryoko, and that prissy princess Ayeka can take a long walk off a short pier into a black hole infested with space piranha, but even there, I don't find myself getting actively riled about it. So I finally settled on the Scooby Double-Standard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6.

I've complained about this before, in reference to the Spike/Buffy relationship of Season 6, and the different treatment Faith and Willow receive, compared to their relative crimes. Oddly enough, unlike most things that bother me, where I complain about them on the blog, feel better, and can sort of move on, I can't quite let this one go. I suppose it's because I liked, or at least in Buffy's case, could tolerate the characters before, but was actively wishing for their deaths by the end of the season. There's just something that bothers me so much about how Xander, Willow, and Buffy all pull various crap on other characters, then skate on it. Xander bails on Anya at the altar, then when she has drunk comfort sex with Spike(who had just been told by Buffy it's over between them*), Xander acts as though he's the hurt party, and was about to stake Spike, rather than deal with his own inadequacies. Plus, of course, Spike can't fight back, so Xander can beat him up as much as he needs to feel like a big man.

Then Buffy acts like Spike wronged her by sleeping with Anya, after Buffy freaking broke up with him, and then he gets chewed out by Dawn about hurting Buffy later, and it all ignores the loads of shit Buffy dumped on him throughout the season. The beatings, the insults, diminishing his every attempt to improve himself (which he was doing for her), occasionally pretending they could be friendly when they were alone, then treating him like dirt as soon as her friends showed up. And she gets away with it! No one calls her on this bullshit! And then everyone acts horrified that Spike did something bad (which assaulting Buffy in the bathroom was, I'm not denying that), when they spent the entire season telling him he was bad, that he was a monster, a thing, that he couldn't ever be good. Here's a thought: You want someone who's been evil in the past to stop being evil? Give them encouragement when they do something good. Let them know you recognize their efforts, and appreciate it. If all you do is mock or belittle them, you shouldn't get to act hurt when they decide it's not worth the hassle and revert to old habits.

And yes, Buffy consistently defends and protects Spike in Season 7. Swell, except I still think that support would have done more good when he didn't have his soul. Also, near as I can tell, her friends still don't understand the damage she (and they) did to him the previous year, which probably contributed to the nervous breakdown that lead to the assault attempt, so there's no recognition that, yeah, Buffy really ought to assume some responsibility for Spike, and maybe we should too, since we treated him like dirt, except when we needed him to act as muscle for us. Bunch of poncy bastards, the lot of them.

I've gone into the Willow/Faith thing before, so I won't bore you by repeating all of it (here's one example, the rant in the last footnote). For me, it boils down to accepting responsibility, where the core Scoobs don't, and the others do. Faith accepts she screwed up, goes to prison, stays there until she's needed. Spike decides he screwed up, that he can't be good without a soul**, goes to get one. Anya had a chance, after Xander caught them, to let Spike make a wish against Xander and she restrained herself, because she'd grown to the point she didn't really want vengeance for herself. Meanwhile, Xander's acting like bailing on your bride on your wedding day is no big deal, Buffy's (for a long time) unwilling to risk her friends' scorn by admitting what she was doing with Spike, and I still don't think they know about the beatings she gave him, and Willow gets to foist the blame for her actions off on the magic. Funny, I recall Giles accepted the responsibility for that demon he and his friends summoned back in their youth, even though that was also dark magic, just like what Willow was messing with. Can't quite see the difference there myself.

So, there it is, hopefully for the last time on this blog. Tomorrow, making fun of stuff from War of Kings #1!

* And for the record, I'm glad she ended it, since she was killing him by inches, but she doesn't get to act proprietary towards him afterwards. Where I come from, if you break up with someone, you don't get to be mad if they screw someone else later. You want to be their one and only, then say so.

** Again, I think if the Scoobies had simply encouraged him a bit, he wouldn't have needed the soul. He was struggling to do good, but the point is he was making the effort.

The Joys Of Leadership: You Can Tell Others To Do What You Will Not

I've got a few more thoughts on the Buffy/Faith things I was discussing this weekend I want to get to, so that's where I am at today. So one of the other complaints I saw about the arc starring Faith in the current Buffy comic was that there was no way that the Scoobs would ask Faith to go and assassinate this other Slayer. After all, the last time she killed someone, she went off the rails until she wound up in a coma. When she came out of the coma, she went back to attacking them, then went after Angel, with some Wesley-torture along the way.

A couple of responses to that. One, the commenter seems to be assuming that Faith hasn't grown as a person, learned anything from that whole experience that might help her. Originally, Faith tried to deny the incident bothered her at all, not only to Buffy, but to herself, which is not a healthy attitude. I think when the comic shows Faith consistently marks her arrival at her apartment by angrily stabbing her stake into the wall, combined with her attempts to get a passport and leave Cleveland, it suggests she knows she's not happy with where she is or what she's doing, so at the very least she isn't lying to herself anymore. Plus, that denial the first time around left her deaf to the people who truly wanted to help her (that'd be Xander and Angel). This time around, she hears Giles when he tells her she isn't the first person to screw up royally as a teen, and that he gets feeling the need for atonement*. She knows now there are people who care about her, that believe in her, and that makes a difference. By the end of the arc, Faith wants to travel and try to help other Slayers from not making her mistakes, so she is definitely not the same person she was in Season 3.

Secondly, who else could they send? Buffy obviously can't go, with her being the target (even assuming she would kill Gigi). Gigi's been killing other Slayers for awhile, so sending one of the newbies is risky. I think Gigi's Warlock Master would notice if you tried to send Willow, and Giles ruled out sniping her from a distance, so what's that leave? Giles or Xander trying to sneak in and kill a Slayer at close range? It is to laugh. Listen to me laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha, ha.

