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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #6: No Future For You Part One (Dark Horse Comics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Creators: Georges Jeanty, Joss Whedon
Publisher: Dark Horse
Category: Book
Buy New: $1.99
New (7) from $1.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 482341
Media: Comic
Edition: First Print
ASIN: B000TSNNBG
Publication Date: 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: INTERNATIONAL AND APO SHIPPING AVAILABLE!! IN STOCK AND READY TO SHIP!! COMIC IS BAGGED AND BOARDED, AND IN EXCELLENT CONDITION!!
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Product Description
The second arc of the bestselling Season Eight starts here. Top creator Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man; Pride of Baghdad; Lost) takes over writing duties and dives headlong into what Faith is up to-infiltration, assassination, and nonstop Cleveland. The fugitive Slayer is given the assignment that could change her life . . . if Giles's specialized training doesn't make her want to end it first. Artist Georges Jeanty (The American Way) remains at the top of his game-and Joss Whedon stays on as Executive Producer-in this first part of "No Future for You."Buffy creator Joss Whedon brings Buffy back to Dark Horse in this direct follow-up to season seven of the smash-hit TV series.
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At Long Last... September 6, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This was by far and away the best issue of Season Eight so far. But let's back track a little before we get too ahead of ourselves.
There has never been a Faith-centric episode before in either "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Angel." I hear the gasps now. "What about Revelations, Bad Girls, Sanctuary, Orpheus, Who Are You, or Dirty Girls?" I see your point, guys. Faith was a major character in those. But those episodes aren't Faith-centric the way that 'The Zeppo' is Xander-centric, and 'Real Me' is Dawn-centric. See, in those Faithy episodes, we mostly just see Faith through other people's eyes. 'Who Are You?' is the exception to that, but even in that episode, we just see Faith simultaneously trying mess up/live Buffy's life. But here, we get a full on Faith-centric story, with the Bad Girl herself as the main character. That went on a little longer than I thought it would, for the record.
About the comic. It's, as they say, gold. The story was told perfectly, without the sometimes confusing transitions that made up "The Chain" and were sometimes present in "The Long Way Home." Each scene is given ample time to play out, and--instead of huge, swooping revelations and the return of old characters aplenty--what Vaughan concentrates on here is the subtle way each character's personalities reveal themselves when said characters talk to each other. The best examples of this are the Faith/Giles scenes in this issue: In a few short pages, so much seems to happen between these two characters. He gives her a mission (introducing the main plot of this arc), he trains her (and he SPOILER: gets stabbed by her with a SPOILER: fork), and the two of these characters connect and relate to each other in a way that they never have on the actual show.
The Buffy/Xander scene is interesting, but doesn't reveal much. It's funny, because I--and many other Season Eight readers--were under the impression that black borders on a page mean that it's a dream sequence. However, the Buffy and Xander conversation, black borders and all, seems utterly real. There was no indication whatsoever that the conversation was part of a dream; my only guess is that it was black-bordered because, perhaps, Buffy talks to Xander about dreams that she HAS been having, but other than than, I'm coming up with nothing.
Reading this felt like watching an episode of Buffy. The art was atmospheric and spot-on. The panelling of the issue was interesting, and really different than that of Issues 1-5. And different is always intriguing. There was more use of the empty white space in some pages, and I liked that. The scene with Lady Genevieve is particularly beautiful, and it makes me realize how much I missed Georges' art. About what I mentioned before though. Giles' shirt. It's just.... no. Really, really no. Please, never again Georges.
