Viva Las Buffy (Part 4 of 4), Act 4: The Big
Fold
Plot: Scott Lobdell
Script: Fabian Nicieza
Pencills: Cliff Richards
Inks: Will Conrad
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letters: Clem Robins
Cover: Brian Horton & Paul Lee
The story takes place before Buffy the Vampire
Slayer's first season
Jeremy's Brief Synopsis:
Running away from home to Las
vegas with her bofriend Pike, Buffy tracked L.A.
bloodsuckers to a vampire factory in a Vegas hotel.
Dousing the sprinkler system with holy water, Buffy
finsihes off the vamps in the hotelm but only to
deal with Pike, who feels his very human presence
would always require rescuing and, in turn,
endanger Buffy's life, so he breaks up with
her.
Zinna's Review:
The final installment of this
intriguing tale is finally here! Was it worth the
wait? Was it worth the journey? For me the
assessment isn't as easy to make as deciding
whether or not I liked it. And liked it I did, but
only as an overall series. Individually, I feel
this issue is the least dynamic of the four. This
is mostly due to the anti-climactic feel of this
climatic issue. All the dilemmas are resolved but
in ways you'd clearly expect. It's hard to say this
issues is predictable because all of the characters
are in such extraordinary circumstances. And of
course a little predictability is to be expected.
These issues take place before Buffy came to
Sunnydale. So, we essentially know the ending
before we start. We know that Buffy doesn't end up
with Pike. We know Giles becomes Buffy's watcher
and Angel doesn't remain in the black and white
zone forever. So, then why do I feel so
unsatisfied?
Let me recap a little starting
with Buffy's situation, Buffy and Pike are facing
off against the dastardly leaders of the casino.
Those leaders just happen to be Siamese twins (a
male and female joined at the hip). The twist is
the male is a vampire, while his female counterpart
is human. Besides being bizarre, the twins are
powerful and have a casino full of blood-sucking
fiends at their disposal. In issue #53, Pike
decides, after much soul-searching, that he is
nothing but a liability. His presence appears to
only make the slayer weak when she most needs to be
strong and relentless. Because of his enormous love
for her, he decides to sacrifice himself that she
may save herself and the world, but the act just
enrages Buffy and lets Pike know that a love
between them can never be. Duh! I guess that I was
under the impression that such a conflicted
internal struggle would result in something bigger,
more flashier, more intriguing. Hell, I'd settle
for something a little more insightful than Pike
doesn't want to be with Buffy because their
relationship would weaken her ability to fight the
good fight. At best she'd be a little distracted
and some bad guys would get away. At worse she'd
end up dead. Again, DUH! So, what's the point of
having Pike reiterate it? The only thing that I can
think of is that maybe this scenario is a comment
on Buffy and Xander's romantic relationship that
never was. Now, that would be interesting, however,
the parallel is not easily made, but since we're
here let's look at the possibility for a little
while.
Xander fell for Buffy in the
very first moment he saw her and his love only grew
stronger as he learned her true identity. On the
other hand, Buffy never once exhibited any romantic
feelings for Xander that weren't induced by some
sort of spell. Sure, we could believe that Buffy
didn't find Xander attractive (though that doesn't
make any sense since everyone else finds themselves
hot for him (Willow, Cordy, Faith…) or maybe
we're suppose to believe that after awhile their
friendship was too familiar in nature that any
hanky panky would feel incestuous (at least for
Buffy). If we take into consideration Buffy's
failed relationship with Pike, one might say that
Buffy never allowed herself to entertain the mere
notion of a relationship with Xander. She already
knew the outcome. She and Xander would date. He'd
start to freak like Pike did and eventually she'd
be left holding the pieces. If this were the case
then it would make sense that Buffy would go for
Angel (that and the fact that Angel is hot in a
tall dark and broody sort of way). Maybe somewhere
inside she thought she had better chance with
someone extraordinary like herself…kind of
like how famous actors only want to date other
famous actors. But this possibility doesn't gel
because when Buffy gets to Sunnydale it's obvious
she doesn't want to be slayer, she wants a normal
life, so why wouldn't she just make it with Xander?
He's about as normal as you get as far as Sunnydale
teenage boys are concerned. It's not like Buffy
didn't date any regular guys after Pike. She tried
with Owen (Season 1: Never Kill a Boy on the First
Date), Scott (a good portion of Season 3) and
finally Parker (Season 4) before falling in love
with Riley. On the surface, Riley was supposed to
be normal guy. How was she to know that he was a
military black ops agent on steroids? Anyways, I
guess my parallel is going nowhere after all. It
was a fun ride though, and that's pretty much how
feel about issue 54.
As for Angel's role in the whole
Vegas debacle, I have nothing to say. That subplot
took a turn into the twilight zone and then found
itself headlong in a contrived soap 'opera-ish'
situation that made very little sense and had
nothing to do with other plots. What did learn
about Angel's character that I didn't already know?
Nothing. Was it interesting? It was in the
beginning when I thought there was something to the
whole black and white retro alternate universe, but
as the story climaxed I just found myself not
caring at all. Mostly because the climax was
reliant upon whether or not Angel would allow
himself to take a life, if it meant he could get
back to his world where he could save Buffy. Well
of course this is a hard decision, but considering
the circumstances it's pretty obvious what decision
he is going to make. And it doesn't help that
there's crappy bubble dialogue like this:
Angel: Oh my god I can't do this
again…Buffy…I'm sorry… I did it for
you.
The saving grace of this plot
are the graphics. Talk about vivid detail! It's
beautiful (though, I could have done without the
shot of Angel squeezing his fists in
anguish…it's so Days of Our Lives) and let's
face it comics are really about the art. The colors
are a bit drab but at the same time it gives the
pictures a dark quality that enhances the dark
themes. So all in all, I would say go get the issue
because the first three are well worth it and you
might as well have the whole series. Besides, it's
always a good idea to get closure. You're going to
need it because I have a feeling the next series
isn't going to waste anytime before it knocks us
for a loop (you remember that whole
Dawn-tattling-on-a-runaway-Buffy situation).
Ohhhh…I can't WAIT!
