comic fan

Major spoilers for Buffy S12:The Reckoning # 1.

A poster at Buffyfourms read the issue and gave a breakdown of things.

1)The baby is Dawn's and Xander's

2)Buffy and Spike broke up off-screen between seasons 11 and 12.

3)Angel And Illyria are together.

4)Buffy is 30 years old.

More here.

Buffy S12: The Reckoning #1 Issue Discussion Thread (Full Spoilers))

The baby is Dawn's, which I expected - it's a Dander baby. Good for them!!

The thing that's making me SO sad, is that apparently, Spike and Buffy have broken up, at the start of this issue

Angel and Illyria are a couple.

They're all meeting again at a party - Xander worries if it's going to be awkward and asks Buffy - she says no then worriedly asks - wait - is Spike mad at ME? (Obviously both are somewhat nervous about seeing each other - kind of like a Willow and Tara meeting again thing - Spike arrives extra early. Xander greets him.

Spike and Buffy face each other.

They greet each other warmly - he says somewhat flirtily - Out. For. A. Walk. Bitch. Then adds, he wasn't really calling her a bitch - just alluding to that time when...and they hug. And apparently it's heartwarming..

Then Angel and Illyria arrive, they're a couple... reading more. Someone tell me if I should stop or I'm letting on too much OK...
(I still have hope for these two - Spuffy I mean *fingers crossed*)

It's pretty awkward when Angel and Illyria show up at the door (for them) to be greeted by Spike and Buffy. Angel seems uncomfortable, thinking they're still together. Illyria announces Buffy's former paramour (Angel) is now her lover. Spike and Buffy speak up at the same time, awkwardly, announcing that they split up and it was mutual and the right thing. Apparently. Can't tell if one takes them at face value at this point.

Giles is restored to his true age. By a spell, apparently.

The century is about fostering women's empowerment and a connection to the natural world. Says Willow to Xander. She's worried the govt. will see them as a threat.

Willow later at the party walks over to Buffy sitting alone, and asks her if she's OK. "Are things with Spike...?"
Buffy says "We're fine" she's in bent somber posture. "I think the quiet of the past year made us both realise we don't really work as a couple when nothing's going wrong...I'm starting to think - it's not me and Spike that doesn't work...Just me. I mean, I'm 30. Everyone's growing - you with the center. Giles literally."

The part I bolded is bolded in the comic as well.

Buffy S12: The Reckoning #1 Issue Discussion Thread (Full Spoilers) - Page 2

Angel announces that there are dark forces merging near where they are and there's an evil merger and there are lawyers..
Old coworkers from Wolfram and Hart are coordinating an attack on Willow and the Slayers ...

Not just demons but factions in the human world.
Dictators. Plutocrats.
People who see the increasing power and influence of Buffy's movement as a threat.
They're getting intel from Harth.
Giles asks if Illyria can do something with her command over time to send Harth back but she says her powers are limited and she can't.

Willow says this vampire changes history. She says..."maybe enough to give them an edge." Xander "I like it. We shut em down before they can get the whole evil gang together while they're still making the seating chart."

Angel says Faith has her eyes on them now.

Buffy heads to the weapons cabinet. Xander tells Dawn to guard the baby Joyce, too late to find a sitter. Dawn feels he's being sexist. Xander hugs her.

Buffy: "Let's change the future. By hitting it hard!"

Next scene, Harth outside Wolfram and Harth with his legion of evil. There seems to be a schism in the midst of their mob. Tauron, Duke of the Blood Plains, is not too happy to be taking orders from Harth whom he calls a "dwarf gutter vampire", he calls it an atrocity, he doesn't see the point of attacking Slayers and witches in their place of power.

Harth says its like this because it's where he remembers them winning. (?) But his legion of evil aren't entirely convinced, feeling that this is stemming from Harth wanting to change history in order to just feed his own ego

Buffy, Spike, Scoobies, Anglel, Illyria, Faith arrive and the two sides fight.

One of the baddies (I think the Mayor) exchanges words with Spike, Xander and Faith in a face off - Faith accuses him of being the reason she was a murderer, he says no he just offered fatherly counsel and guidance, she made herself one. And he, the Mayor, has got help from Harth.

Buffy/ someone from the Scoobies is heard off-panel saying - that the intel from Harth was planted to get them all here. It was a trap.

Illyria, Willow give them fake time with a magical force shield by slowing time temporarily.

Next scene. Bruised and defeated, the Scoobies are back home. Faith is bleeding and says that weasel was right, and knows everything that's going to happen.

Spike says "Hell with that. I refuse to believe we don't have any bloody choice in what we do."
Willow: "Problem is, if we don't know what his history says, odds are whatever we choose to do will be what we did do."
Buffy points out Melaka has a Mondo Library. Giles porn. Everything the future watchers knew. Buffy couldn't read it, but Giles can.
Angel holds Illyria. Tells her he knows the last time they tried time travel it went south, but they have to try.
But she says the risk lies being shattered against the temporal winds. Willow says she can help. Dawn reminds everyone she's the Key. Giles agrees.