Now, this is usually where I start to get into the downside of the comic, but turns out that there really isn't any. All I have as of complaints is something about Giles' attire that I'll bring up in the ART section, but everything else here seems perfectly fine. Vaughan's writing is perfect in capturing the characters, and he clearly is a great comic-script writer. If I were to say anything I didn't like about this issue, it wouldn't be part of the story. It's actually something that I read in the "Slay the Critics" section. Someone wrote in to ask the question many of have been debating on since the release of Issue #3. "If Warren didn't die, how could The First Evil take on his form in Season Seven." Joss himself actually stopped in to answer that question. His answer is, and I quote, "He was legally dead for like a second. Amy didn't tell him 'cause she didn't want to upset him. I forgot, okay?!" One thing I've always admired about Joss Whedon is the attention that he gives to continuity, and I admit that it's very big of him to admit his error. However, I think he could've explained it away much better and made the fans much happier than the way he answered it. Warren very plainly tells Willow in Issue #4 that her "Bored now" were the last words he heard of his human life. Well then. Joss simply could've said that the fact that Amy's magic--not at all a human, or living, function--was sustaining Warren, and that he--like a vampire--was to be considered UNDEAD. That would allow for him to be the walking, talking thinger that he is AND for The First to appear as him. But oh well. There's our answer.
Oh, by the way, that in no way is meant to be an insult to Joss. I love the guy. Hell, I'm known for putting the smack down on anyone who disses him. I just kinda felt we deserved a better explanation than that, is all.
But, about the actual comic itself, it's great. Really great. Up until today, "The Long Way Home part 3" was my favorite issue of the series. Well, it's just moved to second place, because "No Future For You part I" rocks out with its youknowwhat out.
9/10
Brian K. Vaughan offers a first rate Faith story in BUFFY 8 September 9, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the variant cover issue of issue No. 6 in JOSS WHEDON'S SEASON EIGHT of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. I vastly prefer the regular cover, which shows Faith at her attitudinal best, holding the can with which she spray-painted "Faith" over "Buffy" in the title. Although contrary to popular mythology there was never a Faith series that Elisa Dushku opted against in order to star in TRU CALLING, there had been some initial discussion of doing such a series before the other project made her unavailable. One still wonders what direction that show would have taken, but this initial issue shows just a little of the potential that series would have held. As fascinating a character as Faith was, we never learned too terribly much about her backstory. We know that she was from a broken home in the Boston area, but not much more than that.
One episode of ANGEL explored the new world in which there are many slayers. In that episode Angel had to go up against a slayer who was insane. In this new episode Giles recruits Faith to go up against a slayer who is apparently evil. Frankly, I expect a twist of some sort, but at this point the slayer, an aristocratic young lady in Great Britain, clearly is serving the interests of a warlock. Why we don't know but Faith has been commissioned with the job of killing her.
I really liked this episode a lot. I loved the first five issues, but if I had a complaint with them it was that they tried to work too many familiar characters into them. The stories had, I felt, a bit too much content for the number of pages allotted. But here there was a near perfect balance between story and content.
This issue was written by Brian K. Vaughan, which is interesting for a host of reasons. One of the most gifted comic writers around, one of Vaughan's greatest creations was The Runaways, which he did for Marvel. Anyone familiar with BUFFY could have guessed that the TV series was the major influence on The Runaways, something that Vaughan has confirmed in interviews. So it seemed appropriate that when Vaughan ended his work on the comic that Joss Whedon would take over. And now Vaughan has come over to write this new Faith arc for Whedon. They have formed a wonderful mutual admiration society and should -- please dear God bring this about -- Whedon tire of comics and finally get back to television as he ought, I'm certain that Vaughan might get an opportunity to write for a new medium. The great news is that so far both Vaughan and Whedon are doing a wonderful job of honoring and carrying on each other's creations.
In short, this continues to be a remarkably good series. And as a huge fan of BUFFY I continue to find this new season of my all time favorite show (along with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) to be enormously satisfying.
