Oh, crumbs, Pete - they are lush.
tries not to think about 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'...
(PleaseDon'tSuck,PleaseDon'tSuck,PleaseDon'tSuck!)
...meanwhile, I've just read the second graphic novel of Buffy Season 8, and am sort of torn. Overall I'm LOVING the experience of being reunited with these characters, and having my head go boom at clever plot twists (although in this 2nd book less than in the 1st), and all that jazz. But the Faith story arc...ack. It should have been better, I think. It felt like they'd rather casually decided to ignore the character's growth and the changes in her relationship with Buffy, simply because it would be easier to write Faith as the bitter girl with the Buffy issues. And, yes, fine, it IS easier to write her then, but...that's not where she's at at this stage in canon. So a little explanation of why she and Buffy seem to have had a relationship reset would be great.
(Despite the egregious 'I'm straight, look at me, I don't shag girls' line from the comic, I'm tempted to mentally pencil in some kind of unfortunate Faith-makes-a-pass/Faith and Buffy end up shagging incident in there just to explain what the hell has happened between the two of them. But I definitely shouldn't have to do that, damn it. Consistency of characterisation, people!)
But I loved the pairing of Faith and Giles. Loved loved loved. It got a lot of points for that (and, oh sweet Jesus, there should be fic. Lots of fic. Swashbuckling Avengers- style adventures, badass angsty adventures, hell, Harry Potterish shenanigans would work, even. And although it had never crossed my mind to ship the two of them until this point...well, yeah. Okay. I'm there. Although it would need to be well-written, and probably wouldn't involve hugs and puppies. Still - crumbs, they're well-matched. And I so wouldn't put it past Faith to eventually put the moves on him, in a screwed-up territory-marking way. Although I think Giles would repel her advances successfully, unless everything had gone absolutely to hell in a handbasket. And they wouldn't be able to look at one another in the morning. And...er, possibly I shouldn't be putting this much thought into it all.)
That said, though - lord, I wish they hadn't decided to make it all Princess Diaries. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good when you're asking me to accept Giant!Dawn or Flying!Willow or what have you: it's magic, I'm good.
But Faith being able to pass herself off as English, and upper class or upper middle class? For even five minutes, never mind several days? Jesus, are you shitting me? Where is this skill supposed to have come from? She's not Sydney Bristow, for the love of Mike! (Even Henry Higgins spent months working on transforming Eliza Doolittle - and she was pretty damn unconvincing on her first outing.) I love Faith like Winchesters, but this makes my head go boom.
...sorry. I just wish they'd done something to sell this to me, rather than expecting it to be accepted as 'Faith learns an English accent from Giles because we need her to, just accept it, sucker'.
And the Fancy Dress Party...if this was indeed a Fancy Dress Party (a Costume Party) I sort of wish they'd bothered to have people in various fancy dress (ie costumes) rather than all dressed like Cindarella wannabes. Just - gah. It would have been better writing, more visually interesting and easy enough to accomplish - the English girl wasn't badly written when she was talking to Faith, for Christ's sakes, and she came across as a girl of the noughties, so there was no need for the whole Ye Olde Princess schtick, imho. (Actually, I really liked her relationship with Faith. It was rather touching.)
LOVING the cover art. Loving loving loving.