Buffy Season 9: Freefall ~ Part Three
If you ever loved the tv show this is the comic issue where the writers brought it back in full form. Terrific sequencing of events, use of colour and perspectives, changing backdrops to keep the story moving in a well written plot. If there is anything one looks for when you pick up something to read or sit through a show, is that the story gets somewhere by the end, hopefully in a well fashioned pace. And this issue delivers. Opening from the end of one cliffhanger and closes with an even twistier one. In between we get a depth of mystery, surprise, nostalgia, relationship complexities, and will I spoil if I say deception? Too late! I already said it.
The covers themselves are a deception, if you ask me. Two strikingly different covers in colour and theme, both of which I found neither so exciting, yet how different the comic inside could be I found.
Official cover by Morris, shows a backdrop of golden green hills beneath a pale blue sky all in a thick paste of colour. The landscape sort of reminds me of those by the painter Paul Cezanne. In bright red, the end tower of the Golden Gate Bridge is just visible over the hillside. Darker greens and browns of foliage highlight the soft peaks creating waves over the landscape, imitating the movement of the light clouds over head. One could say a charming countryside, except the pasty primary colours rub me the wrong way. In the foreground, we have all the characters looking sad and mopey. Did someone die? You can't possibly be mourning Giles' death three issues in, in a new season! A little distance away, Xander has his arms crossed and his back to us, but, we see his profile (the side without the eye patch), he's angry and looking away from the saddened Dawn before him. Dawn and her sleeky hair down, places her right hand over her left shoulder and faces to the ground with her eyes closed in deep sorrow. While Willow, sporting her new short hairdo, stares disdainfully at our leading gal who's standing front and center before us. Buffy, (or should I say Sarah Michelle Gellar, looking so life-like I have to give props to Morris and his talent because I haven't done so, so far) fills the page like the cover of a magazine but does not meet the eyes of the viewer. With her neatly quaffed hair tied back, and in a Sunday pink outfit, she looks away to the ground, shameful or sad. I will make the same comment that I did for Live Through This ~ Part Three, this cover has nothing to do with what's inside, and I too again, am befuddled by which its inspiration. Ok, fine! I lost my foresight, it's not completely unrelated to the sitch' but, like seriously, of all concepts Morris chooses the most subtle one, the wall flower of the lot. With all the exciting elements in the plot so far he used the relationship complex between Buffy and her friends/family and between Dawn and Xander. You can't blame me for being perplexed by his choice.
Cover number 2, also known as the alternative cover, is by... surprisingly I did not pick it ...by Jeanty. Must of been the faded colour look of it and dated comic style. This cover is a lot more exciting and does play strong connections with the plot, though probably not in that hunky fashion of heroics. It's kind of cheesy at first sight, and still is as I look at it now, which is why I passed it over without much thought for the goodies inside. But I'm back, to describe it to ya'll. We're in a midst of a glowing red dust storm (really, it's just back alley dust, if you read to the end of the last issue). In fact I'm gonna lift the shroud completely and tell you it was the epic battle at the end of Part Two that we only saw small panels of. Buffy battles side by side with the mysterious guy she met or is about to meet from the last issue. The mysterious guy who we come to know as Severin stands high up on a mound of rumble in a very gladiator-like pose with one hand balled into a fist coming into a swing at the vamp who he has clasped by the face with his other hand, holding the vamp up in mid air using one arm. A fiery glow emits from the face of the vamp as he uses the mysterious powers from his hands.The glow radiates, glistening his muscular chest, visible because his shirt has disintegrated or in the fit of battle been torn to rags. In fact, all those that are in the scene are wearing rags! A mob of vamps advance up the mound of rumble to no avail as Buffy courageously knocks them back. We see one of the vamps have the labels "GEORGES" and "VINES" sown onto the back of his torn jacket.
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| Alternative Cover |
Part Three opens right where Part Two left us, in the back alley. I have a feeling I'm gonna say those two words a lot throughout this season. We are introduced to an added aesthetic to Severin's power in the opening page with electricity charges rippling off his hands for a more dramatic effect not seen in Part Two. The first two pages of this issue use a charming array of blues with an added touch of a cosmic starry night. Nice! Page two is particularly well composition-ed displaying Buffy's quick escape route from the scene of dead bodies as the coppas arrive. It uses four well arranged panels finishing off with an out-of panel, close up of a serenely detailed drawing of Buffy as she asks for a place to crash; and is, I got to say the best page in this issue from colour scheme, composition and illustration. The panel where Buffy lifts a confused Severin using one arm cuffing the back of his jacket while scaling up the fire escape is a sight you would have loved to see on television but looks brilliant on paper against the backdrop of dark buildings, chimney smoke and that lovely starlit sky. As she makes it to the roof she comically flails him over the edge startling pigeons into flight. Heh!
Skip a head an we see an interesting four piece panel sequence of our remaining Scooby gang being "bzzz"-ed into action. The panels aren't drawn very neatly, except for the one where Andrew makes a guest appearance and much welcomed comedic relief (which I won't spoil, you'll have to see for yourself). The sequence gives us a peek into the unknown work lives of Willow and Andrew; and surprisingly enough, how Apple has made it's way to the Buffyverse. We see glimpses of Spike and Dawn holding unmistakably iPhones and Willow working on a MacBook, the bitten apple logo distinctly visible on their respective devices.
Without giving more away, spoiler I ain't, and most definitely not for the ending, for all the effort and elegance put into the syncing of subplots using many cinematic devices, I say enjoy Part Three! I will end with my doubts as to Buffy's ability to kick a warehouse roller door, twice her height and ten times wide, with the possibility to cause it to explode into shreds is beyond my comprehension.
Only one more part to the Freefall arc! Be back end of the month for Live Through This ~ Part Four.
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