Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Buffy the Vampire Slayer/ Angel & Faith: the new "Season Nine"

I am certain I am not the only one reading this. Anybody have any guesses who Twilight really is? I'm stumped.

I did pick up the latest issue - the "Tales of the Vampires" one. I thought about going to the CBS and seeing if I could get my money back. Yuk.

I've heard everything from Riley (which we now know isn't true) to Andrew to Xander. Since he's wearing a mask, it would be kinda pointless for him not to be someone that we wouldn't recognize.

My money is on someone that would *seem* to have been immediately disqualified, Ethan Rayne, who died way too easy, and, IMO, faked his death.

Then again, Joss loves his 'gotchas!' and it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be Spike or something (since Spike is established to be elsewhere and couldn't possibly be Twilight, in the Angel comics). A strike against Spike is that it seems very unlikely that Buffy wouldn't recognize his voice / accent.

It has to be someone who knows Buffy, based on the banter in their first encounter, well enough to criticize her personally, and, based on the 'neck was itchy' comment, someone a bit whimsical (with that being a strike against Ethan Rayne, as he was certainly irreverant, but not quite that casual).

If it turns out to be someone we've never seen before (Giles long-lost brother! Uncle Bob!), or someone we haven't seen for so long that it doesn't matter (Parker, Buffy's Dad), or someone *popular* (Oz), the fan reaction may resemble the movie Murder by Death.

Then there's the completely out-there option (spoiler for Angel series).

We know where Angel is, in his series, but, AFAIK, that doesn't account for where *Angelus* is.

I just picked up the latest issue. Slayers with no powers and lots of guns. More than any other issue, I would like to see this one put into a TV episode. Ah well...

The last I heard, Buffy was gonna go 40 issues, so about another year till Season 8 wraps up.

Also, I noticed there is no Buffy solicit for December. Since the Legion is slated to not appear (overtly) in the December Adventure Comics, I might not have to go to the CBS at all in December...

To me, barring him being Andrew, Twilight just screams "Jonathan" to me. There's the nerd aspect and just imagining him upping the ante from the "Superstar" episode somehow. Yeah, I know he's dead, but that isn't much of a barrier for many deceased Buffy characters.

Did you miss this, or just not care?

Andrew, as much as I loathe the little twerp, is, IMO, incapable of saying the kind of stuff that Twilight said to Buffy in their first encounter (which was also their last encounter, making this one hell of a slow burn...). He's not self-aware, and has the empathy of a potted fern, so I don't think he'd even know to say stuff like that.

Xander would. Buffy's dad would. Angelus would. Riley would. Ethan Rayne? Maybe. Jonathan? Yeah, I could see it.

So that's my short list. Of them, Angelus is the only one that would 'work for me,' from a characterization standpoint.

Buffy's dad was a good guy, worrying about smothering his daughter with gifts out of guilt for not being there, the one and only time we saw him. Then, off-screen, he gets demoted to worst-dad-ever, which means about as much to me as it would if someone wandered onto the screen and said, 'Oh yeah, I heard from Oz, he was in prison for eating a bunch of people and starting up an organ-legging operation. And then he died.' Off-screen equal not important enough to Joss to put on-screen, which equals not important enough for me to consider canon.

Xander's my point-of-entry character into this world of wild super-powered wymmyn. Making him Twilight would fill me with nerdrage. Not that that'll stop Joss, he's done that to me before. I think he gets off on it, really.

Riley's been declared out.

Ethan Rayne just isn't relevant enough. Plus, supposedly, dead. (We even saw a body, but his death was so chumptacular that I don't believe it for a second.)

Jonathan does have a history of backsliding into doing evil, but never really this evil, and never without someone else ultimately behind his rise to power. He lacks Big Bad Street Cred. Plus he had that redemptive-death, where he was just talking about making everything right and fixing what he'd done wrong when Andrew punctuated his monologue / epiphany with a knife... It would be annoying to see his 'redemptive death' undone. (Not just the death, but also the redemption. It becomes a case of 'why the hell did you write that Joss, if you were just gonna tear it all the hell down anyway?')

So yeah, Angelus, who may or may not have any connection to 'Angel' any longer, is my favorite choice for Twilight.