I think what amused me about that criticism of the story's logic was the claim that putting Faith in a situation like this, where she could go back down that same dark road, is completely unlike the Scoobies. Let's set aside whether Giles thinks the same way as the Scoobs (I'd say no). What amused me was I recalled Buffy telling Willow and Spike to confront their fear of their dark sides for the greater good. She told Willow she needed to get over her fear that using heavy-duty magic would drive her evil again**, because as things stood, she wasn't helping enough. Then she got on Spike for not being a good fighter since he got his soul, and how she needed the old Spike back, because he'd be useful in the battle to come. You remember the old Spike, brutal killer, Slayer of Slayers? The one Buffy only escaped from in their first battle thanks to the intervention of Joyce Summers and a fire ax? Both come in the same scene, and in that same episode, Buffy meets the fellows who created the first Slayer, by infusing some girl with the essence of a demon to give her its power or something like that. They offer Buffy more power (apparently the connection to that demonic force has been diluted), saying she'll need it to beat the First Evil, and she turns them down.

Why I think that's interesting is that one of Buffy's fears has seemed to be the essence of the Slayer itself. When she and Faith first met, Faith talked about how much she enjoyed getting out there, slaying the baddies, and how it left her feeling like finding a steak or a guy afterwards. Buffy makes some weak joke in response about how sometimes she craves a fat-free yogurt after slaying. At the start of season 5, when she meets Dracula, she finds herself going out in the night, hunting, as she puts it for demons to slay, as opposed to patrolling earlier in the evening. She tells Giles this scares her, and she needs to know more about where her power came from. Buffy consistently tries to deny any sense that she enjoys the slaying part of being a Vampire Slayer, and if she starts to enjoy it, she gets worried.

Buffy's met the First Slayer (in a dream), and she's seen what happened with Faith, so perhaps she has good reason to fear, but still, it's hypocritical to stand there and order other people who are trying very hard to rein in their darker tendencies to get over it when one isn't ready or willing to do so themselves. It's like one of those war movies, where the Bad General keeps ordering his men to throw themselves at the Fortified Enemy Position on a Nameless Hill, while he sits comfortably safe behind the lines enjoying his steak and fine wine, while the Kind Squad Sergeant grieves, fumes, shares his rations, and tries to keep his men alive, without disobeying orders. Of course, the Kind Squad Sergeant usually dies taking the position singlehandedly, or saving the peach-fuzzed kid in the outfit, so I'm not sure who in Buffy season 7 would play that role.

* And I can't help thinking, "Why the hell didn't you tell her this in season 3, Giles?" Maybe she's too deep into denial for it to sink in, but I felt she respected Giles - perhaps because his concern for Buffy reminded her of her first Watcher's (the one Kakistos killed) concern for her - enough to listen. Xander and Angel tried and failed to reach her then, but I think Faith figured Xander was just looking for another roll in the hay, and Angel, well, he is a vampire. One that tried to destroy the world, no less. Plus, his attempt to talk to her came after he clocked her with a bat (shovel?) and chained her to a wall in his home. Not really conducive for sharing of feelings.

** This feels like more excuse making for Willow, which started in Season 6, when they started arguing the magic she was using was dark, and that's why she did bad things. This as opposed to, Willow likes magic because it gives her control over the situation, but she abuses that power because she thinks her intelligence makes her more perceptive of what's best than the others. So Willow went from being Jerk-style Batman to a coke addict. Boo.

Easy To Say, Hard To Mean

Hmm, that title sounds vaguely like a Claremontism. Bit of news, I'll be getting my comics tomorrow, so reviews Monday, and I'm sure Adorable Baby Panda will swing by Tuesday. So that'll be two days of joy. I mention that, because I figure it means I can go ahead and rave a little bit more today. I'm shooting for "calmly sarcastic", but may drift into "angry bellowing". Or the Internet equivalent, anyway.

I mentioned that I found the image for yesterday's post on scans_daily. I know some people in the blogrealm are not big fans of the site, and they have their reasons. I find it useful for introducing me to old comics I might want to go hunting for, and occasionally funny. Still, I probably ought to stop reading the comments. But, as I hadn't cured myself of that habit by yesterday, I ambled through the comments for the posts covering that arc from Buffy Season 8. One comment I saw more than once was that the fight between Buffy and Faith in issue #8 shouldn't have happened because those two made peace in Season 7. Well, OK, let's chat about that. Or I will. You don't have to if you don't want, but it's probably good for someone not as much of a Faith homer as I am to balance me out.

Anyway, in the issue itself, Buffy has been teleported without warning to Gigi's estate, which causes her to throw up. When she stands up, Gigi kicks her in the face and starts talking about how she thought Buffy would be harder to kill than all the other Slayers she'd disposed of. They fight a bit, then Faith, in an attempt to rescue Buffy, tackles her out a window, causing them to fall into a shallow pool. Given those circumstances, and their past history, I can completely understand Buffy thinking Faith's gone to the Dark Side again, at least initially. As for Faith, well she probably didn't appreciate her attempt to help Buffy being rewarded with punches, so she hit back, which certainly isn't going to help things, even if she's just trying to slow Buffy long enough to explain. Then when Faith tries to explain Giles sent her there undercover, Buffy pops her again, and says Giles never trusted Faith, and neither did she. Ooo, that's hitting a sore spot with Faith, so then she actually does try and kill Buffy, until she gets herself back under control, by which time Willow manages to teleport Buffy back home. So the whole sequence is largely a product of Buffy being involved in a fight for her life when Faith makes her presence known, and both characters letting tempers get the better of themselves. Happens all the time.

