Daniel Osbourne
Townie
The Season 8 Canon Watch thread was discontinued for some reason around #23, and I know a lot of people have no interest in continuing with the comics. Therefore, I volunteer to open this new Canon Watch for the Post-Twilight Era, to get people up to speed on the major developments and insightful minutia that our two new series will provide on the characters and the Buffyverse.
Please note that I do not have the necessary technology to scan comic pages. If someone wants visual clarification on one of my points, you'll have to ask another board member. Sorry.
Major spoilers for all Buffy and Angel seasons ahead. Beware.
Here we go!
Angel & Faith
#1: Live Through This, Part One
By Christos Gage
- The death year of Rupert Giles is obscured, but it must be either 2008, 2009 or 2010, based on the rounded look of the sliver of the last number that is visible. The cover of Issue #4 might screw this up, and the covers aren't canon anyway, but it's noteworthy.
- Giles kept a journal. Unclear if this is his requisite Watcher's journal that Wesley read from in "Bad Girls", or a private one. I'd assume it's the former, given that he's writing about demons and such.
- Giles never had children because "other people's children are quite enough, thank you", he has to place the greater good above his personal feelings and the fact that his life was constantly in danger.
- At an unknown time (but in his Watcher years and outside of Sunnydale), Giles was facing a young British girl named Hannah possessed by Plagiarus demon. This demon manifests by emerging from Hannah's mouth. It is seemingly composed of many red spiked tentacles ending in jagged-toothed mouths. While possessed, Hannah is levitating off the floor and her pupils go blank.
- While attempting an exorcism, Giles reads Latin from a book ("Exorcizamus te, omnis immude spiritus!"), forming a mystical blue circle with symbol-covered edges.
- Hannah's mother is a nurse named Anne. No mention of a father. The house has been rather trashed.
- The demon feigns innocence as Hannah to lure the mother, but Giles tackles her out of harm's way.
- Giles's exorcism fails because Plagiarus demons are inherently capable of possession and do not use black magic to do so.
- Giles binds the demon so that it will retreat into Hannah. However, the spell will weaken with time and needs to be renewed periodically.
- The demon is strong enough to smash through a solid wall and is capable of speech.
- The binding incantation: To soma, ei filaki, ei zoe mou, o toixos. Stamata!
- The binding spell requires Giles to lose the memory of the happiest day of his life. He implies that this sacrifice would not be required if his magic skills were greater.
- The demon slashes Giles's throat with one of his mouths. It does not touch any of the important arteries and Anne is able to patch him up without him leaving her place.
- The "Watcher's Files" exist to ensure that others can carry on the work of a deceased Watcher and tie up the loose ends of his or her work.
- Several months after the Twilight disaster, Angel and Faith are fighting the Plagiarus demon. Hannah looks slightly older (her hair is shorter) and her drawing has not matured.
- Angel has just come out of his catatonia.
- Faith is confident that Angel, as a rule-defying vampire with a soul, can "go from vegetable to badass overnight".
- The demon refers to Giles as a "mage", to Angel as a "gutter demon" and makes the analogy of "less hope than a pederast in Hell".
- Angel realizes that he cannot force the demon out of Hannah and decides to superficially bite her neck (without draining any blood) to make the demon believe that he will kill the girl so that it will abandon her. The demon cannot survive the death of its host. Angel also refers to his killing of Giles in a rather callous manner.
- Faith apparently reaches for her stake when she momentarily thinks Angel is evil, but I don't see it happen on-panel.
- The Plagiarus demon can possess vampires. It can sense the bloodshed that has resulted from the actions of Angel (as Angelus or Twilight?).
- The fully revealed demon is quite Lovecraftian, with a central fat wormlike body from which the MANY tentacles protrude.
- Angel and Faith keep hacking at the demon (Faith with a battle ax, Angel with his bare hands), looking for the brain, until Faith hits what seems to be the creature's core, causing some liquid to spray Angel.
- Angel absorbs the memories of Giles' happiest day: the day he and Jenny Calendar fell in love. They went on a picnic and drank champagne. It remains a mystery whether they ever consummated their passion. (IMO, this day should fall in early BtVS Season 2, somewhere between "Some Assembly Required" and "The Dark Age". Arguably, it could go between "Ted" and "Surprise".)
- The demon seems to disappear in a storm of crackling electricity.
- Faith has heard about Jenny and her death at the hands of Angelus. She mentions Angel and Angelus as separate people, possibly out of respect for Angel.
- Angel seems to think Giles died because he forgave Angel for Jenny's death.
- Faith doesn't tell Anne that Giles is dead, making it seem that he sent them.
- Before Angel woke up, Faith was feeding him pig's blood out of a sippy cup and reading him the Watcher's Files. Giles' account of Hannah's case seemed to motivate Angel into getting into his "helping the helpless" gear and deciding to kill the demon.
