Discussion of 8.30 "Retreat Part 5" - Released 11/04/09 (Dark Horse)

I just read the issue, it's sucks that it takes so long to get them...

Anyway, I don't really mind the story, or the stories in season 8 in general.
Buffy gettings superpowers, okay so be it. Can surely be fun for awhile.
Some part of me wants back the original idea though, the choosen one, her watcher and her friends.

My biggest problem is that I always need to read these threads to really understand what happens.
That last page in this issue only confused me. Sure, perhaps it would had been cleared up even for someone like me in the next issue. But it's a constant thing for me with this comics.

/SK
 
This whole arc so far has gotten me to thinking one thing. "WHERE ARE ALL OF THE OTHER SLAYERS?" WE were told at the beginning of the season that the Slayer Army now numbered in the thousands, so where are all those other girls while this is going on? It makes no sense whatsoever for Buffy and her core group to go to ground in Tibet without having some way of staying in communication with their forces spread throughout the world. Even if all of the others are in hiding too, there would have to be some way to co-ordinate their actions, which would require communication, even if only by yak train or carrier pigeon.ow, granted, given the problems in moving groups of fighters around all over the world would dictate that the cavalry isn't gonna arrive in time to help with that initial battle, but they SHOULD by now know that something is wrong and be gearing up for a rescue mission.

Barring that, Spike and his Spikettes (I really miss those girls!) could drop in to join the party, bringing Illyria, Angel,and his faithful dragon, Cordelia along just to make things interesting.

There are thousands of Slayers all over the world, and Buffy is their Supreme Commander. They would HAVE to know exactly where she was and what she was doing at any moment for that simple reason. If they have lost contact with Buffy and her team, even if only for a few days, those girls would be scrambling to mount and launch a rescue expedition immediately, if not sometime yesterday. And what's more, Buffy, Willow and the others would know that, and would also know that attacking Twilight's army alone while help is on the way is sheer foolishness. They should have dug in and fought a purely defensive action until reinforcements arrived.
 
white avenger said:
This whole arc so far has gotten me to thinking one thing. "WHERE ARE ALL OF THE OTHER SLAYERS?" WE were told at the beginning of the season that the Slayer Army now numbered in the thousands, so where are all those other girls while this is going on? It makes no sense whatsoever for Buffy and her core group to go to ground in Tibet without having some way of staying in communication with their forces spread throughout the world. Even if all of the others are in hiding too, there would have to be some way to co-ordinate their actions, which would require communication, even if only by yak train or carrier pigeon.ow, granted, given the problems in moving groups of fighters around all over the world would dictate that the cavalry isn't gonna arrive in time to help with that initial battle, but they SHOULD by now know that something is wrong and be gearing up for a rescue mission.

Barring that, Spike and his Spikettes (I really miss those girls!) could drop in to join the party, bringing Illyria, Angel,and his faithful dragon, Cordelia along just to make things interesting.

There are thousands of Slayers all over the world, and Buffy is their Supreme Commander. They would HAVE to know exactly where she was and what she was doing at any moment for that simple reason. If they have lost contact with Buffy and her team, even if only for a few days, those girls would be scrambling to mount and launch a rescue expedition immediately, if not sometime yesterday. And what's more, Buffy, Willow and the others would know that, and would also know that attacking Twilight's army alone while help is on the way is sheer foolishness. They should have dug in and fought a purely defensive action until reinforcements arrived.
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Presumably, as Robin is the only absent field commander, he's commanding the others at this point.
 
Buffyverse Fan said:
Presumably, as Robin is the only absent field commander, he's commanding the others at this point.
Click to expand...

My heart does the dance of trepidation at the thought of Robin Wood commanding much more than a single squad of junior Slayers who have to call in Faith to clean up their messes for them, but if he is, indeed, the de facto man in charge, then he needs to BE the man in charge, and get a rescue team organized. Unless, of course, he's still stinging from what Buffy told him back in Sunnydale about letting Spike kill him mercifully.
 
It was a nice twist that the goddesses started attacking everyone. Unexpected, and it made things interesting. And I don't care about it all that much, but it's kind of pointless to bring back Riley and not have him do much (except make readers question his allegiances to Buffy and Twilight).
 
Aagin, and I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I'm surprised how different my opinion is to when I think back on my opinion of the comics, but I enjoyed this arc allot more this time round.

I think the first 3 issues were very slow, so reading month by month was a pain in the ass, but reading all together it was allot more enjoyable.

