The End Of The Interesting Angel Twist, Angel: After The Fall 4 Concludes L.A. In Hell!

The Good: Generally well-written, Decent characterizations, Nice "bonus features."
The Bad: Stands alone poorly, Erratic artwork, Predictable/confused resolution
The Basics: More a "necessary evil" to resolve the conflicts that began in After The Fall, Angel: After The Fall Volume 4 concludes the arc of Los Angeles in hell with mediocrity.


I get tired of gimmicks, especially when they reduce things I enjoy to something less-than what they ought to be. I was far too young for the obsession with Dallas that culminated in the infamous "Patrick Duffy Shower Scene." For those unfamiliar with this, after a point, Dallas went off in such a direction that was so wildly unpopular with viewers - they lost a huge percentage of their viewers - that they had to do something to restore the show to greatness. This takes the form of a character walking into her bathroom and seeing her dead husband showering and the revelation that the entire season or so had simply been a bad dream of hers. The series rebooted and went on capitalizing again on the popular format that had made "Dallas" a phenomenon to begin with. With the de facto sixth season of Angel being presented in graphic novels, the feeling that it is moving toward a similar "easy answer" solution became obvious near the climax of the previous "episode."

And for those too dense to realize that a gimmick like a Patrick Duffy Shower Scene is coming before they sit down to Angel: After The Fall Volume 4, they get there pretty quick given that Spike is killed within the first ten pages of the book. And before my readers complain that I am giving far too much away, while Spike is killed early in this volume, he reappears within ten pages and the gimmick becomes pretty apparent.

For those not familiar with the Angel: After The Fall plotline, don't bother; this volume is the conclusion to an entire arch that has a brief recap at the beginning, then plunges the reader into the final chapters. Set after the conclusion of the fifth season of Angel (reviewed here!), After The Fall teleports Los Angeles into Hell (literally) following the battle in the alley that began in the final moments of the fifth season finale. All of the major characters - and several of the recurring minor ones - have had arcs which have brought them each to this concluding volume. This is intended to be a wrap-up to that entire plotline, not a standalone, so the character dynamics and events are not recapped sufficiently for those looking to this volume for a single Angel experience. That said, given how deep Joss Whedon and Brian Lynch had dug the heroic Angel and his friends into this plotline, "Volume 4" is pretty much the only way the writers could go.

As the mortal Angel nears death and meets with Cordelia, he watches as Wolfram & Hart sends an onslaught of evil creatures into Los Angeles in order to try to keep Angel alive. Angel, realizing that he - and not his alter-ego Angelus - is fated to tip the balance of good and evil toward an ultimate victory for evil, resigns himself to death. Gwen sacrifices herself to save Connor, but her sacrifice is soon in vain as Angel witnesses Gunn slay Connor. This brings Angel back into the fray and Angel soon realizes that the key to restoring everything to its rightful place is by him dying in the Hell dimension, which would cause Wolfram & Hart - who has exhausted its resources - to transport Los Angeles and Angel back out of Hell to the last moment Angel was intact . . . back in the alleyway.

While Angel wrestles with his own mortality, Spike rescues the Slayers, who promptly kill him in Gunn's basement. There, Spike discovers a five minute time loop and Gunn hunts Illyria, transforms her back into Fred and promptly kills her. With Angel resurrecting, Gunn takes Illyria to an altar he has made where Illyria resurrects in her natural form and Angel's team suits up to use Illyria's time shifting nature to restore everything to the way it ought to have been.

Using Illyria, Angel succeeds in his Patrick Duffy Shower Moment and the reader is brought back to the alleyway where Angel has a chance to change time and existence. Unfortunately, the resolution is both confused and unsatisfying. Unable to save Wesley - he died well before the battle in the alley - Angel manages to prevent Gunn from being vamped and with the aid of his friends, he apparently prevents the overthrow of Los Angeles by hellspawn.

The problem here is not that everyone - including the characters who died in the After The Fall arc - are alive and can remember all that they went through in Hell or even that Angel is promoted to celebrity as a result of people recalling the hell experience, but rather the disappearance of Wolfram & Hart in Los Angeles. Outside Angel and his circle, no one remembers Wolfram & Hart having a building in Los Angeles. It appears to have never existed. But if Wolfram & Hart did not exist in Los Angeles, how much of Angel (the television series) is nullified? Connor could not exist - which he does in the final moments of this book -, Cordelia might not have ascended and frankly most of the conflicts in Angel would not exist (and Fred would still be alive!). The inclusion of this concept muddies the entire rest of the book and the final chapter - there are five in this hardcover anthology - is deeply unsatisfying for fans of Angel.

On the character front, Lynch and Whedon make good use of the characters from the comic embodiment of Angel as Illyria becomes something that would have been a cost-prohibitive special effect when Betta George begins to thrust Spike and Wesley's memories into her (it?s) head. Betta George is a telekinetic fish Lynch developed who has become more and more an influence in the continuing comic book sagas in the Angel and "Spike" stories. The idea that Spike and Betta George team up as part of the resolution works (with the reboot of the timeline, this also makes it possible that Spike: Shadow Puppets - reviewed here! - occurs sometime in the "sixth season" of Angel) and if they spin off away from Angel, that might be for the best.

Indeed, despite my love of Angel - I preferred it to Buffy The Vampire Slayer - this seems like an appropriate point to bury the series. Angel is left on his own, though Gunn is restored and deeply wounded at the climax of this volume. But what is Angel without Wesley, Cordelia and Fred? With Spike and Betta George on its own, is there truly enough to sustain a series with Angel, Gunn, and Lorne - and Illyria if she pops back up? This is a tough sell, even for a fan.

