Okay first of all, I liked it.
I never was interested in the fight scenes so it’s fine with me having them drawn down so I can skip them easily ^_^
I like the closeness Xander, Buffy and Willow have again. I missed it a lot in the latest seasons on the show.
Not that I could care less about it, but I don’t think that Satsu is the one that kissed Buffy, neither I think that it was Willow loading lip gloss around since she had just arrived there and while she is a giving person, it doesn’t make sense to me that instead to catch up with her oldest friends and try to understand what it’s going on with Amy and such, Willow could have the time to load lip gloss around….
Warren.
Warren is confusing me a lot. It seems that he is dead but thank to an Amy spell, he was saved in someway before to die for shock… so Amy spell saving his sorry as.. does make Willow still a killer?
She killed his body but not his “soul” so this makes him really dead?
Beside what he means when he says that he and Amy did a spell on Willow and her new girlfriend? Did he was the one that killed Kennedy even if temporally? (I wish she would just stay dead anyway… sigh)
And which bonds is he talking about when he says that Willow powers are siphoned in those bonds?
Confused here.
Dawn
Dawn seeing Willow like a mother… this makes and doesn’t make sense to me. Willow and Dawn were close when Buffy died, but after the accident she wasn’t so trusting with Willow anymore. Dawn saw Tara like a mother yes and she was happy when Willow and Tara returned together but I think it was more because she loved Tara like a mother than other. When Willow returned from England they catch up a bit but I didn’t thought so much plus if Willow was away for an entire year before to show up in the precedent issue, how could them become close again?
Confused here.
Xander.
In this issue Xander show his insightful skills again when he talks with Buffy about what Willow means for Dawn and I like him all grown up taking decisions and knowing how to act and when in his job. I like the matter that he is still unsure when it comes to himself. It shows still his sensible, deeply buried side.
The mysterious five women.
Uhm, here the speculations could become wild but my opinion is that they are or higher beings probably met by Willow in another plan or representations of Willow’s magic itself. The white being is made by numbers, math, computer language something in Willow is great, the brown ones remind me of werewolves and Oz come to mind immediately as her animalist side too the one that doesn’t bother to stop using black magic if it’s needed, the blue one could be her magical spirit Willow good side, but the hardly drawn one remind me of her fragile psyche….but my best bet is the first hypothesis I done.
Willow
Willow powers are increased hugely in this season. She can heal herself and few soldiers after Warren lobotomized her and I have the feeling that Willow is a “higher being” now.
I got this feeling after the blue being tell her that she can’t come back from a natural death.. the being says “Don’t even you”.
This implicitly is telling that Willow powers are huge and not commons. Willow was on another plan when Angel needed her and she stayed away for an entire year… it makes sense to me. What about you?
I think that Willow could use her healing powers on Xander too but I have the feeling or that he doesn’t want her using them on him or she hasn’t still done it but she plans to do it.
Buffy having a piece of Willow inside herself make sense to me since Willow was the one taking her back from death and I think that this created a bond among the girlfriends… bond that I am sure she has with Angel too after she souled him twice, but this is off topic right now.
No one thought immediately about Stargate SG1 when they saw the “Initiative-y” laboratory? I couldn’t help myself doing it and I was almost looking for O’Neill :grin:
Poor Ethan.
Okay Joss Whedon killed another one of my favourite characters.. I know he get happy messing with readers but could he kill one of the characters I really dislike for once?????
Anyway since everyone or almost come back from death in Whedonverse, I hope that someday I’ll see him again.
The militar speech at Buffy in the end leaves many options opened:
Tara did a spell on Buffy and she told the slayer that she was still human so.. or Tara lied, or she wasn’t powerful enough to see the truth, or the militar is just messing up with Buffy’s mind, or he is just plainly lying to give himself an excuse to fight against what Buffy concluded after thought a bit on it.

Give or take I liked this first arc a lot. Sure it leaved hundreds questions unanswered but of course this is the trick that JW wanted to archive otherwise who would read more about it?
Let just hope that in the next issues Willow won’t turn out the one kissing Buffy and that she is bisexual and I’ll follow Joss Whedon endlessly, otherwise….