Giles offers Faith an option on "early retirement" September 8, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Fans of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" who were overjoyed that Dark Horse Comics was producing "Joss Whedon's Season Eight" as a comic book must have had a brief shadow of doubt pass through their mind when they found out that Whedon would not be writing the book's second story arc, "No Future For You." But Joss did not write all of the episodes of the television series and not even all of the really good ones (just most of them), so fans do not have to be worried that Brian K. Vaughan is scripting the next set of issues. Besides, since Vaughan has been letting Whedon do a story arc on his Runaways series it makes sense that Joss would return the favor, aided and abetted by penciler Georges Jeanty, inker Andy Owens, and colorist Dave Stewart (Whedon stills gets an "Executive Producer" credit).
As our story begins in Part 1 we discover that Faith is in Cleveland, home of another major North American Hellmouth, hanging by herself. She gets a call from Robin Woods who is with a group of Slayers who are taking out a nest of Vampires in the city. It turns out that one of the vamps was a single mom before she turned, which means there are children. Robin does not want to bother Faith, but he knows that none of these girls could take care of the nasty business of staking little kids who have been turned into vamps. That opening sets the tone for the main event, which we learn about when Giles, wearing a Yellow Submarine sweater no less, shows up at Faith's apartment. Giles basically is the Watchers Council now, and he has a deal for her. Accept the assignment and Giles will give her safe passage to the nation of her choosing, as well as a generous annual stipend so she can live out the rest of her days however she wants. All Faith has to do to earn this "early retirement" is to kill a Slayer.
This is a new generation, where there is not a single girl selected to be the Slayer, or even two. There are nearly two thousand Slayers and the numbers dictate that some of them will go bad. Apparently there is a Slayer out there who has gone beyond rogue status and once again we are talking apocalypse. Of course, what Giles is doing is asking Faith to end the life of a human being, and we all know how well that went the first time ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3"). But then that is what makes Faith interesting as the Slayer who went to the Dark Side and has come back most, but not all, of the way. Plus we have the fact that Faith was only in 20 episodes of "BtVS" and another six of "Angel," so the character is nowhere as developed as any of the Scoobies. This means that Vaughan has room to explore the character and still have fun with Giles and Faith doing the whole "My Fair Lady" routine (or the whole "Pygmalion" routine if you are truly old school in Shavian terms).
All things considered, this is a most promising start to the new story arc and getting into "No Future For You" is already a lot easier than getting into "The Long Way Home," even though that was written by the man himself. If the initial confrontation between Buffy and Faith was that of light and dark, this developing Slayer death match looks like it will shape up to be high class versus low, so there will be plenty of opportunities for Vaughan to let Faith lay on the caustic comments. However, I must say that the "early retirement" idea concerns me a bit, simply because I would be loathe to think that "No Future For You," as promising as the premise presented in this first part might be, would turn out to be the final Faith story. There is a variant cover version of this comic book with cover art by Jeanty, Dexter Vines and Dave Stewart, but it is hard not to go with this one by Jo Chen showing Faith with the top of her pants down on her hips, wearing a skimpy top and a confrontational smile after spray painting her name across the "BtVS" logo. The sales on this issue should go up just for that reason alone. But come on in, because what is inside is even better than what is on the cover.
More than five by five September 30, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Granted, I have read few comics. But so far, this is far and away my favorite episode of a comic ever. It may have something to do with the fact that Faith rocks as a tragic heroine - there's a damage, depth, passion, and intensity to her character that's so compelling that she stole the show from both Angel and Buffy when her "issues" were on camera - and it probably didn't hurt that Eliza Dushku blazed in this role, either. At any rate, Brian K. Vaughn gets the tone of the show just right, and he seems willing to really live with the characters. Unlike previous installments in this series, I found myself engrossed without having to stop and say, "huh?" The flow and pacing and art of the story were compelling, absorbing, and seamless. Plus, it's nice to see Faith accepting Giles as a father figure - she definitely has some healing to do with regard to male authority figures in her life. (And who can get enough of the dark side of Giles popping up every now and then?) Aside from a few wardrobe issues, the art and the story made for a stunning episode of Season 8. (If you're like me, you'll be relieved to hear that no fairies or weird slugs appeared anywhere in the issue. Phew!)
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