- According to the opening blurb, Faith and Angel are actively protecting London from evil. They are still living in Giles' flat.
- Angel says he has some things to do and encourages Faith to leave for home.
- New character: A surviving British Slayer named Nadira is walking through Brixton, London, dissatisfied with the city's nightlife.
- Faith decides to test Nadira by getting a bunch of Slayers to jump at her from the rooftops. Nadira demonstrates that she is prepared for attack by flipping, pinning and nearly staking Faith. Faith has to catch her wrists at the last second, even though Nadira was looking her in the face and raised the stake behind her head.
- The two Slayers know one another. Faith jokes that she is jealous of Nadira's breasts. Nadira is not happy about the surprise attack.
- At a nightclub (which all the Slayers enter), Nadira sits despondently at the bar while the others dance. Out of concern that Nadira is experiencing survivor's guilt because all the other girls in her squad died during the apocalypse, Faith sits with her and warns her that "when you're wound this tight, bad things happen. Take my word for it."
- Nadira's squad was composed of about thirty girls in the Azores. Nadira would have died for them and feels she should have. They were attacked by new villains Pearl and Nash, a pale, blue-eyed, white-haired nicely-dressed pair (twins?). The male could fly, shot thick lasers from his eyes that pierced straight through skin and emitted electricity around himself. The female bore two fire swords that impaled just as easily as the lasers. They had fun killing the squad and seemed to shine more brightly with each kill.
- Twilight floated in the distance, watching as Pearl and Nash did increasingly worse things to impress him.
- Nadira nearly died but was found and healed by Willow.
- Nadira has heard rumours of Faith's occasionally murderous relationship with Buffy and doesn't know what of it to believe. Nadira admits that there were a "lot of mixed feelings" about her smashing of the Seed, but personally thinks that Buffy has been punished enough and should be left alone.
- Nadira knows that Angel was Buffy's "bloke" and Twilight. The one thing that kept her going was her vow to kill Pearl, Nash and Angel. It is apparently not public knowledge that Angel is living in London and Faith does not tell Nadira anything after she reveals her mission.
- Faith was apparently responsible for getting the current group of London Slayers together and for teaching Nadira that life is still worth living.
- Elsewhere, Whistler is talking with Pearl and Nash in a bar, where the pair has brutally murdered all the patrons. Whistler does not remark on the carnage.
- Whistler repeats his "big moments" line verbatim. Pearl/Nash recognize him based on these words.
- Info dump: Whistler claims that 1) there is no more balance, 2) only self-powered magic things still work, 3) the Powers That Be can't be contacted, 4) his precognition is off ("like tryin' to watch scrambled porn"), 5) Angel's actions were in opposition to what Whistler told him to do, 6) the world still needs to evolve, and now more than ever, 7) the world is dead but doesn't realize it.
- Whistler wants Pearl and Nash to help and deliver salvation (in the same sense as Twilight but by using different means), which will probably involve fighting Angel. The twins(?) agree.
- At Giles' flat, Faith wants to be in denial that the overseer of the slaughter of the troops in the Azores was Twangel.
- Giles' flat has two floors, with the sleeping area on a balcony.
- Nash and Pearl feed on and are made stronger by primal emotions such as fear, lust and death. Their mother purposefully bred with a demon (unknown if this involved magic, but take note, crack!ship writers). She told her children that they were the next step in evolution. Probably for this reason, they worshipped Twilight like a god. Angel told them that following him would lead to the achievement of their destiny.
- Angel as Twilight was manipulating all the baddies so that Buffy would survive and remain strong and be prepared to co "what she had to do" (in other words, being in the correct emotional state to fall into Angel's arms).
- Faith sums things up by saying that Angel's "Twilight phase makes about as much sense as a David Lynch movie" (David Lynch's famous mind-bending series Twin Peaks was heavily referenced in "Restless").
- Angel was motivated into accepting Twilight's identity because he was told that not doing so would cause the whole world to go to Hell just like Los Angeles did.
- Angel was more lucid and in control of himself than other times, when Twilight would have more influence. Normally, he tried to contain Pearl and Nash, sending them after non-human targets, but is not suprised they left "the reservation" (the place where The Twilight Group was hanging out or a separate containment area?). Angel does not remember the slaughter of the Azores Slayer. Angel considers himself weak because during the times when he was in his right mind, he didn't ask questions or question his own actions. "I have more death on my conscience that Angelus ever did."
- Faith has organized the London Slayers into protecting London from creatures of the night. She finds it a good idea to use the Watcher's Files as a guide to finding people in need of help.
- Faith thinks that Angel is overly obsessed with analyzing Giles' life and that he wants to take his place. However, Angel plans to bring Giles back to life.
- Giles' flat contains an Egyptian statue and a portrait of what is presumably a Giles as a young man flanked by two well-dressed women.