But let's consider the supposed peace the two established in Season 7. It was primarily Buffy showing a willingness to let bygones be bygones, since she was the one that had been wronged. Well, ask yourself if, on an occasion where you've been wronged, have you ever, at a later date, told that person "It's OK," or "I forgive you"? If so, did you ever say it and not really mean it? Perhaps you were in a good mood, they looked down in the dumps, and you felt like trying to raise their spirits, or you were just being polite, or you were trying your best to mean it, but couldn't pull it off. Hey, we're not perfect, and we can only try our best to move forward. And when I think of the scene, I see Buffy making a real effort to bridge the gap between them, and Faith accepting that it's probably the best B can do.

I mean, Faith seemed to be struggling for that since she got there. She took Dawn's 'Are we letting the escaped murderer stay here?*' line, she didn't lash out when Buffy popped her for taking the Potentials to the Bronze to unwind without consulting Generalissimo Summers first**. She's trying to follow orders, but she's still herself enough to call Buffy on her dictatorial attitude, which inadvertently gets her named as new head honcho, which wasn't something she was expecting. So she tries to lead, and nearly get s blown up for her troubles. Meanwhile, Buffy stumbles on the fabled axe-thing, kills Stupid Preacher Guy, and finds the panicked Potentials Faith brought with her and saves them from Super-Vamps. Buffy is bathed in glory and resumes command, and Faith is dinged up in Buffy's bed. So Buffy's feeling good, she knows Faith tried her best, and so she tries to give Faith the forgiveness she wants. And Faith accepts the offer. maybe she believes it, maybe she just figures it's the best she can hope for***.

I'm trying to think of a good comparison from comics. I suppose you could compare it to Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns he mowed through during the Parallax days. I know a few of them (all?) have made peace with Jordan since then. Arisia and Tomar for sure, I think. But you have to wonder, if Hal starts acting a little wonky, are they going to get ready to take him out, just in case it wasn't Parallax (or the Yellow Bug is back inside him)?

* I can't remember whether Dawn said "convict" or "murderer". I think it was the latter, and if so, well Dawn, given that Andrew, Anya, Giles, Spike, and Willow are already staying at the Summers' home prior to Faith's arrival, I'd say, yeah, the murderers are staying there. If it was convict, well, just because you went to prison doesn't mean you're guilty, and just because you haven't been to prison doesn't mean you're an innocent. Yes, Faith was guilty of what she was convicted of, but like I said, Andrew's guilty too, and he hasn't been convicted.

** I'm not sure which part was what caused Buffy to punch her, taking the kids out of the house, or not asking permission.

*** I kind of got the feeling that the body-swap in Season 4 provided Faith with some insights into Buffy, and who she is, and what it's like to be the Slayer people believe in, and are glad to see arrive to save the day. I'm not as certain Buffy learned anything about what it means to be Faith, though to be fair she had to spend some time escaping those Watcher idiots, and getting her friends on her side. Doesn't perhaps provide opportunities for reflection on the lives' of others.

Perhaps The Tea Was Just Tea

Late this week, I found myself thinking about last year's Brian K. Vaughn-penned arc in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the arc starring Faith. In particular, I though of the scene when Giles first approaches Faith with the job of killing rogue Slayer Gigi, who is planning to kill everyone's* favorite Slayer, Buffy. What really stuck with me was Giles complimenting Faith on the fine selection of teas she had in her apartment. I thought to myself, "That can't be right? Faith with tea? I must be misremembering." A quick search on Scans_daily confirmed I wasn't misremembering, and so I concluded this scene must have some significance. Because I'm bored enough to figure if it came to me a year later, it must mean something. I could be wrong, but I figured it might be worth a lark trying to determine that. So here's the page in question.
First order of business: I didn't know what what Faith meant when she says she uses the smelly bags on the dark circles under her eyes. On the assumption she's being straight with Giles, I did a brief internet search, and found that chamomile has a wide variety of uses, including being placed in a heated bag and used as a fomentation to reduce swelling caused by abscesses. Well, I kind of doubt that Faith is having issues with pus-filled regions near the sinuses, but perhaps the fomentation could also reduce swelling from bruises, say from a punch in the face? Faith has never struck me as someone particularly concerned with her well-being, so long as she got the job done. Or perhaps the dark circles are a result of lack of sleep**, which might be a sign of her state of mind. It seems fairly obvious, even within the arc, that Faith is troubled by many things: her life before being Slayer, the killing of the deputy Mayor***, working for the Mayor, the time in a coma, probably her time in prison, and so on. She has a lot considerable weight on her.

What's interesting is, chamomiles are also highly recommended as a sedative, and at least one website listed them as a cure for nightmares. I would figure that Faith learned about the use of chamomile as a facial application from a person, or by doing a little research on her own, so it's seems strange she wouldn't have stumbled across that bit of information as well. If lack of sleep is causing dark circles under the eyes, why not drink the tea to get a sounder sleep?

1st hypothesis: She doesn't know it can be used in that manner. This means the dark circles are caused by something not sleep-related, like say, getting punched in the face. It's possible, but I don't like it. Again, I think the use as a sedative is more commonly known than the other (at least, it came up more frequently on the websites I checked. Heck using chamomile to ease menstrual issues came up more often than to reduce abscessed induced swelling). Besides, Faith plays at being none too bright, but it's not accurate. She may not have shown much interest in school, but that doesn't make her dumb. She's usually pretty quick on the uptake, especially when it comes to reading people****, and she picked up enough of what Giles threw at her in this arc to fool Gigi into believing she came from an upper class family. I think she's capable of looking up medicinal uses of chamomile.

