I think the Buffy and Xander fake out was just that, a fake out with Whedon having a little bit of fun with the fans. I think that's why Xander asked if someone who just had friend-ship love could wake Buffy with a kiss, as that's what he and Buffy have. If he thought he could really wake her up, he would have done it right away to get the slayers leader into the battle instead of ordering around the other slayers.

Also I think you are right the guy in Buffy's dream was Mr. Floating Boots which I still think is this seasons big bad. I've seen some people online point to Dracula as possibly being the big bad and Mr. Floating Boots. It would certainly fit, as he can fly and would call Buffy "my love" and is powerful enough to dominate this season 8 as the big bad. The symbol could even be a D. on it's side.

Also if you are interested, Dark Horse already has a 6 page preview of issue 3 on their website. If you want to wait until the issue comes out, you should still keep that link as not only does it show 6 pages, but shows the transition from script to pencils to inks to colouring to lettering. It really interesting to see the progression, with the most interesting being Whedon's original script pages.

Thanks Matt, I had heard of that link but hadn't visited it yet as I am trying to stay as spoiler-free as I can. But I will definitely check it out after the fact.

I actually DREAMED about Floating Boots last night. I think your Dracula theory could be right on the money, too. Did you read Spike vs. Dracula? I only read the first issue and then realized I don't really care... but I might have to revisit.

Spike vs. Dracula is the only non-Whedon written Buffyverse comic that I own. While it had it's funny and amusing moments, overall it wasn't that great. One of the problems was the constantly changing artwork, with the last two issues had 4 different artists. If I hadn't bought it as a trade, I would have likely dropped it after the 1st issue.

Also since Whedon was involved in the comic, it's possible that it will be completely ignored if Whedon reuses Dracula in season 8.

He certainly seems to have drawn a line in the sand between "canon" and "not canon." Makes me wonder how the potential Angel Season 6 thing will fall out: IDW's done a lot of work (some of it good) in the Angelverse over the past couple of years; not sure how they'd react to having the slate wiped clean.

Well, Whedon has mentioned a couple of times in interviews that he deeply regretted giving up control of Buffy & Angel with the various spin-offs in comics and novels. He has mentioned they could be great or they could be absolute horrible, he simply has no idea as he does not have time to read and approve them all. He said he had no idea what people have done with his characters over the years and he joked that a writer could have written a Buffy story that was completely against his main themes and ideas with a story where Buffy comes to the conclusion that a woman's place is in the kitchen and that she should vote Republican.

Which is why when it came time for Serenity spin-offs Whedon stopped them from happening despite there being a big demand for it, with both the Serenity novelization and mini-series comic book selling incredibly well.