So it'll probably be Xander.

Ooh, just remembered that Joss does not allow happy endings. All romantic pairings must end in horrible suffering. So, Xander. Right on the cusp of winning Dawn's affections, turns out to be Twilight. Pain, sweet pain. Joss revels in that, like dark seductive candy from hell.

Reboot, it wasn't on Dark Horse's website, so I hadn't seen it.

AH.

And where's this idea that Angelus has somehow become separated from Angel coming from? I've read all of the current volume of Angel, and I recall nothing of the sort being hinted at.

Not to mention that DH don't have the rights to use Angel-related stuff in the first place.

I keep coming back to the costume. Very comic-booky. There's a nerd factor here that would seem to point to Andrew, Xander or Jonathan. Warren, too, but he's accounted for. I don't see Angelus or any other suspects wearing it.

If it's Xander, that would just suck balls and undermine everything we invested in the character over seven seasons (plus the eighth).

Andrew, I could see. Like Jonathan, he had his redemptive moment, but before and ever since his vanity has been his overpowering characteristic. He liked being a villain one time, so he'd really get off being an archvillain!

But if it's not someone currently hanging with the good guys, Jonathan just feels like the best fit.

I guess, for it to make sense to me, it would come down to who else would put on that costume if it's none of the above?

Since Twilight was talking to Riley, I have been wondering if he could be Forrest or Graham. I have also wondered about Jonathon as well.

Forrest seems less likely, being black (Twilight's neck appeared caucasian), part-demon-cyborg (bio-mechanical demonoid, IIRC), and very much dead.

Graham would be possible, but he never talked (well, minimally), never seemed to care one way or the other about Buffy (unlike Forrest, who was very much the jealous ex-girlfriend when it came to Buffy 'stealing' Riley from him), and didn't seem to have a sense of humor (which Twilight has demonstrated).

I'm not fond of it being most of the regulars, but I'm equally leery of it being someone nobody, like Buffy's one-night-boyfriend Parker (you clubbed me over the head!) or Oz's old bandmate Devon (you broke up my band!) or Tara's brother Donnie (your magical mumbo-jumbo killed mah sister!).

Actually, Donnie makes sense, now that I think of it. 'When y'all stole Tara from us, it broke old Pa's heart, and then cousin Beth up and left us, and he just gave up and died! And now I hear you got Tara killed, too! You stole my whole family away!'

Then again, creepy brother Donnie would be seriously unlikely to ever work with Warren, if he knew how sister Tara died...


Just got the latest issue today. I was seriously amused by the Sgt Harris and the Howling Slayer Commandos cover.

As I read your post, Set, I suddenly thought of Parker for the first time before I even got to that part! I was like, "who was that d!ckhead Buffy slept with and who blew her off before she finally got with Riley....?" And there it was!

Lord, I hope they don't go that obscure on us (though the personality bits we've seen would kinda fit)!

About the only really obscure Buffy characters I'd like to see return in an expanded role are the invisible girl (because that was SUCH a setup for more stories if I ever saw one!) and maybe Forrest for some reason. He was always looking kinda cool to me for some reason just hanging out in the background. (Neither should be Twilight, however.)

Come to think of it, a little one-shot with Tara's family might make for good Willow story fodder. I wouldn't mind Tara being brought back either, personally--she's SOOOO much cooler than Kennedy!

I love Kennedy. Finally, a Slayer who *enjoys* being a Slayer, who actually *wanted* to be a Slayer from the start, and never for a second complains about it ruining her social life.

(Probably my favorite Faith line ever, was in the middle of a long Buffy schpiel about how much being a Slayer sucked and Faith snarkily replied, 'Yeah, it's awful that we're hot chicks with super-powers.')

Tara was cool, but I think her story was played out. As long as Willow was on the fast-track to Wicca-goddess, Tara was just a hanger-on and had no 'special thing.' Had Willow remained the uber-smart computer-geek / polymath, and Tara then shown up and been the spellcasting Wicca, they would, IMO, have complemented each other much better. Instead, Tara showed up, *innately magical,* and dabbler Willow has outstripped her in about 14.3 seconds flat, rendering Tara the mumbling girl in the back ground saying, 'Slow down, Willow...'