2nd hypothesis: Faith does know chamomile can aid sleep, and does use it that way, and doesn't want Giles drinking up her supply. Giles comments that her cupboards are fairly bare, which combined with her crapbox apartment suggests a shoestring budget. I have no idea how expensive chamomile tea is, but Faith might not want to spare any. In that scenario, she mentioned the use she did to put Giles off-kilter. You notice that in the next panel, Rupert sets the cup down and wipes his mouth, suggesting this was information he could do without. Faith doesn't lose any more tea, and she doesn't have to be overtly rude to do so, which I think is important to her when it comes to Giles. Faith may know she isn't his beloved Buffy, but that doesn't mean she doesn't wish she was. Faith would very much like to have people that care about her as much as the Scoobs care about Buffy, but outside of (maybe) Angel, and (in Season 3, pre-strangling) Xander, she doesn't have it. She doesn't have much, which probably could stoke feelings of protectiveness towards what she does have, but she wouldn't want to offend Giles, so she just tries to mildly gross him out.

3rd hypothesis: Faith knows about chamomile's use as a sleep aid, and chooses not to use it in that manner anyway. One thing I noticed with Faith (especially in Angel Season 4 and Buffy Season 7) is she doesn't have the highest sense of self-worth. She sits in prison, when she could easily escape, because she thinks that's where she belongs*****. She's willing to throw her life away to bring Angel back, because she thinks that's proper, or take a punch in the face from Buffy without retaliating, because she wants to prove she's on Buffy's side this time. She takes whatever bit of friendliness or compassion people toss her, and pretty much figures it's the best she can hope for, or that she deserves. In that light, I can see Faith feeling she shouldn't get relief from any nightmares, because she did those things, and ought to suffer for them. She might still play at being the party girl that let everything slide off her back that she pretended to be in Season 3, but it's even less true in Season 8 than it was then.

4th hypothesis: I also considered the possibility that Faith kept the chamomile there in case of a visitor, namely Wesley (since I don't suppose she would know he was dead) or Giles. I can't think of any other company she might get that would enjoy tea, that she might care enough about to keep some handy for. But that raises the question of why she would make a comment that would make Giles set it aside, if she kept it hoping he might visit. The easiest answer there is that while Faith wants to belong, she isn't willing to admit it, and telling Giles she had the tea hoping he might swing by would cause him to look at her with pity, which I doubt she would take well. So I don't find that one likely.

Personally, I prefer the 2nd hypothesis, because it suggests just a bit of wicked humor on Faith's part, knowing how to rattle Giles a little without truly upsetting him, and protect her stuff. I think it maybe demonstrates the healthiest state of mind for her, on the whole. Which is perhaps not the best commnetary on Faith's state of mind, but she's had a hard life, it's going to show through.

I'm feel like there are other things I should be picking up from this scene, beyond Faith's tendency towards remarks that unsettle her company. One is how quickly she shifts from a jovial attitude to a defensive one. She goes from making cracks about what happened to Sunnydale in reference to how long it's been since she's seen Giles to turning away from him in the space of one panel. Probably also worth noting that in panel 3 on that page, she and Giles both appear to be in a well-lit room, but in panel 4, it's darkened, especially around Faith. It's remarkable work by Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens, and Dave Stewart that Faith seems shrouded in darkness but without the typical tactic of actually obscuring facial features with shadows. It's more as if she's projected a cold, grey cloud around herself.

It's a fascinating sequence to me, because in panel 3 I think she's enjoying his discomfort, and so she gently chides him, trying to hide a little hurt that he hasn't bothered to check in on her. Then when he starts to tell her he's glad to see her, she brushes it off, rejects his attempt at bridging the gap. I think she regrets even making the comment in the first place. She started to banter with him, but it only served to remind her that he isn't her Watcher, never was, and she throws the walls back up immediately, returning to sarcasm and a rather pessimistic view of herself as the Slayer that's get the dirty jobs. She doesn't get to be the symbol that the rookies follow, instead she gets to clean up the messes they aren't ready for (as seen earlier in the issue when Robin asks her to go and clean out a house full of vamps that happen to be little kids, because Heaven forbid the newbies learn they'll have to slay monsters that look adorable sometimes). Hye, I didn't say it was an inaccurate view, that seems to be the role she's been assigned, but it still stinks.

So I think we can pick up a few things from the scene, though I'm sure it helps I was familiar with the character before this. She has a quick wit, she enjoys teasing people. She wants to be accepted, but isn't willing to admit that, and I think she's smarter than she lets on. At some point, she either had to read up on that use for chamomile, or someone taught it to her and she retained that knowledge for later use. Could have been her mother, though the general impression I got from the series was Momma LeHane was no Joyce Summers, but everyone has their good days.

* I'm reminded of some little skit from the end of a Simpsons' episode, with the skit revolving around Ned Flanders. it had its own theme music which would say 'Hens love roosters, geese love ganders, everyone else loves Ned Flanders', only to have Homer burst through the screen and proclaim, 'Not me!' I feel like Homer when it comes to Buffy Summers. Not so much Flanders, though. I mostly feel bad for him, being saddled with Homer as a neighbor.

** Though the Mayo Clinic's website informs me lack of sleep is not the common cause of dark circles under the eyes. They pin it on fluid which drains to that region while we sleep.