End of #1
Please note that I do not have the necessary technology to scan comic pages. If someone wants visual clarification on one of my points, you'll have to ask another board member. Sorry.
Major spoilers for all Buffy and Angel seasons ahead. Beware.
Here we go!
Angel & Faith
#1: Live Through This, Part One
By Christos Gage
- The death year of Rupert Giles is obscured, but it must be either 2008, 2009 or 2010, based on the rounded look of the sliver of the last number that is visible. The cover of Issue #4 might screw this up, and the covers aren't canon anyway, but it's noteworthy.
- Giles kept a journal. Unclear if this is his requisite Watcher's journal that Wesley read from in "Bad Girls", or a private one. I'd assume it's the former, given that he's writing about demons and such.
- Giles never had children because "other people's children are quite enough, thank you", he has to place the greater good above his personal feelings and the fact that his life was constantly in danger.
- At an unknown time (but in his Watcher years and outside of Sunnydale), Giles was facing a young British girl named Hannah possessed by Plagiarus demon. This demon manifests by emerging from Hannah's mouth. It is seemingly composed of many red spiked tentacles ending in jagged-toothed mouths. While possessed, Hannah is levitating off the floor and her pupils go blank.
- While attempting an exorcism, Giles reads Latin from a book ("Exorcizamus te, omnis immude spiritus!"), forming a mystical blue circle with symbol-covered edges.
- Hannah's mother is a nurse named Anne. No mention of a father. The house has been rather trashed.
- The demon feigns innocence as Hannah to lure the mother, but Giles tackles her out of harm's way.
- Giles's exorcism fails because Plagiarus demons are inherently capable of possession and do not use black magic to do so.
- Giles binds the demon so that it will retreat into Hannah. However, the spell will weaken with time and needs to be renewed periodically.
- The demon is strong enough to smash through a solid wall and is capable of speech.
- The binding incantation: To soma, ei filaki, ei zoe mou, o toixos. Stamata!
- The binding spell requires Giles to lose the memory of the happiest day of his life. He implies that this sacrifice would not be required if his magic skills were greater.
- The demon slashes Giles's throat with one of his mouths. It does not touch any of the important arteries and Anne is able to patch him up without him leaving her place.
- The "Watcher's Files" exist to ensure that others can carry on the work of a deceased Watcher and tie up the loose ends of his or her work.
- Several months after the Twilight disaster, Angel and Faith are fighting the Plagiarus demon. Hannah looks slightly older (her hair is shorter) and her drawing has not matured.
- Angel has just come out of his catatonia.
- Faith is confident that Angel, as a rule-defying vampire with a soul, can "go from vegetable to badass overnight".
- The demon refers to Giles as a "mage", to Angel as a "gutter demon" and makes the analogy of "less hope than a pederast in Hell".
- Angel realizes that he cannot force the demon out of Hannah and decides to superficially bite her neck (without draining any blood) to make the demon believe that he will kill the girl so that it will abandon her. The demon cannot survive the death of its host. Angel also refers to his killing of Giles in a rather callous manner.
- Faith apparently reaches for her stake when she momentarily thinks Angel is evil, but I don't see it happen on-panel.
- The Plagiarus demon can possess vampires. It can sense the bloodshed that has resulted from the actions of Angel (as Angelus or Twilight?).
- The fully revealed demon is quite Lovecraftian, with a central fat wormlike body from which the MANY tentacles protrude.
- Angel and Faith keep hacking at the demon (Faith with a battle ax, Angel with his bare hands), looking for the brain, until Faith hits what seems to be the creature's core, causing some liquid to spray Angel.
- Angel absorbs the memories of Giles' happiest day: the day he and Jenny Calendar fell in love. They went on a picnic and drank champagne. It remains a mystery whether they ever consummated their passion. (IMO, this day should fall in early BtVS Season 2, somewhere between "Some Assembly Required" and "The Dark Age". Arguably, it could go between "Ted" and "Surprise".)
- The demon seems to disappear in a storm of crackling electricity.
- Faith has heard about Jenny and her death at the hands of Angelus. She mentions Angel and Angelus as separate people, possibly out of respect for Angel.
- Angel seems to think Giles died because he forgave Angel for Jenny's death.
- Faith doesn't tell Anne that Giles is dead, making it seem that he sent them.
- Before Angel woke up, Faith was feeding him pig's blood out of a sippy cup and reading him the Watcher's Files. Giles' account of Hannah's case seemed to motivate Angel into getting into his "helping the helpless" gear and deciding to kill the demon.
- According to the opening blurb, Faith and Angel are actively protecting London from evil. They are still living in Giles' flat.
- Angel says he has some things to do and encourages Faith to leave for home.
- New character: A surviving British Slayer named Nadira is walking through Brixton, London, dissatisfied with the city's nightlife.
