Angel

What Is It?: Angel- After the Fall: Issue #2 (written by Brian Lynch, plotted by Joss Whedon and Brian Lynch). It’s canon.

Timing: Directly following After the Fall: Issue #1.

Warning: The bigger spoilers will be written in black text. Simply highlight to read. As this is a review, there will be some minor "spoilers" sprinkled throughout the text that don’t warrant being hidden. If you have not read the issue and don’t want to know anything about the plot, don’t read this.

REVIEW: Get your "Live Fast, Die Never" soundtrack ready to play in the background. Go to youtube and pick your favorite "Angel: Season Six" opening credits to play after the sixth page reveal. This is an experience that fans will want to enjoy, because this comic maintains the momentum that Brian Lynch started in the flawlessly scripted first issue. Though this time around we get less pages (the five extra pages in the first issue was a gift, really), I didn’t even notice it. This issue bursts with content: We’ve got awesome fight scenes, great character interaction, and the return of the other ensouled vamp that everyone’s been asking about. Not to mention the return of (SPOILER:)the most interesting character that Joss Whedon never got the chance to dwell on. That’s right baby. Enter- Blue Thunder.(/SPOILER)

I don’t want to keep comparing this series to "Buffy-Season Eight," which is wonderful as it is, but there is something I’d like to address. A lot of people are taking issue with the fact that Joss Whedon is keeping us in the dark with many of his plots. There are still so many questions that, ten issues into the series, haven’t been answered. Why is Dawn a giant? Where has Willow been, and what’s up with her crazy new powers? When is this series set? Not to mention that we just found out who Floaty Boots from Issue #1 is at the end of #9. I find the slow discovery very exciting (I think Joss was inspired by slower movement of the arc from his favorite show, Veronica Mars) but I can also see why people are getting antsy to find out. Some even said that this takes away from their reading experience. This is not the case with After the Fall. In this issue, we get heaps of answers to the questions posed in issue #1 (What was that glowy orb that Gunn took from Kr’ph? (Kinda:) How was Gunn sired? What is Spike up to? What’s up with Spike and all those babes? How is the Angel/Connor relationship going to be? How does Angel feel about Wesley’s sitch? We also kind of get an answer to the questions about the canonicity of Spike: Asylum. That doesn’t, and probably won’t, get a definitive answer, but Betta George alludes to having spent time with a vampire.

Oh and... to those with a magnifying glass more powerful than mine, you’ll known the name of the Dragon in this issue. I’m stickin’ with Ramon.

Now that I’ve BSed enough, allow me to get down to the juicy center of this review. The character’s dialogue is, again, great. Spike and Angel’s exchanges are classic, but who would expect any less? I have to note though, that I kinda felt like Gwen was talking like she was Faith. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t seen a Gwen-centric episode in quite some time, but I’m not sold on her dialogue yet. Everyone else that speaks in this issue is spot on, particularly Connor (who didn’t have much in the way of a speaking part last time). Lynch continues to shine in his depiction of Spike, introducing him with a scene sort of mirror the time where Angel tells tales of his brave, brave conquests in Pylea. And, for the first time in... ever, the character I was most excited to see is Gunn. If you thought his character arc in Season Five was his biggest and most interesting yet, just hold up a second. His dilemma (nah, it’s not just ’grr I’m a vamp, Angel dies and women are eaten!’) is something I could have never thought up in my wildest and most badass dreams. While other characters get more page time in this issue than in the first, but Angel is still very much the center of the action and the core of the story. Angel, the man and the series, are in very good hands.

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