Within Angel: After The Fall Volume 4 there are similar bits that are tough for readers and fans to reconcile. First is the radical shifts in artwork. Stephen Mooney pencils for the first two chapters and presents such ridiculous visual notions as jet fighter dragons. Yes, Volume 4 finds Angel and his team besieged by beings that have the head and wings of a dragon and the hindquarters of a jet fighter. If this sounds ridiculous, well, you've guessed how it looks. Unfortunately, Mooney's artwork is tremendously variable and Franco Urru's return for the last half of the volume is a certainly welcome thing.

Also unfathomable is how Groo gets the best line of the book - something about a word-a-day calendar that is very much the voice of the Whedonverse. Outside the single line from one of the least popular recurring characters in Angel, the book lacks much of the "sound" of the series and the dialogue is plot-heavy exposition rather than the characters truly struggling.

Even so, there are a few moments of real emotion in the book. The oft-tormented Angel is compelled to watch his son die and his reaction is wonderfully realistic. But given how bloody the book is, it is disappointing for many readers how much is actually glossed over as far as the emotions of the circumstance. Still, Whedon and Lynch overemphasize the emotions of Spike for Fred and this is troubling as it seems to be much more in the books than it ever was in the television series. More problematic is that if Angel reboots to the end of the series - this volume ends a month after that - we have to ask "what is the point?"

Does Angel keeping Los Angeles from falling into Hell and becoming a celebrity truly point him away from tipping the balance toward evil in the future? It's hard to care because at the end of the series and now here at the climax of four (or five) books, Angel and Angel have ended up right back where they began.

On the plus side, this volume does have neat "bonus features." To make the hardcover anthology of the five comic books more palatable to fans, Whedon and Urru and IDW Publishing include the original cover art for the five chapters, as well as the original outline for the first "After The Fall" storyline. These are nice and push this otherwise mediocre adventure up into "recommend" territory, but it is closer than I (as an Angel fan) would have liked.

For other Angel graphic novels leading up to and including the After The Fall series, please visit my reviews of:
Smile Time
Not Fade Away
After The Fall Volume 1
After The Fall Volume 2 First Night
Spike: After The Fall
After The Fall Volume 3

6/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Plot-Heavy, Angel: After The Fall Volume 3 Is Too Tough A Sell.

The Good: Begins to answer significant plot questions, Artwork is generally good, Clearly leading to something
The Bad: Plot-heavy, Obvious bridge, Light on character development
The Basics: Even as a fan of Angel, Angel: After The Fall Volume 3 is too plot heavy and while it seems to be leading somewhere, it's not getting there fast enough.


As I continue to follow the continuing adventures of Angel, the Buffyverse vampire with a soul whose missions have continued in comic - and graphic novel anthology - form, I find myself eager for the point. Joss Whedon has turned Angel over to Brian Lynch and the series Angel: After The Fall has been an awkward collection in graphic novel form. Usually, I would correct the concept of "graphic novel" with "trade paperback anthology," but in the case of Angel: After The Fall, the hardcover comic book anthologies are not trade paperbacks. Still, the purpose of Angel: After The Fall, the de facto sixth season of Angel is to continue the story of Angel unlimited by television budgets and with the third volume (fourth story), readers finally get back to where the first volume ended.

The story, so far, is convoluted and has been explained through the other After The Fall stories (I've linked them below in chronological order). But the basic concept (and it's impossible to not mention a few events that happened in order for this review to make sense, so those looking to maintain surprise for the whole arc, turn back now!) is that after the final moments of the series finale of Angel, Los Angeles was sucked into Hell. The outside world has no idea Los Angeles is gone, but for six months, Los Angeles has been in Hell. Spike has rescued humans with Illyria's help and raised an army, Gunn was vamped and has since disappeared and Wolfram & Hart has sent Wesley back as a ghost to thwart or assist Angel. Angel, though, has his own secret and in Angel: After The Fall, Volume 3 that secret is out . . . rather quickly.

Fighting against the various Lords Of Los Angeles, Angel quickly finds himself outmatched and his allies come to his aid, soon realizing that he is only protected by flimsy magic. Illyria, shocked at seeing Wesley, reverts to Fred. Forced to protect Fred, Angel and his allies regroup after the bloody battle as Gunn watches. Gunn tortures Betta George for information shortly before Angel turns up and the two meet. As Lorne, Spike, Connor and the others regroup at the Hyperion hotel, Gunn and Angel meet.

Here, Gunn lays out his tortured existence as a vampire to Angel and it soon becomes obvious that Angel is mortal. Gunn explains the visions from the Powers That Be and how he found the demon who continued having them after Cordelia ascended. Alluding to a near-future, Gunn lays down his cards and angrily berates Angel for everything going to Hell. At that point, Gwen turns on Connor and electrocutes Angel's dragon, which puts Angel and his allies in a very risky position with little hope of survival!

"Volume 3" is an obvious bridge piece in Angel: After The Fall and it is packed with obvious exposition and little else. After the initial gambit to survive in the ring against the Lords Of Los Angeles is paid off - magical artifacts come into play - much of the book is stagnant. The group of heroes moves back to the Hyperion (which they abandoned at the end of season four) and Angel and Gunn have long scenes where they are simply talking. Gunn lays out the recent past for Angel and heavily alludes to his future plans, which seem to involve more bloodshed and the idea that he is the chosen one who will save the world. These scenes use the medium poorly as they are largely just two people talking back and forth.

The book becomes interesting again in the final chapter as the plans of Angel's friends begin to unravel and Gwen makes her move against Connor. The big battle is very comic booky, though it is a decent use of the medium as the special effects for such a battle would have been cost-prohibitive for Angel. The artwork, taken over largely by Nick Runge, is decent. The characters are recognizable and there is a good flow of movement - when there is movement - panel to panel.

