The Most Compelling Angel Has Ever Been… Not Much

     Angel: After the Fall is the continuation of the Angel television series, which chronicled the adventures of Buffy’s former lover, Angel, with his gang in Los Angeles.  I never really liked Angel as a character, largely because I thought that David Boreanaz had no talent.  Fortunately, in the comic book adaptation, I don’t have to deal with him.  So what is this series?  Confusing.  More confusing than Final Crisis.  And I normally don’t have trouble figuring things out, or I don’t care.  So this is not a good thing.  That means that most readers will have no idea what is going on.

     So, Illyria is going to destroy all of existence because she can’t control things.  Okay…  She has the power to do that?  She can destroy everything, but she can’t dodge or shake off a few attacks from dragon things from Wolfram & Hart when she’s confused?  Not very clear with the power levels here.  Anyway, people are dying right and left.  Gwen Raiden, Groosalugg, Connor…  Why exactly did Connor die?  Not sure.  So, combine this with Cordelia, Fred, and Doyle being dead, Wesley being sort of dead, and Gunn being a vampire…  Who’s the cast of Angel now?  Angel, Spike, noncorporeal Wesley… Gunn sort of…  That it?  I’m not sure what Gunn really wants, who’s on what side, or what’s going on.  All I wish is that the cool cast would come back.  Instead, we have a cast that can’t stop dying.  Anyway, the only reason I’m reading this series anymore is to see what happens to Spike and Illyria/Fred.  This is only worth reading if you’re a hardcore Angel fan.

Plot: 6.5      Art: 7.2      Dialogue: 7.0      Overall: 6.8

Almost, But Not Quite

     This review does not include Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #21 because I have not read it yet.

     Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight is the continuation of one of my favorite shows of all time, and I’ve been reading the series ever since it started.  It’s been fun, and the arc with Faith and Giles was a great character study.  But the whole series has been missing something crucial: the actors.  Most of the plots are the same kind of things we would see in the series, aside from the wholly crappy idea that Buffy have sex with another Slayer, which had no purpose whatsoever.   But without Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendan, Alyson Hannigan, and the rest of the cast, the characters are missing some of their trademark spark.  That’s not to say that this is a terrible series.  It’s quite good.  But it isn’t as good as the series.

     Case in point.  Issue #20 features Buffy having some sort of dream where she is back in Sunnydale in her high school days.  Joyce is alive, Angel’s still hanging around, Cordelia is popular and nasty and not some kind of god, and everything’s all so nostalgic.  The purpose of this issue was to showcase what the failed animated series would have been.  But instead of being a great, retrospective look on Buffy’s past, it was just too goofy.  It was almost unbelievable.  And the whole thing with Buffy asking Angel whether or not she was allowed to tell people what she knew about them from the future was kind of silly.  Anyway, I do love this series, and from what I’ve heard about the new arc, things are going to be even crazier.  I just wish that 1) Joss was writing the series all the time and 2) it could actually be a TV show, with all the actors we know and love.

Plot: 8.8      Art: 8.3      Dialogue: 8.5      Overall: 8.5