*** Well, we never see any mention of the deputy mayor in this arc, but it bothered her even back in the time when she tried to deny any wrong-doing, so I doubt that trauma has vanished. Though seriously, the deputy mayor was a dumbass. Hey, there's the Slayers, in a dark alley, in the middle of the night, looking back the way they came and breathing hard, as if they had been running for their lives. Why, I think I'll walk right up without first announcing my presence and grab one of them by the arm. I'm certain that isn't a bad idea! Hey, if Angel can be a pawn of the Powers That Be, why can't Faith be a pawn of Natural Selection?

**** Though she's less perceptive when dealing with legitimately good people, since she tends to seek ulterior motives in their actions. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to meet very many people that are legitimately good.

***** Which, hey, at least she took responsibility for her actions. Warning: long-winded rant ahead! It lasts to the end of the post, so if you're not interested, we're done for the evening. I didn't see Willow offering to go to prison for her rampage at the end of Season 6, nor did I see Buffy demanding she go to jail the way she was for Faith. Double standard on that show kills me, man. The 3 core Scoobs let each other skate on everything, compared to how they treat others. I know, I'm completely biased towards Faith, she killed 2 people, threatened to kill Willow, strangled Xander, beat up a bunch of people in Sunnydale and L.A., swapped bodies with Buffy, tried to kill Angel (really, she wanted him to kill her), tortured Wes (which I was not bothered by) and was helping the Mayor with his plan to turn Sunnydale into demon paradise (for the record, I don't count trying to poison Angel in s3, because he was a vampire that tried to destroy the world, and she is a vampire slayer, so yeah, there you go). Will's only got 1 kill, since Warren is somehow alive without skin, but toss in trying to kill Giles like she did the magic dealer, threatening to revert Dawn to a blob of energy, which would end Dawn's life as she knows it, she was choking Anya to death before Buffy stopped her, tried to kill Jonathan and Andrew multiple times, tortured Warren (I know, scumbag, he deserved it, but I can't see it being a check mark in Willow's good column), mind-wiping her girlfriend to keep her in line, which also lead to mind-wiping all her friends by accident, and oh yeah, trying to destroy the fucking planet! I'm not sure the tally is that uneven, folks. Yeah, I know, Willow went to a coven to learn how to control herself, but I figure that was a lot more pleasant than the women's correctional facility Faith was living in. Yes, Willow was grief-stricken, except when she was mind-wiping people or otherwise using magic to get her way, but I think you could make some arguments about Faith's state of mind in season 3, especially after Wes screwed the pooch by trying to haul her off to England, and she thinks she has no allies. A Watcher is supposed to defend their Slayer, you betweeded twit. No wonder I didn't mind her torturing you.

It's Fairly Appropriate, Given The Time Of Year

I've been kicking this post around for at least two months, maybe even since the start of the Faith storyarc in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I just couldn't quite decide what I was wanting to say, and I guess I finally settled on talking about why I like the character so much.

I mentioned once before that one of the things I liked was that Faith enjoyed being a Slayer. By the time I started watching the series, Buffy was in her more, unpleasant, days, and she wasn't really a character I wanted to root for. Seeing the earlier episodes, where she was more cheerful, was nice, but Faith loved being the Slayer, and I like characters that see being special as something really great, even if it's just a way for them to escape their less-than-great everyday lives.

Another part of it was that Faith strikes me as decisive. Whereas I can spend ten minutes in a grocery store, trying to decide whether to buy nacho cheese chips or peanut butter crackers for snacks, Faith seemed able to come to a decision quickly. Part of that is being impulsive, but it was also the fact she tended to stick with those decisions as long as she could. After she accidentally killed the deputy mayor (I say "accidental", even though she fully intended to put the stake in his heart, but she thought he was a vampire, and he was stupid enough to walk right up behind her in a dark alley, so no big loss to their world), she decided to try and dump the body and just move on. Not a good plan, but I was impressed with her ability to make a choice quickly and go with it. Of course, that seemed to be a theme with Faith, making a less than advisable choice, then trying to see it through. She stuck with the Mayor until she went into a coma, and picked up where she left off when she woke up (which makes that dream Buffy had where she talks with Faith contradictory, but it was a dream, and they'll do that sometimes). She tried pretty damn hard to get Angel to kill her, she stayed in prison when it was painfully obvious she could escape anytime she wanted, she took the Potential Slayers out to party and loosen up, even if it got The Royal Slaying Pain-In-The-Ass (Buffy), angry that someone did something without consulting her first. And most recently she actually got to know Gigi a little, and tried to convince her not to try and kill Buffy. Like I said, these decisions didn't tend to work out, but it was impressive to me that she would choose and path and try and stick to it.

An extension of that was Faith's loyalty to people, even though they rarely justified it. Faith defended the fake Watcher against Buffy, because she believed in her, and the fake convinced Faith that she believed in her as well. Once Faith realized she'd been tricked though, she had no issues with drawing lightning bolts in her direction to help the people she'd been fighting against moments before. Eventually she felt like the Scoobies were against her (and certainly Willow and Wesley were against her, though Xander wasn't, initially), and she turned to the Mayor. And she was loyal to him, even after he got blowed up real good. Backed the wrong horse again (story of her life it seems), but the Mayor always seemed to stick by her, and Faith returned that trust with her own. That was a weird relationship those two had, do you think he'd lost a daughter sometime before he became whatever he was?

The one time that loyaltyseems to have worked out is with regards to Angel. He pulled her back from the suicide, helped her to face up to what she'd done, and when he needed her help, having lost his soul again, she was the one who nearly died capturing him, so he could get his soul back. I liked how determined she was to bring Angelus back alive so he could be resouled, even if it cost her some pain, or if she had to smack Conner around. Personally, her pummeling Conner was the part I enjoyed the most. When she returned to Sunnydale, she seemed to really try to not cause Buffy any static, even letting Buffy punch in the face without comment, though any decision she made seemed to be interpreted as Faith trying to usurp Buffy's role, and she unwillingly wound up as leader eventually.

