Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volumes 1 & 2; Spike Omnibus

 

Okay, onto Season 9 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". First up, volume one, "Freefall". First of all, the artwork isn't as good as in Season 8 (my mom saw this book and said: "That's not Buffy! Is that supposed to be Buffy?"). I guess after the craziness of Season 8 Joss wanted to get back to basics and have more realistic storylines for Buffy, which is fine, but man, the artwork took a dive. It was too bad, because in Season 8 I could immediately tell who each person was supposed to be because the images were so like the actors on the show. Oh well. 

Buffy has moved out of Xander and Dawn's apartment and in with two roomies, and throws a raging housewarming party where she gets blackout drunk and poor Spike has to tuck her into bed. At least he's allowed in the house. San Francisco is becoming overrun with zombie vampires, or "zompires", as Xander christens them. Thanks to Harmony's smear campaign against Slayers, the SFPD thinks Buffy is responsible. She's also trying to mend her relationship with Willow, who is now magicless (and dumped Kennedy, thank God) and working for a computer company. Buffy is having weird Slayer dreams and waking up sick. It suddenly occurs to her that maybe the dreams aren't making her ill and takes a pregnancy test. Positive.

Uh oh. 

Buffy contacts Robin Wood to ask his advice on whether or not she should keep her baby. Robin encourages her to do so, saying that she won't have to raise it by herself, she has family and friends to help, unlike his mom. Buffy then contacts Spike. Spike's been helping out a detective named Dowling, learning to deal with the zompires, while struggling with his feelings for Buffy. He knows he still loves her, but he wants her to have a chance at a normal life. He goes to see her and she tells him about the baby and says she considered asking him to run away with her and help her raise it, the three of them being a family (my heart broke for him. Seriously). She then said she couldn't do it and asked him if he would go with her to get an abortion, and he said he would. 

He takes her on his spaceship (I love how the big giant bugs call him "King Spike" and her "Mistress Buffy", it was so cute). Dowling needs help, so they go to rescue him and Spike doesn't want Buffy to fight because of the baby, but she insists. In the middle of the fight, her arm gets torn off, revealing that she's a robot. 

ANDREW!

Once Andrew is found, he admits he swapped Buffy's mind into a Buffybot when she blacked out. He stowed the real Buffy's body in a house in Mill Valley, where she's living a normal suburban life with no memories of being the Slayer. Spike, as one might imagine, is pretty pissed off that Andrew did that and put Buffy through Hell, thinking she was pregnant (turns out her symptoms were defects in the Buffybot). Buffy is upset for different reason: she's been trying so hard to create a normal life for herself in San Francisco and failing, while Andrew was able to do it. They head to Mill Valley and discover the real Buffy's body has been kidnapped by evil Slayer Simone. They fight her, but she gets away. Andrew swaps Buffy's mind back into her real body and Spike takes her home. He tells her he isn't coming back, that he can't keep living on the edges of her life, coming only when she calls for him. As his ship takes off, Buffy watches and wonders if she made a huge mistake by letting him go. 

Yes, Buffy, you did. But not if you're just going to break his heart. Seriously. 

So, a bit of drama with Volume 3. I ordered it with the rest of the series. I got 1, 2, 4, and 5, but not 3. The seller cancelled my order, so I went online and bought another copy, which will hopefully be here soon. I didn't want to jump ahead and read 4 our of order. And I'm still not sure how I'm going to get Season 10, since they're so honking expensive. 

In the meantime, I had the Spike Omnibus to keep me occupied. It was a big collection of Spike centered comics. Some were better than others, and the artwork was all over the place, but I did enjoy it for the most part. 

It starts with "Old Times", which recounts Cecily's rejection of William. Years later, they happen to meet up again by accident in L.A. Spike runs across a biker who is terrified he is going to die on his 30th birthday, like all the men in his family have before him. Spike is determined to keep him alive until after midnight. Turns out Halfrek (who is Cecily) cursed his family. Spike has a rough time keeping Lenny from being killed, but he manages. Lenny is so overjoyed to live past his birthday he falls out a window and dies. Spike gets his revenge on Halfrek by making out with her and then leaving her laying on the ground, telling her she's "beneath him". Hehe.  

"Old Wounds" is when Spike is at Wolfram & Hart with the Angel gang. A retired LAPD detective who worked the Black Dahlia case finally got a hit on some fingerprints they had on letters the killer sent. They belong to a new employee: Spike. Everyone on Team Angel assumes Spike is guilty except for Fred, who tries to help him solve the decades old cold case. He finally does and delivers an iconic verbal beatdown on redemption to the hypocrites that surround Angel. With Angel being the biggest hypocrite of all. Yeah, that's right, I said it :)

"Lost and Found": Spike is still at Wolfram & Hart, and a vampire is killing in broad daylight. Angel automatically assumes that Spike was somehow able to fix the Gem of Amarra, which Angel destroyed. Wesley figures out that there were actually two gems, and someone else now has the second one, which Harmony sold online (freaking twit). Because the Gem makes the wearer invincible, Spike and Angel have to think of a way to get it off the wearer before they dust him. 

"Spike vs. Dracula" was a long one, chronicling Spike and Dracula's hatred of each other over the century. A band of gypsies Dracula was aligned with cursed an evil vampire named Angelus. Angelus's team of vampires killed the band of gypsies under Dracula's protection, starting off the conflict. 

"Asylum" was another long one. A mother and father contact Spike to ask for his help breaking their half-demon daughter out of Mosaic, a rehab facility for the Supernatural. They believe she is in danger. Spike declines at first, but when the parents mistake him for Angel he gets annoyed and says he'll do it. He checks himself into Mosaic, and quickly learns it was a ploy to get him tucked away: he actually killed their daughter himself years earlier. They wanted to punish him. It worked: there's no way out of Mosaic once you're in, you're trapped. Oh, and did I mention all the other patients hate him and spend their time trying to kill him? 

And finally, "Shadow Puppets". I know a lot of fans (and the actors) liked "Smile Time", the episode of "Angel" in Season 5 where he gets turned into a puppet, but I found it very stupid. So I wasn't a huge fan of this one, although I will (grudgingly) admit there were some funny moments. Spike and Lorne go to Japan where Smile Time has resurrected itself for the Japanese audiences, still with the same evil goal of sucking the life out of the kiddos who watch the show. One of the Mosaic inmates, Beck, is there along with a Japanese warrior girl named Tok, and both girls have a crush on the "handsome vampire", so that was kind of funny to see them flirting with him. Of course Spike and Lorne get turned into puppets (sigh). In the end all of Angel's gang shows up as puppets and Spike has to fight the Angelus puppet. I can't believe how incredibly dumb I feel just typing these words. Oh well. In the end he wins and defeats the evil Smile Time puppets and gets turned back into his normal handsome self, so it all worked out.