But largely, this is a collection of four comic books at a rather high price for a hardcover collection. One of the primary aspects of Angel that was most interesting to fans of the television series was the mix of humor and serious darkness. In Volume 3, the balance is heavily tipped toward the dark emotions, which makes sense given that the gang is stuck in Hell. Unfortunately, though, this means that much of the dialogue is not written in the voices of the characters. Gunn, angry constantly, makes fewer asides that actually sound like his character and Angel is almost entirely without rejoinders for the volume. In fact, it is only Spike who has good lines throughout, but his part is rather small in this book.

Similarly, probably because of the characters being written with imprecise voices, there is little character development in this volume of Angel: After The Fall. Instead, it is plot-heavy and none of the characters truly grow or change. Even Gwen, whose plot-needed reversal might be surprising to some, is still working well within the bounds of her established character. She always liked Gunn and so his ability to manipulate her makes sense. Angel is mostly monolithic in the book and any chance to evolve his character is sacrificed for long passages of exposition wherein he explains how he survived during the six months after Los Angeles was dragged into hell and how he tried his best to save the humans trapped there. This is, obviously, nothing new for Angel; it's what he does.

The third volume of Angel: After The Fall comes with the usual bonus features for these hardcover editions. There is an art gallery, Betta George is given a column to talk about what has happened in the series so far and there are answers to fan questions wherein the writers of the book do their best to share the creative process with their readers. It is not enough to push the book up into "recommend" territory.

Instead, this is a strongly average graphic novel anthology that is only going to be enjoyed by the die-hard fans and those same fans will likely want the next volume to arrive already to see how it pays off. But then again, fans of Joss Whedon's works are used to having faith in the ends justifying the means, so most fans will still like this enough. It's just too tough a sell for me, though.

For other Angel graphic novels leading up to and including the After The Fall series, please visit my reviews of:
Smile Time
Not Fade Away
After The Fall Volume 1
After The Fall Volume 2 First Night
Spike: After The Fall

5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Effectively The Third Volume Of Angel: After The Fall, Spike: After The Fall Has Its Charms.

The Good: Fills in a story gap well enough.
The Bad: Terrible artwork in too many places, Illyria's character is a bit off.
The Basics: A mildly interesting bridging story, Spike: After The Fall is hampered by a predictable plot and poor artwork.


More is not always better, I do believe. After all, as the follow-ups to the fifth season finale of Angel (reviewed here!) pile up, they largely fail to resonate or entertain with little more than a passing interest for the fans. As a result, some of the attempts have fallen a little flat. Spike: After The Fall is one of those attempts. The thing is, the fundamental problem with this book, for those who have been checking out the new Angel series as if it were Angel Season Six, is that this continues to distract from the rising action that began in Angel: After The Fall (reviewed here!).

Spike: After The Fall continues to fill in the blanks between the final episode of Angel and Angel: After The Fall, which begins months later. The Spike vignette in Angel: After The Fall - First Night (reviewed here!) was a very simple tale; when Los Angeles is teleported to Hell during the final battle, Spike is elated to have survived another apocalypse scenario. Given that, he decides to hang up his spurs . . . until he hears weak humans shouting for help and he leaps back into action. Unfortunately, he is overwhelmed and Spike is about to be killed by demons when he is rescued by Illyria. In the first After The Fall volume, Spike is one of the lords of Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) and Spike: After The Fall is the bridge between the two points in Spike's character arc.

Having been rescued by Illyria, Spike has begun to rescue humans from the hell-ravaged streets of Los Angeles. Staying alive by leaving places when the crowd gets too large and unwieldy, Spike and Illyria take up residence with their refugees in an abandoned amusement park. Soon after, though, Spike is set upon by Non, the Lord Of Beverly Hills. Non is a demon goddess, like Illyria, who feeds upon humans, making them into zombies.

Having captured Spike and begun to torture him for her amusement, Non and her army of women begin to feed on Spike's flock as Illyria reverts to Fred and freaks out. As Spike is seduced by Maria (a spiderwoman) while in captivity, Gunn takes on Non and shows off his captive Slayers. As Non and her Sadecki demon - which has the ability to influence others - make zombies of all the men and protect the borders of Non's territory, Spike's situation begins to look more dire . . . especially as Connor enters the fray!

Brian Lynch continues his exploration of the post-"Not Fade Away" world with this story which is illustrated by his partner in many of these ventures, Franco Urru. This is not Urru's best work as an artist. Urru opens the hardcover anthology with terrible artwork that resembles thumbnail sketches or animatics from an animated feature. The sloppy artwork sets up a poor perception of the overall story and the art gallery in the back - essentially the episode's "bonus feature" - is unimpressive as well. Throughout the book, Spike is underdetailed and in things like the dream sequence while Spike it being tormented, some of the "long shot" artwork is just disappointing for its lack of detail, both in the penciling and coloring.

Lynch's work in Spike: After The Fall is another tough sell for fans of the Spike character, for a few reasons. First, Lynch seems to overemphasize the relationship between Fred and Spike as it was developed (or not) in the fifth season of Angel. Spike pines for Fred and works to protect Fred by keeping Illyria in control of Fred's body throughout this volume. But even that is irksome as Illyria's control over her body was pretty absolute in the television series and no reason for her slippage is given in this book. It's a tough sell, then, for detail-oriented fans.

