Buffy Season 8 Review - Issue 1 to 10

For a series that is titled after one main character the start of this season is not showing her best qualities. No main character should be without their flaws but it seems this season particularly wants to expose Buffy’s biggest flaws. As mentioned in the pre word before I began the recaps we are already exploring the true outcome of Buffy’s decision in the final episode on television, is sharing that power really beneficial for anyone other than Buffy?

The ending of Season Seven gave us hope for Buffy’s happy ending having shared her power and given strength to women all over the world but now we see different perspectives from Buffy’s double, Lady Genevieve, Faith and most importantly the human race. We see Buffy’s double sacrifice her life to Buffy’s cause, we see Genevieve the rogue Slayer who used her power against Buffy’s cause killing many innocent girls, and the most important being the perspective of the people who are not Slayers and how they see Buffy’s “army”.

The human side of it
Has Buffy lost her humanity by giving herself fully to the Slayer cause?
We see The General declare war on Buffy, but as we later find out Buffy did a bad thing first, she stole a lot of money from a bank, she has begun to ignore human laws, it seems that Buffy thinks she is now above it. Just for emphasis on Buffy’s change of attitude, consider this exchange with a rogue Faith in Season Three:
Faith: You know in your gut that we don't need the law. We ARE the law.
Buffy: No.
Faith: Yes. You know exactly what I'm about 'cause you have it in you,
too.
Buffy: No, Faith, you're sick.

Even more than that Buffy fully embraced this coming war against “humans” without trying to convince General Voll. When Willow states that killing humans even if they attack first would be like becoming one of the villains they are trying to stop, a view that used to be shared by Buffy (See Season Three, when Faith kills an 'evil' human accidentally) Buffy denies that sensibility and instead now sees herself as a hero as long as she is killing things that she deems to be villainous. As the demon Sephrilian later points out, Buffy has lost her way, the Slayer’s aim is to protect the human race and the coming purge of magic that has been titled “Twilight” is surely the Slayer’s final goal, to protect the humans from demons indefinitely, when ‘Twilight’ finally falls, will Buffy be fighting it or will she allow it?
It seems that Buffy is no longer a warrior for humans but she has made her own “side” to fight for, whereas the battle used to be demons against humans with a warrior in the form of a Slayer, it now seems Buffy is fighting to keep her Slayer ‘team’ even if it means fighting both demons and humans, from a human perspective perhaps Buffy is indeed a villain, a threat.

Faith and the isolation that Buffy has created
Loneliness is a recurring feeling that has been visiting in the first quarter of this season, we see Buffy express it during The Long Way Home, we see Buffy’s double set off alone on a mission that ends in her death and we see Faith and Giles bond over their loneliness. The sense of being alone is mostly explored during Faith’s story, we begin her story with her remembering her mother reading her a book that warned her she would be alone a lot, as she sits alone and then gets a phone call from an ex boyfriend emphasising the fact that Faith is alone still, and we end her story with her bonding with Giles and forming a partnership which will solve their isolation. Each aspect of loneliness seems to be the outcome of Buffy’s decisions, Faith has clearly been isolated by Buffy since Season Seven, and while she helped defeat the First in the final television episode since then Buffy has obviously not kept Faith involved in the Slayer organisation with a central role.
Meanwhile Buffy is left feeling sorry for herself and inflicting her own loneliness which makes it difficult to feel much empathy for her, we see that Faith has been abandoned by Buffy and Buffy has also seemingly given up any personal relationship with Giles yet when she learns that the two have been working together she acts upset and skulks off to her room complaining about how being the leader is a lonely job. She is then offered to join in the social activities with the Slayers but chooses not to, then later in the same issue Buffy complains that she doesn’t share the social connection the Slayers have and comes to the conclusion that being the leader restricts her from doing so.
As I have already mentioned this Season is certainly exploring other characters and the burdens they also have to carry, we have seen Buffy shift the burden of being chosen by putting the power firmly in her control but it seems that decision has possibly burdened many more people. She has forced the Slayer power on many unsuspecting young women burdening them, and she has inflicted isolation on her friends and even her family as Dawn now feels she is uneeded as a sister now that Buffy has hundreds of them.

Twilight’s identity
It definitely seems that Twilight’s true identity is someone who knows Buffy and someone that we the reader should recognise. He implies to his minions that he knows her personally as he says that he knows the best way to defeat Buffy is to destroy her moral certainty. He says that he hates to see Buffy cry although it is unknown if this was a throwaway line or something more relevant, but the most important clue given so far is that he tells Buffy that he has “seen that move before” referring to the killing blow to Caleb. The only characters that could have seen that move were Buffy, Caleb, The First, Angel or Spike, was this an intentional red herring or the biggest clue to Twilight’s real identity.
Some of the more interesting theories I read at this point in the story was that it was Ethan Rayne who died only a few issues ago, but we only saw one frame of that death, perhaps he faked his death so Buffy would not suspect him as Twilight.
Giles was another popular theory, Sephrilian told Buffy that she would be betrayed by someone “close” and having seen the ill treatment of Giles since Season Seven it would seem logical that Giles as Twilight is trying to balance the scales and get rid of magic indefinitely.
Willow is another relevant theory, we have seen that Willow’s powers have grown since the end of the Television series and the most apparent new power is that of flying which Twilight can also do, while Twilight’s appearance seems to display him as a man there could quite easily be a spell at work that is hiding Twilight’s true form as a woman.
As for the clue given in the issue, Caleb is dead, The First may have found a new body to work through, Twilight is obviously not Buffy (but I’ll come back to this much later), and Spike and Angel are currently under license with a different comic company. There are many more clues to come and I will discuss Twilight’s identity again before it is finally revealed.

While the Buffy we see at the start of this season is almost unrecognisable and barely relatable the final twist at the end of her first battle with Twilight makes the reader want to support Buffy again. While we have seen that she has changed her attitude and seen the burdens she has forced on others we then find out that the man behind the Twilight movement wants Buffy to question her moral certainty, Twilight has almost beaten Buffy before the fight has started. For Buffy to win she needs to overcome her moral uncertainty, find her way on the right path again and right the wrongs she has started, only then can she even begin to think about defeating the man in the mask.

Relevant characters who were not in the TV show




Renee, Xanders new love interest. She seems to share his geeky side and has a clear sense of humour.





Simone was first seen questioning Andrew why they cant use guns as weapons, we then see her in a flashback where she believes that having guns would have made killing a vampire easier. Since then she has gone rogue and used guns (and other Slayers) to steal and to do what she wants.






General Voll is the leader of the opposing army. It was then revealed that he was taking orders from Twilight.








Satsu, she is Buffy's best fighter, she is also a lesbian and is in love with Buffy. Satsu was able to wake Buffy up from Amy's love spell with a kiss.



Important mysteries still open
Who is Twilight?
Who is Twilight's spy in Buffy's army?
Who is going to betray Buffy and is it related to the above questions?
Will Twilight succeed in purging magic from the world?

Missed a recap? Catch up here:
Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Long Way Home Part 1
Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Long Way Home Part 2
Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Long Way Home Part 3
Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Long Way Home - Conclusion
Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Chain
Buffy Season 8 Recap - No Future For You Part 1 + 2
Buffy Season 8 Recap - No Future For You Part 3
Buffy Season 8 Recap - No Future For You - Conclusion
Buffy Season 8 Recap - Anywhere But Here
Buffy Season 8 Recap - A Beautiful Sunset