The future Slayer's in New York.
Illyria feels it's too risky. Angel reminds her that life is not without risk.
They do the spell - it seems to be working. Now all they have to figure out is how to find Melaka Fray.

And then the entire group - Buffy, Spike, Angel, Illyria, Faith, Willow, Giles, Dawn etc - look on aghast in horror as they see -

Melaka Fray with a blonde accomplice confront them. Fray says "Turn round, scurry back home. Or the Fray sisters'll kick you there." Her 'sister' says "In pieces, need be."

End of this comic - to be continued.


New Christos Gage & Georges Jeanty Interview.

Is This The End For The Slayers? Christos Gage & Georges Jeanty Talk Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Reckoning – COMICON

Is This The End For The Slayers? Christos Gage & Georges Jeanty Talk Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Reckoning

by Hannah Means Shannon

Coming up this week on June 20th, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hits a major milestone when Season 12 kicks off in Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Reckoning #1 (of 4) from Dark Horse Comics. The series sees Joss Whedon return to writing duties alongside Christos Gage, Georges Jeanty powering through epic scenes in the art department with a decade of Buffyverse experience at work on pencils, and Karl Story bringing on the inks, with Dan Jackson on colors.

What makes this story particularly poignant and might leave readers with a hint of apprehension going into the tale is that this could be an equal or bigger “event” in the Buffyverse than even the finale to Season 8. Set about a year after Season 11, “The Reckoning” catches up with the gang as they’re about to face off against a new hoard of foes including Wolfram & Hart, a legion of demons, and Harth, a vampire from the future. Wait, the future? That’s right. They’re also going to be joined by Angel, Faith, Illyria, and Fray, a Slayer from the future. Fray brings some heavy tidings. The events that are about to play out, known as “The Reckoning”, spelled the end of Buffy and all the Slayers in her timeline. What could possibly avert a future already written?

Christos Gage and Georges Jeanty join us today to really dig into the workings of Season 12, and how they handled the emotions, as well as the challenges, of crafting “The Reckoning”.



Hannah Means-Shannon: Christos, how is your writing process different on this epic season with the return of Joss to more direct work on the series? How does your experience of developing the story change and what do you find fun about collaboration in writing?

Christos Gage: It hasn’t been hugely different, but there are differences. The traditional pre-season summit where we create a one-day writer’s room to figure out the big beats of the season usually included whoever could make it from the Whedon inner circle, like Jane Espenson, Drew Greenberg or Andrew Chambliss. But this time it was just me and Joss. We probably focused a bit more on specifics than usual (facilitated by the fact that it was only four issues), including key bits of dialogue.

From there, I write the first draft of each script, then kick it over to Joss for any changes he wants to make. I’ve always loved collaborating…I co-write with my wife on virtually all my screenwriting work, and I’ve worked with other writers, like Dan Slott, in comics. In TV, of course, you’re always collaborating…that’s what the writers’ room is. The great thing about collaborating is that you have other brains working on the story, solving problems and coming up with great stuff…and bouncing off each other to come up with things you never would have alone. Working alone is fine too, it’s just a more solitary experience and you never know if you’re totally off the rails until someone else reads it.



HMS: At this point, has your view of Buffy as a character changed over time as she, in turn, changes through new experiences and adventures? If you had to describe her mentality and perspective in “The Reckoning”, what would that entail?

CG: People change, and Buffy has too, though who she is at her core has always stayed basically the same. It’s been a year since our last series, a year of relative quiet in terms of demon apocalypses. In the sliding timeline of the comics, Buffy is thirty years old. As a lot of us do at that age (because Buffy has always been about life stages many of us go through, with a supernatural spin) she is taking stock of her life and evaluating where she wants to go from here. For a long time, I think she was just trying to survive from one moment to the next, but now she’s coming to grips with the fact that she might be around a while and evaluating what she wants that to be like. Then, of course, she comes face to face with the knowledge of the Reckoning – which to Fray, the Slayer from the future, is ancient history – a big battle in which Buffy disappeared forever, and all the Slayers with her. I’m deliberately being a bit vague because I don’t want to give anything away, but her perspective on the relationships with the people she cares about is front and center throughout all of this.



HMS: Working with so many characters, and on an even more action-packed scale than usual, what challenges did you face putting this series together, and how did you resolve them? (If that’s not too spoilery a question!)

CG: The biggest challenge was finding room to do all the things we had in mind, which sometimes meant we had to cut bits we would’ve liked to do, and other times left it in and hoped Georges didn’t hunt us down and kill us! Poor Georges. The fact that we know how brilliant he is made us be very mean to him…casts of thousands on every page…and he’s doing an amazing job with it, of course. At the end of the day, though, it was about the characters, so when there was a choice between big action spectacle and an important character beat, the character beat won out, and I think that was the right choice. Besides, we’ll never top the cosmic scale of Season 8, and we didn’t even want to try. The epic scale of this particular series is because of what it means for the characters…they’re up against a moment that history already says will happen, when Buffy and all Slayers will disappear forever! We’ll get into what that means for all of them and how they choose to confront it.