Beyond that, all Spike: After The Fall does it bridge the gap between the two volumes in After The Fall so far and tease readers. So, for example, Gunn's scene with Non has absolutely nothing to do with Spike and it feels a lot more like filler than anything else. After all, by that point, Spike is a captive but he hasn't figured out what is actually going on yet. Similarly, Spike trying to take refuge at Wolfram & Hart pretty much just sets up the question of "Where is Angel?" that is played out in the first and third volumes of Angel: After The Fall. Spike's story is rather limited here and the teaming of Spike and Connor is a weird one that is not played out in the other volumes either.

Outside that, Lynch does a decent job of keeping Spike's voice sounding real and Spike-like. Spike is cynical and survives by avoiding when necessary, insulting everyone along the way. Spike: After The Fall also has the requisite humor that fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel expect from him. In this case, the humor takes the form of Spike insulting the remaining man in his party and others trying to mimic Spike's voice at times. That is funny and it works, even in print.

There is, as well, one real good surprise in the final moments of Spike: After The Fall, which works perfectly for the Illyria character. Unfortunately, there is little tension for readers here as we know: 1. Spike can't die (we've seen him in subsequent volumes) and 2. Spike will depose Non, so it's just a waiting game on "how." That is only mildly interesting and - poor Spike - the idea of Spike getting tormented by virtually anyone who comes along is sad and continues to gut the idea that Spike is truly one of the best big bads. For sure, he has evolved, but in the case of Spike this seems to mean everyone and their brother can come along and kick his butt.

As a result, this is one of the less compelling Spike stories and it is easy enough to pass by. There is nothing essential here that fans cannot live without, especially at the hardcover price.

For other graphic novels that feature Spike, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Spike: Shadow Puppets
Spike: Lost & Found
Angel Not Fade Away

5.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Angel: After The Fall - First Night - Filling In The Unneeded Blank Poorly.

The Good: More or less necessary for fans, one supposes, Moments of art and execution.
The Bad: Much of the artwork, Utterly obvious following the first chapter, Short and therefore proportionally expensive.
The Basics: First Night makes explicit what After The Fall alluded to in a poor expansion of the Angel mythos.


I like Angel. I'm opening with that because as I get into this, I don't want readers to think I was inherently against After The Fall - First Night, which picks up the saga of Angel (reviewed here!). When the series finale of Angel aired, many of us still had hopes that it could be picked up for a sixth season somewhere else. It was not. So, Joss Whedon and his team set out to write the sixth season of Angel in comic book form. The first "episode" of Angel after the finale was anthologized in the graphic novel Angel: After The Fall (reviewed here!). As that was the first chapter following the scenes that finished the television show, it seems natural that there would be subsequent chapters. Unfortunately, and rather ridiculously, Angel: After The Fall - First Night is actually a prequel to After The Fall and yet the second hardcover Angel anthology.

First Night (as I'm referring to it from now on for ease of typing) is a collection of several vignettes that explicitly fills in the blanks of what happened after "Not Fade Away," the Angel series finale. The thing is, in the notes that followed After The Fall, Joss Whedon and Brian Lynch wrote about their debate of where they wanted to pick the story up and it was decided that they would not start five minutes after the finale, they would leap forward three months, which was pretty standard for the stories they told on television. First Night, then, goes back and tells the stories explicitly of what happened five minutes after the series finale of Angel. And, largely, it's a waste.

Following a recap by the Groosulag, various players in the new Angel universe tell the story of what happened the night Angel took on the Powers That Be. The fish is suddenly transported from swimming in the ocean to hell. Connor is struck by suddenly remembering his entire magically-repressed past and he is rescued by Kate, who is now something of a bounty hunter for good. When Los Angeles gets suddenly sucked into hell, Kate rescues Connor and she goes off on a shooting spree.

The stories are essentially the same throughout: Wesley, now dead, is woken up by a vision of Fred, whom he quickly realizes is actually some form of demon. This is his liaison from Wolfram & Hart and he is sent back as a ghost to act as an intermediary between Angel and the Powers That Be. Gunn, wounded in the fight, is dragged off and vamped, waking up in the new-hell Los Angeles. Spike, celebrating surviving the end of the world (yet again) feels compelled to rescue a wounded woman, thus ending up back in action on the side of good, fighting demons in hell. And Gwen, eager to touch her boyfriend now that her electric charges have been neutralized suddenly loses her newfound control over her electromagnetic abilities when Los Angeles is sucked into hell and she inadvertently fries the guy she's with.

And Lorne presents a limerick about being sucked into hell and carving out the sunny niche of Silver Lake.

The thing is, I wish there were more to this book than that. Everything I just wrote, that's the book. That's the entire book. This is a short book, feels very comicy and includes no real character development. Everything we knew from After The Fall is simply reshown here. Whereas in After The Fall, the writers were smart and skilled enough to leave the intervening time up to the imagination of the reader and the clever allusions to that missing time, First Night makes it explicit. And there is, quite simply, not enough there.

First Night is a terrific failure of imagination; there are no surprising twists or turns because everything that is shown in First Night has already been seen in After The Fall. So, for example, Lorne mentioned exactly what happened to him in After The Fall; he was distraught by killing Lindsay, ran off and when Los Angeles was sucked into hell, he and some of the good demons formed a sacred barrier to keep evil out of Crystal Lake. Lorne had to explain that in order for his presence in After The Fall to make sense. In First Night, Lorne simply repeats that same tale in a series of rhyming couplets. This is utterly unnecessary and does not add anything to the larger mythos.

In fact, just the opposite. First Night treats the readers like they are complete idiots by restating known information. And poorly. So, for example, when Lorne tells his couplets, the artwork looks like something out of the Sunday comics page as opposed to thoughtful, well-drawn comic artwork. His entire section is cartoonish. The interstitials featuring the fish and one of Gunn's goons is similarly poorly drawn, making it virtually impossible to tell who the goon is or much of what is going on.