- Faith decides to test Nadira by getting a bunch of Slayers to jump at her from the rooftops. Nadira demonstrates that she is prepared for attack by flipping, pinning and nearly staking Faith. Faith has to catch her wrists at the last second, even though Nadira was looking her in the face and raised the stake behind her head.
- The two Slayers know one another. Faith jokes that she is jealous of Nadira's breasts. Nadira is not happy about the surprise attack.
- At a nightclub (which all the Slayers enter), Nadira sits despondently at the bar while the others dance. Out of concern that Nadira is experiencing survivor's guilt because all the other girls in her squad died during the apocalypse, Faith sits with her and warns her that "when you're wound this tight, bad things happen. Take my word for it."
- Nadira's squad was composed of about thirty girls in the Azores. Nadira would have died for them and feels she should have. They were attacked by new villains Pearl and Nash, a pale, blue-eyed, white-haired nicely-dressed pair (twins?). The male could fly, shot thick lasers from his eyes that pierced straight through skin and emitted electricity around himself. The female bore two fire swords that impaled just as easily as the lasers. They had fun killing the squad and seemed to shine more brightly with each kill.
- Twilight floated in the distance, watching as Pearl and Nash did increasingly worse things to impress him.
- Nadira nearly died but was found and healed by Willow.
- Nadira has heard rumours of Faith's occasionally murderous relationship with Buffy and doesn't know what of it to believe. Nadira admits that there were a "lot of mixed feelings" about her smashing of the Seed, but personally thinks that Buffy has been punished enough and should be left alone.
- Nadira knows that Angel was Buffy's "bloke" and Twilight. The one thing that kept her going was her vow to kill Pearl, Nash and Angel. It is apparently not public knowledge that Angel is living in London and Faith does not tell Nadira anything after she reveals her mission.
- Faith was apparently responsible for getting the current group of London Slayers together and for teaching Nadira that life is still worth living.
- Elsewhere, Whistler is talking with Pearl and Nash in a bar, where the pair has brutally murdered all the patrons. Whistler does not remark on the carnage.
- Whistler repeats his "big moments" line verbatim. Pearl/Nash recognize him based on these words.
- Info dump: Whistler claims that 1) there is no more balance, 2) only self-powered magic things still work, 3) the Powers That Be can't be contacted, 4) his precognition is off ("like tryin' to watch scrambled porn"), 5) Angel's actions were in opposition to what Whistler told him to do, 6) the world still needs to evolve, and now more than ever, 7) the world is dead but doesn't realize it.
- Whistler wants Pearl and Nash to help and deliver salvation (in the same sense as Twilight but by using different means), which will probably involve fighting Angel. The twins(?) agree.
- At Giles' flat, Faith wants to be in denial that the overseer of the slaughter of the troops in the Azores was Twangel.
- Giles' flat has two floors, with the sleeping area on a balcony.
- Nash and Pearl feed on and are made stronger by primal emotions such as fear, lust and death. Their mother purposefully bred with a demon (unknown if this involved magic, but take note, crack!ship writers). She told her children that they were the next step in evolution. Probably for this reason, they worshipped Twilight like a god. Angel told them that following him would lead to the achievement of their destiny.
- Angel as Twilight was manipulating all the baddies so that Buffy would survive and remain strong and be prepared to co "what she had to do" (in other words, being in the correct emotional state to fall into Angel's arms).
- Faith sums things up by saying that Angel's "Twilight phase makes about as much sense as a David Lynch movie" (David Lynch's famous mind-bending series Twin Peaks was heavily referenced in "Restless").
- Angel was motivated into accepting Twilight's identity because he was told that not doing so would cause the whole world to go to Hell just like Los Angeles did.
- Angel was more lucid and in control of himself than other times, when Twilight would have more influence. Normally, he tried to contain Pearl and Nash, sending them after non-human targets, but is not suprised they left "the reservation" (the place where The Twilight Group was hanging out or a separate containment area?). Angel does not remember the slaughter of the Azores Slayer. Angel considers himself weak because during the times when he was in his right mind, he didn't ask questions or question his own actions. "I have more death on my conscience that Angelus ever did."
- Faith has organized the London Slayers into protecting London from creatures of the night. She finds it a good idea to use the Watcher's Files as a guide to finding people in need of help.
- Faith thinks that Angel is overly obsessed with analyzing Giles' life and that he wants to take his place. However, Angel plans to bring Giles back to life.
- Giles' flat contains an Egyptian statue and a portrait of what is presumably a Giles as a young man flanked by two well-dressed women.
End of #1
H
Hale Caesar
Lots of effort, lots of Karma! Please keep these canon watches coming :D
SupportOGal
[No message]
VisionGirl
Very, very nice post & thread. :)
brinkster130
These are awesome, thanks for putting it together :)
