Angel: After the Fall #12 Review

Writer: Brian Lynch
Pencillers: Stephen Mooney and Nick Runge

Spoiler Alert

In every episode of Buffy and Angel, there is a scene where either Giles or Wesley explained, at length, what was happening in the current episode. These exposition scenes tended to occur in the library, the magic shop, or the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel. After the Fall #12 is the exposition scene for the After the Fall story. There is nothing remotely wrong with that. Every story requires an exposition scene, and this one is very strong. Taken out of context, however, an exposition issue is a very odd thing. Normally, exposition is immediately framed on either side by drama or action. Here, with a month break on either side, the exposition feels like I'm taking a break from the story to read a very long summary. It's an interesting experience, and I suppose a necessary one, but this doesn't really read like a comic book so much as a university lecture. There is literally more text on every page here than there is in the average Bendis comic.

However, this book shows that Lynch really does know what he is doing with the Angel franchise. While Season Five of the television show was in a lot of ways the strongest of the show, it did seem to veer away from the original premise of Angel. The Shanshu prophecy said that Angel was to play an important role in the apocalypse, and Wolfram & Hart spent much of its time trying to corrupt Angel so that he would be on their side when the apocalypse came. However, in the penultimate episode of the series, Angel signed away his place in the prophecy, making it feel like the Shanshu prophecy was somehow a loose thread that the writers couldn't figure out how to work into the chosen ending for the show.

Lynch takes the prophecy and makes it center stage again. Not only that, but his exposition makes the prophecy retroactively at the heart of everything Wolfram & Hart has been doing, not only in After the Fall, but in Season Five as well. We find that everything from sending Angel to hell to turning Gunn into a vampire has all been a part of a continuing plan to corrupt Angel, one which, if the prophecy given to Angel at the end is to be believed, will be successful. The two-page splash in which the prophecy is revealed to Angel is a phenomenal moment, one in which Angel realises that the Shanshu prophecy is not simply a source of hope but a potential source of horror. Angel sees himself with a sword having brutally killed what looks like everyone, and decides that maybe he would be better off succumbing to the wounds he suffered last issue.

Prophecy has often been a point of focus for the Angel television show, and one of the things it captured nicely is that prophecies can be often manipulated or deceptive. We learned this lesson best in season three, where Wesley learned not to listen to talking hamburgers. Lynch wisely recalls this moment, and is aware of all those ambiguities concerning prophecies. There literally isn't a single prophecy here that might not be something else. Gunn's putative prophecies were apparently actually from Wolfram & Hart. Cordelia may or may not be an illusion, a manifestation of good or a manifestation of evil. Even the last splash page has an untrustworthy source, as it comes from Wolfram & Hart through Wesley. It is genuinely unclear here whether or not Angel should succumb to his wounds or not, and this ambiguity is deliberate on Lynch's part. While everything is revealed in this issue, in another way, nothing is revealed. We have a series of explanations that may or may not be true and a new set of prophecies that may or may not be lies. This has the effect of refocussing the book on these new prophecies until we find out what is really going on: it gives us all the questions.

This isn't the strongest issue of After the Fall. In a sense, there's no way it could be. The exposition scene is never the strongest scene in any story. However, this is an exceptionally well done exposition scene, and shows that Brian Lynch has complete control over the themes and ideas of the television show. We've taken a minute out of the action to find out what is going on, and that is a very worthwhile thing. Next issue, with all of the questions and ideas in mind, the story will be even more meaningful.

B+

Angel: After the Fall #11 Review

Writer: Bryan Lynch
Penciller: Nick Runge

Spoiler Alert

After ten issues of trying to find its tone, Angel: After the Fall #11 is the best issue yet. Angel and Gunn finally meet face-to-face, and Lynch has the opportunity to explore the psychology of vampirism that was always such an important part of both the shows Angel and Buffy. Neither show ever really glorified vampires. They were neither Murnau's Nosferatu nor Rice's Lestat. Vampire were not characterised in the purely aesthetic categories of ugly and beautiful.

Vampires instead are pathetic mockeries of their former selves. They have human emotions and they have their human memories, but they have lost their humanity, sometimes called their ability to love. Instead, those emotions have nothing to ground them, as they are no longer human, and can never be fulfilled. However, lacking that humanity, they cannot even realise that they are unfulfilled. As Darla said of her unborn baby when she realised she was about to turn back into a soulless vampire, "I won't be able to love it. I won't even be able to remember that I loved it."

In this issue, we see that this is what has become of Gunn, one of main characters on Angel for all but its first season. He still wants to be a hero. He still hates vampires. He believes he has visions from the Powers That Be, and plans to save Los Angeles. However, his emotions are confused. He lurches back and forth between rage and pride. Meanwhile, he can't even quite see what is wrong with leaving a demon, rotting, nailed to a wall for week. He cannot be a hero, and he cannot even be aware that he cannot be a hero. He still wants Angel's approval, while he also wants to kill him. Simply stated, Gunn is a mess. Moreover, he can never be anything more than a mess, because all his emotions and desires are distortions of a humanity that he has forever lost.

The issue takes the right approach in having the reader realise what has happened to Gunn at the same time as Angel realises it. We see that Angel still holds deep affection for his former friend, and come to the realise along with him, that he will almost certainly need to kill him. That captures perfectly the simultaneous sense of familiarity and loss that accompany characters in the Buffy universe when they encounter their sired former loved ones. And Gunn is one of our loved ones, too. Many people identified with him on the show more, perhaps, than any of the other characters. He was a normal guy trying to make things right, deeply angry at the death of his sister at the hands of vampires. Now he is one, and cannot see that he can no more save himself than he could save his sister. He is lost to us, and this book makes us feel it strongly.

The issue has other strong elements as well. The banter between Spike, Connor and Gwen is well written, and it looks like Gwen is going to be playing a much larger role in this story than one might have thought. When Gun stabs Angel, thinking he's still a vampire, it's a reminder of the kind of torture that vampires are able to inflict on each other. Gunn's complete indecision at finding out that Angel is dying shows just how confused he's become. Then, Gunn's strange and ambiguous whisper to Angel, "I found her first", reminds us that this story will stay personal for a long time.

Overall, this is definitely the best issue of Angel: After the Fall by far. It is better than most of the Buffy: Season Eight comics, as well. The book has really returned to its roots, not being afraid to tell the sort of dark, meaningful stories that made the television shows so memorable.

A-