So, with a strike on the artwork and the story, it comes down to character. The only character of interest is Kate. Unseen in the television show since the second season, Kate is an interesting character who was just dropped after she learned Angel's true nature. First Night resurrects her character and does it well. And the artwork in that section is not bad.

The rest of the characters provide ridiculously simple expository sections that either do not add anything to the mythos or still leave the important questions unanswered. So, for instance, in the Whedonverse, to become a vampire, one has to be sucked dry by a vampire, then drink that sire's blood. How did Gunn ever fall for that?! Not explained in this book.

The back portion of the book, then are script notes and dropped stories from First Night and none of that information enhances the book in any meaningful way. The result is an Angel experience that can safely be avoided, even by the hard-core fans.

For other graphic novels featuring Angel, please visit my reviews of:
Smile Time
Not Fade Away
Spike: Lost And Found

3/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Disappointment In Recycling: Angel: Smile Time Is Available Elsewhere (Better)!

The Good: Two fun stories, One decent one
The Bad: Light on character development, All of these stories are available elsewhere.
The Basics: While I enjoy Angel and Spike, Angel: Smile Time is a poor anthology of works available elsewhere in better mediums or collections.


I am finding myself disappointed in Angel all of a sudden. The other day, I was enthusiastically reviewing the Spike Puppet doll I had purchased for my wfe and I discovered that a graphic novel had been compiled of Angel: Smile Time. So, I dutifully went out to my bookstore, tracked it down and picked it up. Now, I am wishing I had not. It is not so much that Angel: Smile Time is bad as it is uninspired and a recycling of other Angel and Spike comics that are easily available elsewhere. As the name suggests, Angel: Smile Time is a collection of stories that pertain to the puppet Angel from the episode "Smile Time."

For those unfamiliar with it, in the fifth season of Angel (reviewed here!), there was a fan-favorite episode (or the point where some fans felt the show jumped the shark) called "Smile Time." In that episode, Angel was transformed into a puppet version of himself and it is there for all fans to watch on DVD. With Angel: Smile Time, I find myself disappointed in the comic books because this is an utterly pointless trade anthology which includes a comicbook version of "Smile Time," an interstitial story "Mystery Date" (from the "Angel: Masks" anthology) and Spike: Shadow Puppets. Shadow Puppets was released as its own trade paperback anthology earlier this year and is part of the Spike: Omnibus which was just released.

For those unfamiliar with Angel, “Smile Time” was an imaginative episode in the fifth season and Angel: Smile Time is a faithful adaptation of the episode of Angel. The only reason I can think that anyone would want this would be because they are reading the comic book series, but somehow missed the episodes. This is a bit of a foolish paradox as those most likely to be reading the comics are those who watched the show loyally!

In "Smile Time," Angel and his crew at Wolfram & Hart, begin to investigate the zombification of children in Los Angeles. They trace the children turning insensate to the studios which produce Smile Time, a television show with puppets who, as it turns out, are demons sent to get the souls of children. When Angel attempts to investigate this on his own, he is turned into a puppet! He and his crew work to stop the demons at Smile Time before they reach a larger audience and steal even more souls!

In the short, "Mystery Date," Angel - still in puppet form - and Nina go on the date they were planning on at the end of "Smile Time." Unfortunately, while Nina is preparing, the Puppet Angel is replaced by a shapeshifting g'rek'll demon who takes his form and plans to kill Nina. The puppet Angel must rise to his occasion and thwart the villain before his love interest is slain!

In Shadow Puppets, happy on his own after years of fighting alongside other champions, Spike is doing free-lance work as his own investigator in Los Angeles. As a demon begins hunting him down for an unspecified debt, Spike is brought a case by Lorne. It appears that Smile Time has rebooted in Japan and Marco and his team of demon puppets have begun to raise an army to enslave and brain drain children worldwide from their Japanese headquarters. So, armed with weapons and assistance from Beck, Tok, and Betta George, Spike and Lorne begin to negotiate Japan to find out how and what Smile Time is up to there.

As Tok and Spike verbally spar and raid the Smile Time studios, Marco and the Smile Time villains have a different plan. They need Spike out of the way and when their puppet ninja army fails, they do to Spike, Lorne and Betta George what they did to Angel . . . and the three heroes find themselves as wee little puppets who are all that stand between peace and harmony and a slew of dead children!

Angel: Smile Time is a very faithful recreation of the episode, with nothing added in and only minutia taken out. The inclusion of "Mystery Date" is nice, but it still does not illustrate what happened when puppet Angel was made back into a vampire. Shadow Puppets was reviewed here very thoroughly as a standalone and I'll not repeat more about that. This hardcover anthology is a tough sell, though, because so much of it is spent with already-available story.

While the story is the same as the televised episodes, the look is obviously different (being that this is a comic, as opposed to photographs or a video). The artwork is decent-enough to let readers know who the characters are, but it is not extraordinary. For example, there are panels where Nina looks hardly like the actress who plays her and where Wesley looks virtually unrecognizable.

That said, the comic book adaptation has a decent sense of movement to it. The artwork – the pencils and the inks – look good when Puppet Angel fights, even when he leaps upon Spike. This is, however, a plot-intensive story with little in the way of character development, though the way Angel's friends rally around him continues to illustrate how close Angel is with the mortals around him. "Mystery Date" is also very low on character, with the date being another plot twist where Angel must fight yet another demon who is out to harm one he cares about. It gets repetitive, even for fans!