I'd forgotten that The Slayers gave up their powers to the Goddesses, when I thought back on the story I remembered it as they did some chanting and lost their powers, and it was counting as a negative in my head.
I've been holding allot of my own false memories against season 8 (although I'm not back to the meaty bit of the twilight reveal yet, so we'll see)

I like the idea of the girls needing to hide their powers and accidentally giving it up.

I hadn't copped it that Buffys possible new super slayer powers are similar to the powers we saw when she and the Scoobies channelled all the slayers into Buffy. I think it's a good assumption to make that we're seeing the type of Slayer power that the shadow men offered her in season 7.

I liked the Goddesses story, I think it was a good twist to have them take the slayers power and to turn on them, I wish they we're drawn as cartoon like, like the design on the cover of the next issue is 1000 times better.
 
Okay, excuse me but, when did Dawn become a military expert?

So my questions on the Goddesses thing is: why did the one drop Buffy instead of killing her, and she has powers now? Is that what we're seeing in that last panel?
 
I liked that Riley was exposed as Buffy's ace in the hole against Twilight, but it raises a few annoying questions at the same time. I mean, Riley has been shown several times over in the show to be a pretty tactically savvy guy. Why wouldn't he have relayed advance notice to Buffy that Twilight was coming, or that they had the ability to track magic? I mean, what the hell kind of spy is he? Also, how did Buffy just find him in the middle of the battle carnage? I guess she could have spotted him, but that was never shown. Kind of strange.

The ending was pretty weird. Buffy with no powers is lifted and thrown into the snow with no powers, and she lives? And has...new powers now? Huh.

Also, the fact that Oz hasn't tried to kill Buffy yet is pretty amazing. She's completely destroyed his life, when you think about it.
 
I agree that Oz is too chill (when not a werewolf) to kill anyone, yet it does seem like Buffy and co. showed up just to rain destruction on his world, and it seems selfish of Buffy not to suspect that they would be pursued to Tibet. And I wasn't entirely clear what the endgame was, if they did succeed in dissipating their magic: to just keep living the pastoral life in Tibet, or to get rid of just enough to fly under the magic-detecting radar.

The goddesses were cool, though they seemed kinda Hindu? Maybe that is the old religion of Tibet. I'm glad I read through this thread, because I thought at the end that Buffy had been turned into a giant by the goddess, and that's why everything looked so tiny to her. My second guess was that she was falling. Flying never occurred to me, but that seems to be the consensus here.

I still don't care about Riley, alas. Such a good guy, yet I am so indifferent to his fate. Sorry, Riley.

I don't know if the library version includes something not in the comic, because there's no discussion here of the two short bits at the end. Or I'm not finding where they are discussed. I didn't think too much of "Harmony Comes to 'The Nation'", except to wonder if that's supposed to be Stephen Colbert interviewing her.

However, I'm surprised no one discussed the one of Buffy's dream, "Always Darkest." I'm not usually into 'slash,' but that panel of Angel and Spike about to kiss is pretty hot. Bestill me! 😜 I also enjoyed seeing Sweet, Clem, and the Hush guys as wedding guests.

I'm looking forward to the next set!
 
Ethan Reigns
Ethan Reigns
Tibet is Lamaist Buddhist. That is, until it got overrun by China.
Stake fodder said:
However, I'm surprised no one discussed the one of Buffy's dream, "Always Darkest." I'm not usually into 'slash,' but that panel of Angel and Spike about to kiss is pretty hot. Bestill me! 😜 I also enjoyed seeing Sweet, Clem, and the Hush guys as wedding guests.
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'Always Darkest' is in my Season 8 Volume 1 library edition, whereas 'Retreat' is in Volume 3. It is really good though and a nice insight into Buffy's mind.
 
@Ethan Reigns Tibet is Lamaist Buddhist. That is, until it got overrun by China.
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I meant the 'old religion' that Bayarmaa referred to in the comic, called Bon, whose practices the gang uses to rid themselves of magic. Its goddesses looked more Hindu than something out of an animism religion. But anyway, they looked cool.

Priceless said:
'Always Darkest' is in my Season 8 Volume 1 library edition, whereas 'Retreat' is in Volume 3. It is really good though and a nice insight into Buffy's mind.
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I see, it moved around some. It's in my trade paperback volume 6. I couldn't find any mention of it when searching the official discussion threads, but did find a thread in the 'cemetery.'
 
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