How would you rate Wolves at the Gate: Part IV

[Tie was here]

I would just like to know everyone's thoughts.

I voted great, I thought the ending was a TAD flat and the Mecha Dawn thing was a little over-the-top. But overall it was very good.

[vampmogs]

I said amazing. When I first heard about Mecha-Dawn I wasn't sure how they were going to handle it. But now I've seen the dialogue for it and what was written and I was in fits of laughter. I love some of her lines like "I cry a lot!" with Dawn shouting back "I do not!" It pokes fun at the character and what so many fans disliked from her in season six.

And this really brought Xander's arc at least with Xander to a fitting conclusion. I never doubted for a second that this would be a great issue for Xander and not a buttmonkey one, I remained optimistic and I wasn't let down. I loved how he made it clear he wasn't going to be Drac's "manservant anymore" and it's opened up a whole new interesting door for his character with Renee's horrible ending.

Plus, more info on Willow's story is also solid. And I loved the conversation Willow and Buffy had. It feels very slash but as others have pointed out, a little hostile as well. And I loved Dracula’s narration at the end over the panels we got of Buffy, Xander and Willow.

An awesome issue I thought.

[Weredog]

My only concern with this issue was the Mecha Dawn. I loved the dialogue and I thought it was cute how Andrew helped her out, but what confuses me is where the hell this thing came from. I still don't know who made it. Toru? How did he know Willow was going to summon her from Scotland? And how does he know that she likes blue jeans? And irony? ( God, that stuff was funny though).

[Enisy]

"Good". 'Cause there's good (Dracula!), but there's also bad (Satsu/Buffy), and ugly (Mecha Dawn).

[vampmogs]

My only concern with this issue was the Mecha Dawn. I loved the dialogue and I thought it was cute how Andrew helped her out, but what confuses me is where the hell this thing came from. I still don't know who made it. Toru? How did he know Willow was going to summon her from Scotland? And how does he know that she likes blue jeans? And irony? ( God, that stuff was funny though).

This is one of the few instances where I think Joss and Drew said "to hell with it suspend their belief we don't care!" for the sake of what really was, a very good laugh.

Though it isn't impossible if you really want to think about it. If Toru, Raidon and Kumiko could build the big device used to de-power all the slayers they obviously have a great deal of technology, so it's very possible they could have had Mecha Dawn built. In a verse with a Buffybot, April and Ted robots aren't impossible and in many ways this would be easier to create because the creator never attempted to make her sound human. So it's actually rather easy to fanwank in that sense, as much as the Buffybot is anyway.

In relation to how Toru could have known Dawn was going to be teleported, well I think it's logical they'd acknowledge and counter that risk. They saw Dawn when attacking the BHC in Issue #12 and it's possible they had surveillance on her long before that, they also found out where the weaponry was and where the castle was for a start. So I don't find that is so hard to believe either.

What's the big thing is that the Mecha Dawn knew a lot about Dawn. That's where you really have to suspend your belief I think. Unless we find out these vampires were working in close relation to Twilight, which isn't impossible at all. We saw that Gigi and Roden had surveillance on Buffy as well and I'm almost 99% sure Twilight was responsible for their purchase of that surveillance, given his intimate knowledge of Buffy in 'A Beautiful Sunset.' If the vamps and Twilight are some how connected it's entirely possible he's passed that information on Dawn to the vampires. But that's all depending on the fact Twilight is connected with them, we'll just have to wait and see.

Either that or the possibility Willow passed on intimate knowledge to Snake demon (it's going to take me a while to get my head around that name!) and Kumiko who was also her apprentice, then passed it onto her gang.

[Andrew]

Something important to note as well, re: Mecha-Dawn is that quite a few of the vampires saw her in Part I of the arc. She mentions bees flooding the barn before seeing the Batsu encounter. She's quite obviously a major asset to the Slayer team, and it'd be stupid of them not to account for it. It may not even have been made to counter Dawn specifically, it would've been just as effective whacking around some Slayers. Dawn could've just been the inspiration.

I went with Amazing!, although I wish there was an intermediate option between it and Great!. This was the first issue that didn't feel too brief. Goddard made the best of his 22 pages this month and managed to tell the last quarter of the story beautifully. It's the first time an arc has properly emulated the structure of a Buffy episode, each issue representing an Act (or teaser+act).

There were so many awesome moments in the book: the depiction of Renee's death and her inner voice, Mecha-Dawn, the furthering of Willow/Vasuki, the Batsu resolution, Mecha-Dawn, stepping up Dawn's plot, MECHA-DAWN, Dracula's undying (and undead love for Xander, MECHA-DAWN Willow and Buffy's 'list' conversation and have I mentioned MECHA-DAWN?!

I think there should be one of these polls on every issue's thread, to gauge the reaction to each issue.

[lee]

mecha dawn= hilarious

[tangent]

Went for amazing.

I thought it was a really good end to the arc. Mecha-Dawn was a tad on the cheesy side but I suppose you can't visit Tokyo without a Godzill ref or two. Apart from that it flew past at a good pace the character work (especially as regards Xander and Willow/Buffy) was very good and it had a satisfying sense of closure whilst still reminding us that we're in the middle of the story.

Yup, me like.