In the trade hardcover anthology, Smile Time includes cover art from the original comic book releases that this collects as well, but no other "bonus" features. Because fans have easy access to the actual episode and the comic does not add anything to that story, this is a very difficult sell for the die-hard fans. Being able to read the episode in comic form is nothing special and all this truly does is put all of the Puppet-in-Angel stories together in one place (at least until they finally fill in the last gap - puppet Angel becoming actual Angel again). Still, it's not enough to make me recommend this to anyone, even fellow fans of Angel. If you're into the show, watch it and enjoy the episode with all the live-action it had and pick up one of the other, more complete Angel or Spike anthologies which include these stories. This just comes across as an attempt on the part of IDW and the Buffyverse masters to exploit fans for a few extra fan dollars.

This is truly disappointing and utterly pointless.

For other Joss Whedon Universe graphic novels, please visit my reviews of:
Angel: Not Fade Away
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Twilight
Serenity: Better Days And Other Stories

3.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Saga Continues After The Coda: Angel: After The Fall Volume 1 - A Rocky Reboot

The Good: Intriguing story elements, Decent pace of dialogue, Worthwhile "bonus" features
The Bad: Artwork is mediocre and erratic, Very much a setup story
The Basics: A good anthology of five comic books, Angel: After The Fall Volume 1 continues the story of Angel and his friends as they fight to survive in L.A.-turned-Hell.


I completely get where Brian Lynch, the co-writer (he's credited as the "scripter") of Angel: After The Fall is coming from with his aching to see episodes of Angel resolved over month long breaks between Joss Whedon Moments when the television series was on. I was a bit of a fan of Angel (reviewed here!) and recently I have been noticing how very many films are relying on graphic novels for source material. Figuring it is time to get on that bandwagon, I decided to start picking up a few graphic novels, just to see what the fuss was about. I started with Angel: After The Fall, Volume 1. Technically an omnibus of the first five comic books in the Angel: After The Fall series, "Volume 1" is half a collection of comic books establishing the new world order of the Angel half of the "Buffyverse."

For starters, it is worth noting that it is impossible to discuss After The Fall without mentioning how the final episode of Angel ended and as a result, those who have not seen the television show might not want to continue if they like the surprises that come from wonderful television. Angel: After The Fall is an incredibly insular work, designed to please long-standing fans of the television series Angel. As a result, it makes a number of very specific allusions to characters in that universe without any explanation. Casual fans, yeah, they're pretty much screwed, too, with characters who popped up for only a few episodes, like Gwen and Nina, being presented in the same straightforward "they've always been here" type way as new characters, like Spider and George (who apparently were in other comic books, featuring Spike). But for fans of Angel, this is a gift.

A few months after the Senior Partners descended upon Los Angeles as the result of his actions in "Not Fade Away," Los Angeles is literally in Hell. Demons and hellbeasts have taken over Los Angeles and divided it up amongst themselves like Chicago mobsters in the 1920s. Angel's crew has been divided and most of the humans who have not evacuated are enslaved to one of the local lords. Angel kills the son of one of the powerful lords, sparking a war between him and all of the demonic entities that now own Los Angeles.

Aided by the ghost of Wesley, Angel challenges the local demons to a battle for control of the city. Readying to fight a champion of each of the lords, Angel works to hide a secret of his own while marshaling allies. Through his quest to attempt to survive his impending battle, he encounters Spike and Illyria, Gwen and Nina, Lorne and his son, Connor. He also studiously avoids the one human he could not save: Gunn, who is now a vampire.

Half of the graphic novel is the collection of comic books, followed by several pages of original artwork - probably covers from the comics this story was taken from, there are credits for the illustrators but not the source! -, the original pitch for the first few issues of After The Fall and the original script for the first chapter (issue) with notes in the sidebar. Some of the changes that are made are smart ones (like not calling the humans "monkeys," especially in the Gunn-related subplots) and others are "take-it or leave-it" type things. Lynch, like everyone who provides a commentary track on any of the Buffy or Angel DVDs is entirely deferential to Joss Whedon. I'm not saying that Joss Whedon is not talented or even ridiculously smart, but he does seem to surround himself with people who want to play in his universe, but completely turn to jelly whenever he offers a suggestion. Lynch, like other writers and producers working with Whedon, writes about changes Whedon suggested and how they were all so much better than what he (Lynch) had originally conceived. I suppose it would be nice to read something either that Whedon bothered to do on his own (hey, if you want to run your universe, run your universe! Cut out the middle men!) or with people who had enough spine and vision to rival his works such that when they had an idea, they stuck by it long enough to say "Joss had this idea and it was good, but here's my better idea and I convinced Joss of it, so here it is." Instead, much of the commentary track in the sidebars for the script to the first issue reads as sycophantic drivel; yet another writer bowing at the Whedon altar (and before the flames: I own all of the Angel DVDs, Firefly and Serenity, so it's not like I don't appreciate Whedon's works).

The Whedon/Lynch vision of Angel: After The Fall is a decent one on a number of levels. The dialogue - especially the mumbled asides - continues the pace and banter of the television show, making it exceptionally easy to slip back into this corner of the "Buffyverse." Angel's trip around the shattered Los Angeles is more than simply a chance to reunite with his scattered comrades and friends; the journey itself tells a story. This might well be because much of it happens on the back of the dragon. Yes, the dragon that Angel was psyched to slay in the final moments of the series is now his mount and he flies around the hellish vision of Los Angeles on it to survey the damage and illustrate just how hellish this portion of the world has become.

