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BAD
DOG
It's
Oz's time of the month again and Willow has to look after him.
But miraculously she goes missing. Everyone assumes it's
Oz, but it's up to Buffy to figure it out.
WRITING
The
story gets underway brilliantly. The opening pages are
the closest to the show I've seen. "Eat wood, loser!"
is a great line and the next scene is brilliant with Angel bitching
at Buffy about the joke is really like how the characters would
speak.
But
then it happens so fast. Oz changes into a werewolf and
then Willow gets kidnapped. WereOz and Buffy hunt down
Willow, find her and kill a bad guy who is actually some guy
who got a total of two panels a couple of pages before.
That's
the let down. The villain, who is called Alan Duffy, is
soon forgettable in the space of two panels. Yet he turns
out to be the mad bad guy who is nearly killing Willow at the
end. Petrie should've made the Duffy character more interesting.
A bit more eerie. More panel time. Like him being
in the background. But no, just two panels.
Also,
how did Alan Duffy know about Willow being a witch? Why
does he want to be a mutant? How does he know about Buffy
being a Slayer? All questions that are never answered
or even addressed. It's a very confusing second story.
Xander
is portrayed like he is in Becoming. Harsh.
He suggests killing Oz - I doubt he would wish Oz dead.
He defended him in Revelations with the whole "Oz
never ate nobody" speech. Seems Petrie needs to go
back and re-think the characters. He was, after all, a
writer on the show.
ART
I
loved Spike and Dru. This time around it's still
as great. A little sloppy here and there, but still a
good job. Sook's style is exactly like Mike Mingola's
(acclaimed artist/writer of Hellboy) - very simple and
crude, yet very effective. It worked in Spike and Dru
and it works brilliantly here. A great use of mid-shots,
that seems to be all that Sook does. But that's not a
complaint. The mid-shot style is used very well.
Some artists may not be able to pull it off but Sook does (example:
page 6 of this story, where Xander and Giles are shouting at
each other, look at the number of shots where you can see the
characters from the waist up. All of them. Now try
and picture Hector Gomez doing this page. The bottom panel
would be a bloody great big close-up of Buffy's face.)
Sook doesn't try to cram in as much as possible. He is
not very detailed and I think that's why we like his work.
The
only thing that confused me is how did Alan Duffy die?
The page in which we see him get stabbed is very confused.
We see two panels, something happens to his hands. Some
grey string appears and so do some rings. Are his hands
being sliced off? No, because we don't see any blood.
And if he did we would have heard him scream. What exactly
happens? Anyone out there wanna figure this one out for
us?
OTHER
NIT-PICKS
The
colour is excellent: very well done. No bright navy colours
as darkness.
Also:
Oz is naked. Does anyone else not notice this? He
hugs Willow and she doesn't say anything about him being naked.
It's like she's going, "Oh, look my boyfriend's naked.
Ho-hum. When's Seinfeld on?"
RATINGS
Writing
- Like Golden, Petrie does a great job with characterisation
(apart from Xander), but the villain is forgettable and there
are too many questions being asked after reading it.
Art
- Sook shoots, he scores. Just. Great work, great
direction, but what's up with the villain's hands at the end?
Very confusing.
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Picture
- Buffy and the Master (by Jeff Matsuda and Andy Owens).
Picture
- Spike, Dru and Angelus, pre-Sunnydale, probably 1800s (by
Ryan Sook).
Picture
- Buffy sitting on a grave sharpening a stake, while vamps come
up from the grave (by Cliff Richards and Fabio Laguna).
Picture
- Buffy below a vampire bat (by Christian Zanier).
Picture
- Xander, Buffy and Willow at a 60s dance, getting ready to
fight vamps (by Chynna Clugston-Major).
Picture
- Buffy in a graveyard with a vamp behind her (by Randy Green
and Andy Owen).