The last thing wasn't so much anything Faith did, as much as it was something other characters weren't doing: taking responsibility for their actions. I apologize in advance, I'm going to be a bit. . . cross for the next paragraph or so. It took her awhile, but Faith did fess up to her crimes, and she did go to prison, and she stayed there, up to the point when she was needed outside. Buffy Season 6 bugged me because no one seemed to take responsibility for what they did. Willow's mind-wiping and other antics seemed to get foisted off on "bad magic" or Amy, and her punishment for killing one person, flaying another (since Warren apparently isn't dead), trying to kill several other people, and oh yeah, trying to destroy the world was. . . to go to a coven in England and learn to control herself {Here we go}. Ooh, harsh. She gets friends waiting at the airport with a sign; Faith gets remarks from Dawn about them letting a murderer stay in the house {blood pressure's rising} Xander getting mad at Anya about her drunken one-time thing with Spike, when he bailed on her at the altar about made me see cross-eyed {grinding my teeth}. I would have loved to have seen Buffy one time admit to the others that she did a lot more damage to Spike than he did to her. But no, she got to skate on all the crap she pulled, and Spike had to deal with everyone treating him like dirt. Yeah, it was swell of her to defend him when he was under the First's control, but that support might have been more useful back when he was an unsouled vampire trying to fight his nature, as opposed to Buffy's "screw Spike, then punch him and call him names until the next time you feel horny" strategy. {yelling at the ceiling while typing}

I'm OK, I'm better now. The point was, Faith recognized she did wrong, and accepted punishment for it, then tried her best to atone for her poor choices when she left prison. I really appreciated seeing that after all the stuff I ranted about in the previous paragraph. And now she's decided to try and find troubled Slayer's and keep them from going down the same roads she and Gigi did, likely to make up for the fact she wasn't able to save Gigi from herself. It's nice, you know? Warms my heart, and in a good way, not the "I'm frothing with rage" way it was happening earlier.

I'm taking the next two days off, as I'll be visiting relatives, and trying to resist the urge to kill them, I mean, sharing in the love and togetherness of the holidays. Until Wednesday, I guess.

A Person Should Enjoy Their Work

Man, this is going to be an erratic month, comics-wise. I was looking at consecutive weeks of 1, 4, 1, 4, and 1 comics. Feast or famine strikes again. This week is Aaron Stack and Sleepwalker, I mean Warbird, I mean, Greg Horn Sexy Fight Cover Comic, blast it, I mean Ms. Marvel. Hmm, I think I took that joke about one step further than I ought to have. Oh well.

Fortunately, I remembered that the next part of BKV's Faith the Vampire Slayer arc is coming out, so that makes two, at least. Good times.

Naturally, once I start thinking about Faith, I start thinking about why I always prefer her to that "other" slayer, and I think at least part of it was that Faith actually enjoyed being a Slayer. She seemed similar to how Peter Parker was in the early years of Amazing Spider-Man, where this bright kid, that gets picked on, ignored, dissed, who lives in a less than ideal situation, has an escape. He can put on the mask, and be this super-cool crime-fighter, making with the wisecracks while he saves the day. He can climb buildings and lift cars, and his biggest bully in his everyday life, is also his heroic identity's biggest fan.

Faith, from what we know of her, didn't have all that great of a life growing up, probably nobody ever made her feel exceptional, but then she becomes the Slayer, suddenly people need her to save the day. It doesn't matter that Faith doesn't see much of a future for herself, education-wise, or even see all that great of a future for herself period, because this lucky event came along and changed everything, and she gets to actually do something with her life, so she was damn glad to be doing it (and I know some of that "devil-may-care" attitude was to hide her doubts and pain, but Spidey hid insecurity behind jokes, that doesn't mean he didn't enjoy web-swinging between skyscrapers).

What I've been trying to do is figure out who in the cape and mask realm is most similar to Buffy. She struck me as someone (at least in the early season, before she was always depressed) that had a good everyday life, and being the big hero was just a drag on that. it made it hard for her to hang out with friends, spend time with the family, do all the things she'd rather be doing. She did it, because she understood the importance of the work, but at least part of her wished it was someone else's job. I'm not sure who that describes; later Spider-Man, perhaps as he got angrier?

It's Harmless Insanity, Just Humor Him

One of the great things about the comicsblogowhatchamafloogle is that there's hundreds of blogs, with people coming up with all sorts of weird and interesting stuff to discuss. The downside is that sometimes they hit on something that leads to obsession.

Case in point. The actual post that originated this was two months ago, and I just found out about it yesterday. I haven't even read League of Extraordinary Gentleman - I know, I have to turn in my Comic Nerd card now - but I love a good "Create your own {insert term here}", so I've naturally gone nuts since then. Three teams already, and that's just from TV, not even getting into books, movies, anime, video games. . . gosh, I'm pathetic.

Relax, I'm not going to go over all of them, but I did want to outline the first team I constructed, and just go into what I was thinking when I did. So working from Bully's archetypes (more or less):

The Leader - Captain Benjamin Sisko, some time after the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. So this is after Ben returns from his time with the Prophets. He did say he'd come back eventually, so if we go forward a few years, he's a bit older, a bit slower, and probably mellowed a bit from his time. . . wherever the heck he was, so he can hopefully remain calm and reign in some of the more impetuous members of this group. Still, he always had that tenacity, where once he decides to start something, he won't let up, no matter what, and that's going to be needed. He can handle himself in a fight, he's been in enough battles to come up with some good strategies, and for someone that so often seemed to operate from a place of anger, he could be remarkably sly and deceptive.