The problem, though, is that there are far too many aspects that are unclear, usually as a result of the artwork. First, and this might sound completely lame knowing that the Earth still (presumably) turns, but the point is made that both the sun and moon and moon are out, side by side 24/7. I can live with that - it leaves the werewolves trapped between forms and the vampires irritable because they are able to walk around, yet constantly feel like they'll ignite - but in the artwork, there are vastly different senses of lighting based on the location. So, for example, Downtown L.A., where Burge takes on Angel and Angel kills his son, is lit completely different than Lorne's sanctuary of Silver Lake and Spike's mansion of vigilantes. In fact, the only places that seem pretty much consistent at Burge's territory and Connor's.

The characters are drawn erratically, but in general the artwork in After The Fall is substandard save one or two panels per chapter. Sad to say, but there is a distinct lack of shading and detail and much of the book has the feel of being rushed to press as opposed to producing the best possible artwork. Angel is recognizable, as is Wesley, but Lorne is basically the green blob in a yellow suit in wide shots, Connor is almost indistinguishable and every background character looks like the comic school graduate equivalent of stick figures. Nina the werewolf (minor character from Season Five) reappears and she is saved by the fact that without checking out the source material, it's easy to forget what she looked like. Similarly, the electric Gwen looks almost identical to Cordelia in After The Fall, but to be fair the actress who played her in the series looked a lot like Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia. But most of the characters are given a decent panel of establishing before they are reduced to far less detailed depictions of the characters.

As far as the characters go, this book is very much a setup for what comes later. At $24.95 (hardcover), it's a tough sell (it is essentially a single episode) because this is more or less a big "where are they now" issue and one has to wonder what happens if the Buffy half of the "Buffyverse" continues into a "Season Nine" in the comic books. After all, are we truly to believe that after eight years of fighting evil in all forms, when hell comes to Los Angeles, the Slayers wouldn't get involved to come in and try to fix it?!

Angel is well-presented and the secret that he is maintaining is an interesting one that makes one want to see what comes next, there is no arguing with that. It's a clever idea and I shall not ruin it here. Sufficed to say it is better than Wesley being a ghost in the service of Wolfram And Hart and on par with Gunn being turned. Angel is consistent in his moodiness and his desire to do right, making After The Fall read very true in its presentation.

A bit more problematic is Gunn. I like the idea of Gunn as a vampire, don't get me wrong. But there is a savage quality to Gunn in these pages that does not jive with anything that comes organically from the fifth season Gunn. In other words, Gunn goes from being a brainy, powerful, intellectual lawyer to a vampire fighting - supposedly - for good based on willpower alone. But it seems he is driven far more by anger that fits his earliest characterization as opposed to anything he evolved into. Moreover, there is a distinct lack of explanation for how Angel let Gunn get to his current form. I get that in the Big Battle, Gunn entered wounded and would be easy pickin's for a vampire, but how Angel did not track Gunn down and try to save him after he healed . . . that doesn't ring true for either character. Moreover, if the fundamental question I always ask about Buffyverse vampires is not addressed in the next volume (two, tops) I'll consider it a loss: if vampires can be somewhat nullified by having their soul returned, why didn't Angel use the extensive resources of Wolfram and Hart to re-ensoul Gunn? I mean, Gunn an angry vampire is mildly entertaining, Gunn the headstrong, lawyerly, passionate about humanity yet-tortured-by-having-to-feed-off humans vampire would be real interesting.

Connor is, as noted in the notes, surprisingly well-adjusted, possibly because he grew up in Hell anyway. Spike's arc is interesting and when he comes into the story with Illyria, the book becomes much more intriguing. And it is leading to something . . .

. . . but it won't ruin the end to say that we don't get it in this book. It's the first few chapters of a new Angel story. It's not great literature, but it passes the time and it is something quite likely to satisfy fans of Angel, making it essential for Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel fans. But for general readers, there is far too much that is specific and unexplained in this book from the television series to be enjoyable, much less comprehensible. And yes, unlike what I've heard of the very best graphic novels, this book is very . . . comic book-y.

For other graphic novels with Angel, please visit my reviews of:
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Twilight
Angel: Not Fade Away
Spike: Lost & Found

6.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Not As Much Fun As I'd Hoped, Spike: Shadow Puppets Falls Flatter Than Expected.

The Good: Funny, Interesting story, Moments of character, Bonus feature.
The Bad: Nebulous time frame, Moments where Spike does not sound right, Expensive for what it is.
The Basics: Fun, but hardly consequential or as deep on character as most fans might like, Spike: Shadow Puppets is a decent Spike and Lorne story.


In today's jargon, "graphic novel" seems to be a catch-all term for "trade paperback anthology." There are very few graphic novels that I have found; comics that are released at a novel-length telling a single story and released in only that form because it was the intended medium all along. Far more frequently, "graphic novels" are anthologies of previously released comic books that make for nicer bookshelf storage and presentation. Personally, I think that "graphic novel" is used as a way to disguise the basic fact that what one is reading are comic books.

That said, I have been reading a lot of trade paperback anthologies lately, largely because the "graphic novel" medium is quickly becoming the preferred method of finding fodder for upcoming films. And there are some real benefits to the trade paperback anthology medium. They have allowed, for example, companies like IDW to make movie tie-ins that are easy to find, read and appreciate, like the Star Trek: Countdown (reviewed here!) and Terminator Salvation Prequel books. In the Whedonverse, trade paperback anthologies have allowed for the continuation of cancelled television series, like the Angel: After The Fall and Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Eight books. At least as important, these IDW trade paperback anthologies allow for viable comic book series' based on characters in the franchise who might be vastly popular, but have never been able to hold their own television series, like Spike. A few days ago, I read Spike: Lost & Found and was unimpressed. I am following that experience up with Spike: Shadow Puppets, which is very much a series intended for fans of Spike and Angel. A sequel to arguably one of the most controversial - as in fans either loved it or hated it with little in between - Shadow Puppets allows readers to explore a sequel to "Smile Time," from the fifth season of Angel (reviewed here!).

