I thought this issue was really well done. Andrew telling Dawn how to defeat mecha-Dawn made me laugh and laugh. "My giant-sized teammate is fighting a mechanized version of herself on the streets of downtown Tokyo...I've been preparing for this day my entire life!"

I thought Dracula was written really well. Which is cool, given that he was just a one-off (in the Buffyverse, that is), back in season 5. I loved him getting all badass and telling the vamp who killed Renee "I've killed more men than God's plagues combined. And that was *before* I started eating people for fun." And "The vampire's the least of your concerns. It's the old man you need to worry about." -- I assume that was meant to be a callback to Angel in "Amends," when he (Angel) said it isn't the demon in him that needed killing; it was the man. Plus -- Drac totally loves Xander! (That's not spoilery; I'm just saying it based on their interactions in the last issue and this one.)

Oh! And Drac saying to Willow, "To me, witch," is *totally* from X-Men, and you KNOW he got that from hanging with Xander, which I love love LOVE!

Oh, *Xander.* I really REALLY liked the art in the panels after Xander dusted the vamp who killed Renee, when the foreground art, with the most detail, is the other Slayers heading out to stop the remaining vamps, and the background, with hardly any detail, is Buffy walking to Xander and then hugging him. The fact that that part of the panels wasn't very detailed actually really worked for me.

Despite the fact that I was really annoyed in last month's issue about the conversation between Willow and Satsu where Willow was trying to get details from Satsu on sex with Buffy (ew!), I actually really liked the conversation between Willow and Buffy about "You're not my type." "Well, *you're* not even on *my* list!" It rang true to the characters, IMO, and the voices were spot-on.

And speaking of Willow, was the green snake/serpent woman/goddess/demon/whatever the same one that was in the issue where Buffy and Willow saw each other's dirty secrets from the recent past, like Buffy leading the Slayers to loot a bank vault?

And if so, WTF is going on there? (With Willow, I mean.) And that was a rhetorical question; I know we're not meant to know just yet. Oh! And plus there was the bit at the end, with Willow meditating/praying to/conjuring green snake woman -- more WTF?

All in all, I liked it a LOT.

"My...life!"

I thought that was amusing, but I couldn't get over the WTF of Mecha-Dawn in the first place. How long did it take them to build her? And they'd clearly studied Dawn in some way to imbue the 'bot with random personality traits and/or sayings, but...what?

And Drac saying to Willow...is *totally* from X-Men, and you KNOW he got that from hanging with Xander, which I love love LOVE!

It is? What is it from? I wasn't really sure what he meant. Also, I didn't even realize that was Dracula. I had trouble telling him apart from the other main vampire dude. I'm not really a huge fan of the art in this series.

The fact that that part of the panels wasn't very detailed actually really worked for me.

And that stuff is really irritating to me. Maybe because all the other comics I've been reading have had very detailed backgrounds.

And speaking of Willow, was the...

Yeah, that's what I thought of too, but in the "bad" scene...okay, I just double-checked, and that snake lady is greenish, just like the one in this issue. Might be the same one.

Oh, and I agree with what you said about Dracula.

is *totally* from X-Men, and you KNOW he got that from hanging with Xander, which I love love LOVE!

It is? What is it from? I wasn't really sure what he meant.

(I'm hoping an actual X-Men fan can elaborate on my explanation, because I've only read Astonishing X-Men.) Anyway, "To me, my X-Men!" is a classic Professor Xavier phrase, which was repeated by Cyclops in AXM #23, when they pulled off a kickass switcheroo on the bad guys.

And what he meant was pretty much what he told Willow, which was (paraphrased), "Get your ass over here!"

I agree with you on the utter WTF-ness of the very existence of mecha-Dawn, but I was so damned amused by Andrew and his apotheosis of geekiness that I was willing to go handwavey.

Also, I didn't even realize that was Dracula. I had trouble telling him apart from the other main vampire dude.

All the flowy dark hair, right? I had to look a couple of times to be sure who was who, but then I realized that they were wearing different colored shirts, and so I could differentiate them then.

The fact that that part of the panels wasn't very detailed actually really worked for me.

And that stuff is really irritating to me.

I normally dislike it a lot. But there was something about how the lack of detail made the moment understated, and the understatedness had more emotional impact -- for me -- than any technicolor large-font panel could have had.

Seriously, I normally hate that stuff. It slid under my radar, though.

P-C, here's a better explanation of the X-Men thingie: victor infante "Other Media 2: It's Astounishing!" Nov 20, 2007 2:12:43 pm PST

AXM #23, when they pulled off a kickass switcheroo on the bad guys.

Belatedly, I want to say that that was awesome. Because I was totally suspecting it, and it made a lot of sense. Go team. (And the revisited scene was really, really amusing. Oh, Kitty.)

(I don't want to spoil, but I also don't want to inappropriately use spoilerfont, so I'm being vague.)

All the flowy dark hair, right?

Right! On the first or second page, when Dracula tells Buffy she can save them, I was SO CONFUSED because I thought it was the other guy. I had to look really closely and then remember that Dracula was there to begin with.

I concur. I think I like the humor of this arc but not so much more. I love the bit at the end where Xander tells Drac to stop calling him manservant. Could Xander be becoming a little more hard like Wesley did?

Is Dracula the new Spike? I mean why is it OK for Drac to be alive and kicking (so to speak - dead and kicking?)? I guess once you've financed your operation with stolen loot, lots of things start to slide.

I mean, I'm cool with it, because I really enjoyed the arc of this, but I'm wondering what it means to be an evil evil vampire now.

Yeah, I had the same thought, Frank.

I guess once you've financed your operation with stolen loot, lots of things start to slide.

Wait, I thought that was just a hypothetical future vision thing.

My thoughts on Season 8.

Wait, I thought that was just a hypothetical future vision thing.

I've never been 100% clear on whether those visions were things that had happened that they didn't want anyone else to know or things that might.