The Rogue - Johnny Smith, The Dead Zone, pre-Greg Stillson induced visions of mass destruction. While it could be fun to have Johnny trying to get the team into helping to block Stillson, I think I want him slightly less obsessed over a single thing. Johnny doesn't totally fit the definition of "rogue" Bully gave, but he would be hard to trust. See, Johnny has this annoying habit of having visions about a person, and then not telling them he has visions about them, but rather trying to subtly manipulate them out of danger. This might lead to Johnny thwarting the team in battle sometimes, because he's trying to keep them alive, but not telling them that, which can lead to trust issues. Plus, at least one person on the team might get annoyed at Johnny slowing them down, with his cane and all. Plus, he has a cane, and you know what that means: sword canes!

The Muscle - Vic Mackey, The Shield, probably after the conclusion of Season 6. By then, I figure Vic will know who killed Lem, and he's going to be wondering who he can trust, which if Johnny leads them astray, can lead to fireworks (or firearms). Vic has no problem with beating the crap out of people who need to be beaten, he will do the dirty jobs without much difficulty, and he's fairly clever at getting out of tight spots (witness his frequent escapes of prosecution for his less-than-legal tactics). Plus, once Vic trusts you, he'll do just about anything to protect you. Throw in that Vic needs money to keep his two autistic children in their special needs school, and that could let him fill in certain aspects of The Rogue that Mr. Smith doesn't. And I'd be interested to see how he interacted with the next member, a veteran of state correctional facilities.

The Woman of Mystery - Faith Lehane, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, from the time between departing from L.A. (Angel Season 4), and arriving in Sunnydale (Buffy Season 7). Let's just have Faith skip over needlessly trying to make amends to Buffy (I'm not going to get into my frustration over the double standard between Faith and Willow's treatment), and get on that road to redemption by helping people. Why Faith? 1) The team needs someone who can keep Vic in line. 2) It needs someone who can protect/compensate for Johnny in a battle. 3) She's awesome. 4) She's got a complex and troubled past. 5) Unlike certain other Slayers, she doesn't constantly whine about said troubled and complex past. 6) I think you'd get an interesting dynamic between Faith - the proverbial kid who slipped through the cracks - and Johnny - the former high school teacher, who's probably seen his fair share of kids like that. Probably get Johnny trying to convince Faith to get her G.E.D., try to bolster her sense of self-worth, and if it took, he'd probably be like her Watcher. Which leads to Faith being the one keeping an eye on Johnny when he tries to do his "lone wolf, save everybody" schtick.

The Man With a Boat - If you insist on a boat, I guess we can use Rico Tubbs, of Miami Vice. He cruised around in speedboats often enough. But I'd rather have Michael Knight (Knight Rider), not out of any particular love of David Hasselhoff (though I am intrigued as to how he looks almost the same now as he did then), but because I love KiTT. There, I said it, I think that car is freaking awesome, and well, I guess Knight probably comes with it. Which isn't too terrible, since he demonstrated some ability to defend himself, or at least avoid getting shot. One note: we're taking KiTT from early in the series, before that added that weird "super fast mode" or whatever it was. I mean geez, the car could already go 270 mph, why do you need to go faster?

The Mastermind - To me, this character doesn't have to be tactically brilliant. The Leader should be able to come up with some good strategies once you're actually fighting. What I want from this person is to be able to gather important information, get the team the necessary equipment and transportation. That way, they get where they need to be in time, knowing what they're up against, and having what they need to stop it. That said, my Mastermind is. . .

Eric Cartman.

He may be an evil bastard (though, technically he does know the identity of his father), but he's a smart evil bastard. The plans he's devised, from using fear of Hell to try and make $10 million dollars, to the parental revenge business, to the incredible Scott Tenorman story, just genius. His problems lie in the fact he doesn't have talented enough people to work with, nor does he usually have sufficient resources to take his plans to the next level. Well, working with the League should be able to solve those issues, so it's just a matter of making sure Cartman doesn't trick the team into unleashing some kind of disease that only eliminates certain members of the gene pool, so I guess it's good that we have a psychic, and that Vic probably wouldn't be adverse to scaring the crap out of him.

Edit: As one final thing, I'd have Michael Kelso from That 70s Show as a first episode guest star. He'd assume the Classic Star Trek "Red Shirt Guy" role, dying horribly to set the tone of the first epsiode. Why? I think it'd be funny.

So that's what I got. If you didn't partake of the fun the first time around, head on over to Bully's and make a team in the comments. C'mon, what're you waiting for? Just follow the first link up above.

I Sit Here Typing, My Throat Cells Are Lysing. . . Character Archetypes #2

Sometimes, I really hate Blogger. I had this entire post typed out. But I couldn't post it, because Blogger's messed up so I can't add the images. So I save it, I even see it saved. Then I come back, and it's fucking gone! Damn it! Fine!

The first archetype was the person I think I'd be if I had superheroes. More likely, it's who I wish I could be. I doubt I could keep saving the day while putting up with all the crap Parker does. This time around, it's the characters I'm rooting for, the ones I want to get that happy ending. For my prime example I present Ryoko, from Tenchi Muyo.

