Angel & Faith

Buffy’s greatest rivals spin out into their own series.

Buffy Season 8 got pretty crazy and bizarre at times. For me, the most attractive part of the premise for Season 9 is that the writers will be taking a bit of a "back to basics" approach that falls more in line with the show. Angel & Faith looks to live up to that goal so far. The series picks up nimbly from where Season 8 left off but offers a more confined and intimate conflict.

The book is about as accessible as one can reasonably expect from a new chapter in such a long-running franchise. Christos Gage explores the new adventures of troubled vampire Angel and former Slayer Faith as they team up to settle all of Giles’ unfinished business. The duo aren’t quite as mismatched as I expected. They actually get along fairly well in this first issue, even if their first mission doesn’t go quite as planned.

Gage captures the voices of the two characters well enough, though his dialogue certainly lacks the crackle of Joss Whedon’s. But this definitely reads like a proper Buffy spinoff, and Gage finds more success tackling Giles in an extended flashback sequence. Hopefully the character will continue to have a role in the series in this form.

Even non-fans of Buffy may be lured in by Rebekah Isaacs’ artwork. While her pencils unfortunately aren’t quite as sharp and refined as they were on DV8: Gods and Monsters, she still delivers an attractive book with plenty of expressive character work and action scenes. Isaacs is quite a bit more successful than the other Buffy artists at capturing the likenesses of the actors without the pencils losing a natural, organic feel.

All of these qualities, coupled with a nice little twist at the end, ensure that this series should have little problem holding the attention of Buffy fans. With luck, the actual Season 9 book can manage as strong a start.