So, finally, after a long wait, three preview pages, lots of craziness in the fandom caused by spoilers and a couple of weird early reviews and people's general tendencies to read their own preconceptions and obsessive peeves into the text and several really bizarre quasi-controversies with some things blown way out of proportion, I finally read the first issue of Buffy season 9 and liked it, though it's not as impressive as #40.

I'll add some belated thoughts about the first issue of Angel & Faith, which was out 2 weeks ago.