A quick origin. Ryoko is either 5000 or 2000 years old, depending on what website I check. She's a combination of her mother, Washu's, egg cell, and an organism called Masu, which has unusual energy properties. A student of Washu's named Kagato abducts Ryoko, and uses her as a weapon of mass destruction for at least a 1000 years (more if she's older). To do this he controlled her. It's kind of suggested that Ryoko's mind isn't like most, that it's more of a computer, and like Washu, Kagato could hack into it and assert control. Anyway, under his orders, she attacks the Imperial Planet of Jurai, gets chased by the Crown Prince Yosho, shot down over Earth, defeated by said prince and imprisoned inside a stasis chamber hidden within a cave for 700 years. Yosho's grandson Tenchi inadvertently frees her, and now you're caught up.

Ryoko is a character looking for redemption, even if she rarely shows it outwardly. Though both Jurai's and the Galaxy Police's statute of limitations have run out on her crimes, she's still feared throughout the galaxy. Still most people don't know she was controlled. If they do know, they may not believe it, or may not care. Those people have never seen this "Kagato", but they certainly remember Ryoko. To them, she's at best "Space Pirate Ryoko", and others regard her as an outright demon. And though she wasn't in control of herself, she feels guilt for all the people she hurt or killed. It was shown in one comic that she expects that if Tenchi or the others knew everything that she had done, they'd send her away, want nothing to do with her. But she mostly conceals this behind her loud, wild, somewhat crazy personality that caught my interest initially.

Along those lines, she has to figure out a whole new way to do things. Kagato seems to have lived by the philosophy "want, take, have", or more precisely "want, make Ryoko take, have". Wuss. And that being the only way Ryoko remembers, she often acts that way. Except that it can't help with what she really wants (Tenchi's love and acceptance). In fact, showing off her powers, her fighting ability, scares the crap out of tenchi, or at least makes him nervous for quite awhile. Likewise, she can't simply blow off her rival Ayeka's face, because Ayeka and Ryoko share friends. If she did that, Tenchi, Sasami, and plenty of other people would be saddened. So the ways that seem most natural to her, are the exact things she can't do. It's an uphill battle, and I can't help rooting for her.

Other examples:

Raven - I think this is a result of that season of Teen Titans, but I really cheer for Raven. She seemed to completely believe that she was destined to destroy the earth, that there was nothing she could do to defy her father. It was nice to see her friends, especially Robin, working to convince her that nothing was set in stone.

At the same time, it's Raven's abilties that make it hard to relate to people. She can absorb their emotions, enter their dreams, sometimes without even meaning to. That tends to make people keep their distance, because when you're feeling really happy, you might not want to talk to
the girl who can suddenly drain all that happiness. It's why I thought the "Raven goes to high school" was an awesome idea. Hopefully that'll happen after One Year Later starts.

Batgirl - Like my previous two entries, Cassandra Cain has been screwed over by her father/male figure. Like Ryoko, she had no influence from a mother to counteract that. I do think Cain cared for his daughter more than the others. She was more than just a weapon. True that 'more' was mostly as a testament to his greatness, but it feels like there was something more, not compassion necessarily, but something. Either way, he left her mostly unable to interact with the real world. Speaking is difficult, and if Oracle is to be believed, reading and writing will be damn near impossible. Still, she's trying, and early in Gabrych's work, she was expanding her life. Meeting boys, talking to the coffee shop lady. There was progress.

Stacy X - I've said it all before (repeatedly), but I believe given time she would have felt comfortable enough to drop the tough facade she puts up, and once that's accomplished, she could start to develop a bit. Become someone who doesn't define the majority of her life by sex.

Faith - Faith had a harder life than any of the "Scoobies" could guess. Buffy thought that having to set up everything for Parent-Teacher Night was difficult. Try having a mom who beats you, "B". She made mistakes, got saddled with a crap Watcher like Wesley, made more mistakes. Then she owned up to them, accepted the punishment, and went to prison. When she was needed, she escaped, and all she did after that was try to make amends. Try to be the Good Slayer, and show that she could be counted. And still, most everyone regarded her with mistrust and suspicion, while Willow, who did just as much evil crap, had been welcomed back with open arms. I'm just gonna move on, before I get pissed.

I look over this list, and it's entirely women, after my first list was entirely guys. I don't know whether that's a reflection of me and my being a guy, or whether it represents the stories that writers more often assign to specific genders. I did, however, come up with one guy for this list.

Spike - Probably the hardest road to redemption of all. Even with a soul, the demon is still there, reminding him that humans are supposed to be food. That eating and killing them is what vampires do, not saving them. Even when he gave his big speech about how much he likes this world, one of the reasons was the abundance of people, or "Happy Meals with legs". Still, he's fighting against that instinct. Even when he had the chip that wouldn't let him kill, that didn't mean he had to do good. When Buffy was dead, he didn't have to patrol with the Scoobies. There were other places he could go for a brawl, and probably have more fun without the humans getting in the way.

The thing is, soul or not, he'll never be accepted. The humans will never trust him because his demonic nature is always there, it's just of matter of whether he goes along with it or not. And he's had setbacks. He fell in love with a girl who wound up crushing him like a bug, verbally, emotionally, sexually, and physically abusing him, frequently. And then he snapped, and hurt her back. But he went out, and got the one thing he thought would make him a better person. And still, they didn't trust him. How can I not root for the quintessential "get knocked down, but get up again" character? Frankly, I always thought he and Faith would have gotten along well together, if Buffy weren't in the picture. But that's another subject.

Well, let's see if Blogger holds on to this one. Looking at it, I think these characters are the next step of suffering from the first group. I mean, for all the crap that comes Peter Parker's way, he still has a pretty good life. That's part of why he can remain upbeat and keep doing the hero thing. At least, when he's being written well. These characters have had crappy incident, after crappy incident, after lousy childhood, piled on them. They have to climb out from under the proverbial mountain of stuff, just to start on their path.