Unfortunately, Tara contributed to the entire 'magic addiction' storyline, with her ultimatum to Willow to 'quit magic,' which Giles reveals in season seven was utterly wrong and only led to disaster as 'magic isn't an addiction.'

I know it was a stupid Joss retcon (of an even more stupid idea, of 'magic addiction,' instead of the much-more-true-to-Willow's-character, approval addiction, and the fear that her friends only valued her for what she could do, and not who she was, and that without the magic she was just boring old 'nerd Willow,' as revealed in her Restless dream where her 'disguise' as 'cool Willow' is ripped off to reveal her geeky high school self), but it still kind of tarnishes Tara from beyond the grave, as she becomes the reason why Willow lost control with her completely backwards magical advice (no, hide from your power, be a victim, Willow, admit that you can't control yourself, set yourself up for failure!).

I know it's not Tara's fault that she became the retconned reason for Willow's failure to handle 'magic addiction,' but it still makes me not want to see her again, since she's been sullied enough off-screen, that I don't want to see what kind of crap they'd do to her if they brought her back. Joss is the little kid playing Godzilla who likes to stomp all over his toys, after all. As with Geoff Johns, the safest place for a non-primary character to be is forgotten and off-screen...

Ok, some major spoilers here, so read no further if you don't want to know Twilight's identity.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24354

This link reveals who Twilight is. But honestly, I am not sure I believe it. Anyone want to speculate on how credible this source is?

It was said in another series named after a certain character that this character was no longer the person he was, which made it not only possible, but, given Joss, *likely* that the naughty person he was was 'left behind' and could become Twilight.

It fits.

Might not be true. Joss does have a tendency to change things if he feels that his big shock isn't shocking enough.

Heh, I just noticed that I'd speculated about that earlier in this very thread.

Is anyone else reading this? I have every issue, and I have to say the past 6 issues or so have been...pure crap. Buffy just doesn't seem to work with cosmic storylines. Also, I am having trouble keeping track of exactly what is going on. There have been some really awesome storylines in Season 8, but the finale isn't one of them. (In my oh-so-humble opinion)

Just one more issue to go - hopefully that will satisfactorily wrap things up.

Been getting it with the first and second TPB and individual issues thereafter. I'd say the series peaked at "Wolves at the Gate" (which I felt was excellent) and has been declining ever since. The stuff in Tibet, the Twilight revelation and on have made little-to-no sense and have just felt too "out there" for a Buffy story. This would've never made it into an actual TV season 8. The story was obviously tailored with a limitless FX budget in mind and not so much figuring in the elements that made the series great. BTVS is about character first in my opinion and that has mostly gotten short shrift.

I've bought every issue out of loyalty and the desire to see it through to the end, but I'm really glad I only have one more issue to buy. I'm really not sure at all that I'll buy Season 9 or any other Buffy project that Dark Horse has planned. It hasn't been a nonstop trainwreck, but I won't continue to support something that has been more unsatisfying than good.

You echo my own thoughts, Lardy. Once the focus stopped being on the characterization, the series went downhill. I also am glad there is only one more issue. I want to see how it ends, but there is no way I am picking up Season 9. I might get the trade from the library, though.

I'm not terrible hopeful about the upcoming movie, either. Guess it's time to fire up the Buffy dvds and remind myself why I love the Buffyverse.

I've actually been a little afraid to rewatch my DVDs as the comic has slowly dulled my enthusiasm. I'm a little afraid at how dated and underwhelming it may appear to me after a few years of having not watched it at all. Hopefully, that's not the case.

I usually try to have a Buffy marathon every fall and this year I skipped it.

So what's "twilight"s deal? What is his reason and what's he doing?

Obvious I'm not following the book, right?

You know what, Rick? I've read the damn comics and still can't really tell you what "Twilight's deal" is. Not a good sign.

Rick, I also didn't think it was obvious you were not following the book. I have read every issue, and I can't honestly say I am following the book. I also don't follow what is going on with Twilight.

This series has had some excellent stories, but the final issues have not been among them. I am glad this series is ending, just so I can keep my extra 3 bucks every month. I won't be picking up season 9, btw.