Happy on his own after years of fighting alongside other champions, Spike is doing freelance work as his own investigator in Los Angeles. As a demon begins hunting him down for an unspecified debt, Spike is brought a case by Lorne. It appears that Smile Time has rebooted in Japan and Marco and his team of demon puppets have begun to raise an army to enslave and brain drain children worldwide from their Japanese headquarters. So, armed with weapons and assistance from Beck, Tok, and Betta George, Spike and Lorne begin to negotiate Japan to find out how and what Smile Time is up to there.

As Tok and Spike verbally spar and raid the Smile Time studios, Marco and the Smile Time villains have a different plan. They need Spike out of the way and when their puppet ninja army fails, they do to Spike, Lorne and Betta George what they did to Angel . . . and the three heroes find themselves as wee little puppets who are all that stand between peace and harmony and a slew of dead children!

Spike: Shadow Puppets is a good little adventure, but it is very much intended for fans of Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Spike, but not anyone who does not know who Spike is or did not see the original Angel episode, "Smile Time." In other words, this is hardly accessible to those who are not already fans and as a result, it is little more than canonized fanfic. The purpose of Spike: Shadow Puppets is not to get new readers or say something that is a big, amazing statement on the human condition. Instead, the whole point of this is to entertain those biased towards it. It does that well.

Ironically, though, for something intended for the fans, Spike: Shadow Puppets is remarkably accessible. Occurring four months after Spike: Asylum, Shadow Puppets tells a story that is very easy for those who have not read Asylum to get into, as far as characterizations and such. In other words, enough is explained about Beck and Tok to justify their places in the story and not leave readers confused. However, fans who are sticklers for details will find the nebulous time frame of Shadow Puppets to be annoying. Shadow Puppets happens after "Smile Time" by an undefined time factor. Here, though, it is irritating to try to reason the book; Angel: After The Fall is essentially Angel Season Six. Spike is in that, as is Betta George. But given that Spike has been working on his own for a while at this point, it implies that it comes from a time after Angel: After The Fall, which Spike has not (yet) departed from. And despite published comments by writer Brian Lynch, having an idea of where in the timeline a story fits in is part of writing the best possible Spike story.

It is that nebulous timeframe that weakens the story because, amidst being a fun and slightly ridiculous sequel, Shadow Puppets is intended to be a character study and a journey of the Spike character to a place where he actually learns something. Herein Spike has some serious problems in Shadow Puppets. Spike is portrayed as a badass who resists any opportunity to appear more human or humane. So, for example, on page 64, Spike counsels Lorne and the dialogue does not read like Spike at all. At least, it does not read like Spike from Angel or late-series Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The result is a comic that has more comic book properties than it does genuine character pathos that mature readers actually want.

Still, Shadow Puppets is fun and in the final act, the appearance of several puppetized characters from Spike's life are both amusing and relevant. Herein the artwork has the only problems of the entire book; the Puppet Drusilla looks far too much like Tok and pages like 78 and 79 are visually confusing. By that point, as well, the book has mostly degenerated into a series of in-jokes as opposed to substance and the ultimate plan of Marco and the Smile Time puppets is realized.

The opportunity to write a sequel to “Smile Time" for Spike seems like fun and Shadow Puppets does a good job, at least with the materials Brian Lynch was handed. Lynch smartly made sure that this is not simply a rehash of "Smile Time" with Spike as the protagonist. Instead, the premise is set up with Spike mercilessly mocking Angel for the adventure where he was transformed into a puppet . . . only to be turned into one himself. This works perfectly fine as far as the plausibility goes because it is unlikely Spike and Angel had had much of a conversation about the "how" of the transformation following that episode.

But Lynch's real insight for making an interesting story comes in the transformation of Lorne into a puppet as well and the issues Lorne wrestles with there. Betta George's transformation has little impact on the story, but Lorne's gives Lorne and Spike a chance to bond, something they did not have a chance to do on the Angel television series. And Lynch hits both characters well, packing a scene with a real sense of Lorne's character . . . before too brusquely blowing it off with Spike's dialogue.

In general, Franco Urru's illustrations are well-done and enough to clearly differentiate the characters. Very few of the panels are simplified and cartoonish - though the book does have panels like that on 36 and 41. For half the book, the challenge is to make a plausible Lorne and Spike puppet image and still maintain a sense of realistic physics and form to them. Urru does that adequately throughout the book and Shadow Puppets is a brightly colored, exciting book that most fans will enjoy.

Those same fans are likely to appreciate the "commentary track" at the end of the book, a series of page by page notes on various in-jokes, allusions and references to other Buffyverse works. The comments are useful to those who might not have seen "Smile Time" or read Spike: Asylum, and they genuinely do enhance the sense of the book as a serious work.

For the most part, though, Spike: Shadow Puppets is not serious. It is fun and it has some decent moments to excite "Spike" readers, but it adds little to the overall mythos of Spike . . . except when it does. Spike: Shadow Puppets has a decent theme, but attentive viewers of the series that Spike was on are likely to feel he had already reached the conclusion that this book is supposed to get him to. Still, it is a fun story and the sheer number of allusions and ideas are likely to make fans of the deceased Buffyverse series' return for one more felty outing. On that level, it is just fun enough to recommend, even with the $17.99 price tag.

For other Joss Whedon graphic novels, please visit my reviews of:
Angel: Not Fade Away
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Twilight
Serenity: Better Days And Other Stories

6/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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