Angel #18
Kelley Armstrong & Dave Ross
With Joss Whedon's "After the Fall" run on Angel over, a new creative team takes over the book in the form of illustrator Dave Ross and supernatural novelist Kelley Armstrong. While it does have the feel of just another media tie-in book from IDW, I do think that Armstrong takes what was left for her at the end of Whedon's arc and kind of runs with it. Angel is a celebrity now, and has to live in an LA that remembers going to Hell and back, and him being their savior. With this fallout, there are new mysterious magical beings showing up, assassins sent after the hero, and bystanders feigning danger to attract his attention. Also, the lineup has changed. Shrunk, really. Instead of involving everyone who has every been in the TV show, Armstrong focuses on a small group consisting of Angel, his son Connor and Kate, the ex-policewoman who was a part of early episodes of the show, but was all but forgotten shortly after. And while it's nice to see Kate on the team, she doesn't seem like...Kate. She seems more like a character from one of Armstrong's books: a tough, quipping demon hunter, sexy and strong. The Kate I knew was a troubled, haunted woman with a real sad darkness about her, far from the happy-go-lucky character who wants to be buddy-buddy with Angel here. I wasn't the biggest fan of Angel: After the Fall, but at least it had a good story through all of that bad art, and the characters felt like them. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to continue with this book or not, because the events that take place are kind of neat in this issue, despite my reservations, and the action and art are clearer than they were during Whedon's run, though still far from anything to brag about. But...I can say that I definitely like the cat-girl.
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With Joss Whedon's "After the Fall" run on Angel over, a new creative team takes over the book in the form of illustrator Dave Ross and supernatural novelist Kelley Armstrong. While it does have the feel of just another media tie-in book from IDW, I do think that Armstrong takes what was left for her at the end of Whedon's arc and kind of runs with it. Angel is a celebrity now, and has to live in an LA that remembers going to Hell and back, and him being their savior. With this fallout, there are new mysterious magical beings showing up, assassins sent after the hero, and bystanders feigning danger to attract his attention. Also, the lineup has changed. Shrunk, really. Instead of involving everyone who has every been in the TV show, Armstrong focuses on a small group consisting of Angel, his son Connor and Kate, the ex-policewoman who was a part of early episodes of the show, but was all but forgotten shortly after. And while it's nice to see Kate on the team, she doesn't seem like...Kate. She seems more like a character from one of Armstrong's books: a tough, quipping demon hunter, sexy and strong. The Kate I knew was a troubled, haunted woman with a real sad darkness about her, far from the happy-go-lucky character who wants to be buddy-buddy with Angel here. I wasn't the biggest fan of Angel: After the Fall, but at least it had a good story through all of that bad art, and the characters felt like them. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to continue with this book or not, because the events that take place are kind of neat in this issue, despite my reservations, and the action and art are clearer than they were during Whedon's run, though still far from anything to brag about. But...I can say that I definitely like the cat-girl.
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