HMS: Georges, do you feel that your art style working in the Buffyverse has evolved over time? If so, what changes do you think have come about in your approach to characters and art methods?

Georges Jeanty: I have been involved with the Buffyverse since 2007 going back to Season 8, and given that much time I would think any artist worth his salt would grow and mature artistically. I look at a lot of season 8 and cringe thinking how much better I could do it today, 10 years later. But that is a sign of growth. I wish that extended to the character likeness. I still struggle to this day on some of those characters. Drawing Buffy herself has gotten a lot easier, I will say. My approach with these characters is the same. I always try and draw an issue as if it were an episode from the show. A lot of the ‘directing ‘. I try and have it infused with how the show was filmed, only with a bigger budget



HMS: When working with a number of characters at once, and really focusing in on action scenes, do you have any strategies for making sure readers can follow all the beats easily while keeping the pace up?

GJ: This is always a difficult thing for me because there are so many characters. I remember talking to George Perez one year because he’s always been well-known for drawing books with multiple characters in them. He said he would write down all the characters that were supposed to be on the page, or in that scene, and then check them off as he would draw them. Now, at any given time, I’m not drawing as many characters as George, but I have written the names of the characters in the page gutters if it starts getting to 8 or 10 characters on a page, and I want to make sure I’m not leaving anyone out. I try and have everyone wear something different, so the reader can follow, if not the character likeness, then what he or she is wearing. Some cases are no-brainers like Spike’s leather trench coat, but then that can get confusing when Angel is also wearing a leather jacket and it’s a scene from afar. Keeping the pace up is all about storytelling. That holds true regardless of the subject matter. As a storyteller, it is paramount that I focus on keeping the reader engaged and make the action easy to follow.



HMS: Can you tease what have been some of your favorite elements to draw in “The Reckoning” in a non-spoilery way? A particular character or moment?

GJ: Some of my favorite moments of Season 12, which I was totally unprepared for, were the scenes in the future with Fray. I’m a huge sci-fi fan and I seldom get to draw future-scapes, so it was a blast to make up elements I thought would survive the future. While I struggled with drawing all the characters, it was also sentimental to have all the characters that I’ve drawn at one time or another for the last 10 years come back for the final round. I’m always a sucker for the character moments and while they’re brief this time around, there are many.



HMS: What do you guys think reader reaction is going to be like for “The Reckoning”? How might the outcome of this series effect the Buffyverse as a whole?

Christos Gage: I have no idea, I just hope they like it. I know there will be things that make some people furious, and hopefully other things people will like. As for how the outcome will affect the Buffyverse, that’s why we make the books…you gotta read ‘em to find out!

Georges Jeanty: I’m not sure what reader reaction will be this time around. With previous seasons, it was always a given that something was going to happen and it might have been something you don’t like, but at least there was going to be another season, but this time things are coming to an end and we all know with Joss, when things are coming to an end, no one is safe.

Truth be told, I’m a little frightened…



HMS: What do you find continues to make this world and these characters so appealing to work with?

CG: The characters themselves. How memorable they are and how real they feel. Even the supporting characters…I could write Harmony and Clem all day. The world is awesome, but it’s the characters that make it live. Also, how much the readers care about it. I’ve been approached a lot at cons by parents who watched the show growing up and now share it with their teenage kids, and that’s really moving to see.

GJ: One word. Heart. There is so much heart with this series in general that I feel when people read an issue or watch an episode they are already being fueled with a huge helping of heart. Even if you’ve been away from this world for a while. As soon as you read something in the Buffyverse all that heart comes racing back and puts you in that mood you are when you first fell in love with this series. These characters are so distinctive and familiar that it’s impossible not to associate with them. And regardless, if you stick around long enough this world creeps under your skin and ends up touching your… heart.

Thanks to Christos Gage and Georges Jeanty for taking part in this epic interview that’s only fitting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Reckoning, which arrives for #1 in shops on Wednesday, June 20th!


ETA

Solicitation for Buffy S12 # 4.We got the covers last week.

https://www.cbr.com/dark-horse-septe...uffy-predator/

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12: The Reckoning #4 (of 4)

Christos Gage (W), Joss Whedon (W), Georges Jeanty (P/Variant cover), Karl Story (I), Dan Jackson (C), Stephanie Hans (Cover), and Steve Morris (Ultra variant cover)

On sale Sept 19
FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Buffy, Fray, the Scoobies, and the Slayers are in an epic battle against Harth, and his army of baddies. His attempt to steal the power of the Slayers has brought Buffy and her crew to the turning point that they have been trying desperately to avoid. With all other options spent, it is only Buffy and her sacrifice that can save the world . . .
The entire Buffyverse is united here in the culmination of all Buffy seasons!
The return of Fray!