Buffy & Angel comics

[Plain Simple]

DevilEyes wrote:

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Wiki isn't right about library edition Issue 3 at least. It says here (don't open the link, the cover pic is spoilery) that it contains 3 web comics (titles tagged as potentially spoilery)

Harmony Bites, Harmony Comes to the Nation and Vampy Cat Play Friend

that take place around issues 21-22.

If they're including the web comics, I assume that they're including the one-shots as well and Wikipedia just has incomplete info, since those library issues haven't been released yet. My guess is that the Willow one-shot is in Issue 1 or 2, and the Riley one in Issue 4.

According to this, Issue 1 contains two one-shots. If they meant Always Darkest as one of them, which is the other? http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/18-89...on-Volume-1-HC

Thanks. What I'm mainly concerned with is if any of the two versions (library of TPB) contains more material than the other. The library edition has also a lot (all?) of the covers collected at the end and a bunch of sketches. Perhaps that's the only difference. On the other hand, this doesn't mention the Willow or Riley one-shot in vol. 2, and your link (I'd seen that cover already, but thanks for the spoiler warning; it's appreciated) doesn't list if for vol. 3 either, so that would mean then that they both have to be in vol. 4?

As for the second one shot included in the library edition vol. 1, I think they mean one-shot as opposed to multi-issue arc, not opposed to regular series issue. So that would make "The Chain" the second one-shot. That confused me at first as well.

Edited to add: Actually, by that reasoning, the two arcs in vol. 1 are "The Long Way Home" and "No Future for You" and the one-shots are "The Chain" and "Anywhere but Here". "Always Darkest" is perhaps not counted in that at all, since it's just a three-page story. It's in there as well though.

[Plain Simple]

I've contacted Dark Horse asking them what exactly is going to be in the library editions. I'll put the answer here when I get it.

[Plain Simple]

I didn't get any reply from Dark Horse, but I did manage to get a chance to read most of the canon comics. I've now read Angel: ATF (so #1-17), four Spike series (Asylum, Shadow Puppets, ATF, and the 8-issue `ongoing' series), BtVS s8, and even a few issues of BtVS s9 and Angel & Faith.

Clearly, I'm liking what I'm reading. I'm surprised how easily these comics drew me in.

I do have some confusion about story elements though. Perhaps we can discuss those here (I'm sure they must have been discussed in other threads as well in the past, but these season-long threads tend to be quite long.) So, spoilers follow below, possibly about all the material I just listed.

First a small question concerning the transition from Angel: ATF to BtVS s8 for the character of Angel. If I remember correctly the chronologically earliest appearance of Angel in BtVS s8 is in one of the final issues, where we see him come through some portal hitting the Hollywood sign. This does not follow seemlessly from the end of ATF #17, where Angel is starting up Angel Investigations again in L.A. Is this scene in BtVS s8 a continuation from the last 'ongoing' Angel issue, or did I miss some explanation there?

Then the bigger issue: I am completely confused about the motivations of Angel as Twilight. So here's what I can make out (but I might be completely off):

-Immediately after hitting the Hollywood sign, Angel is contacted (via a dog) by Twilight, a mystical being who is the personification (or demonification?) of the universe's wish/want/need to conceive a child universe/dimension/whatever.

-Somehow Twilight convinces Angel that this universe birth is going to happen (Giles also seems convinced of that), because Buffy used her scythe to call/create many slayers. There is no stopping this happening, but for some reason it's going to be very very bad for everyone, unless Angel manages to focus all of Buffy's attention onto one bad guy and then has sex with her? In fact, Angel is convinced that things will be so bad if he doesn't do these things, that he goes as far as killing hundreds of slayers, and presumably other people. Uhm... huh?

-By doing all this killing, the power of the other Slayers is going back to Buffy (I think that was the reason for her new superpowers, right? of was that contradicted again later?), turning her into superwoman. At the same time, the Twilight consciousness demon thingy is giving Angel superpowers, and so when they have sex, the Twilight universe is born and both of them are transported there.

-Not sure what the alternative would have been if Angel hadn't done what he did, but it seems that for the people back in our universe things are still not particularly good. Apparently Buffy and Angel crossing over to the Twilight dimension (or perhaps just the birth of the Twilight dimension) ripped open some dimensional rift through which hordes of demons come through (I think they said they were Old Ones? If so, how come they're not as powerful as Illyria? Btw, I would have liked to see her reaction to this demon flood, if they really were Old Ones.). So what would have been the alternative, if Angel had done nothing? The universe would just have died in childbirth? At least now there is a chance of survival? Is that the reason why Angel did what he did (or at least the reason by which Twilight convinced him to do what he did)?

-Angel's motivations here become extremely muddy. It doesn't seem his actions led to a lot of good, apart from Buffy and him apparently being in happy happy land now. Waaaiiittt a minute. Happy happy land? Where is Angelus? Isn't Angel perfectly happy either during amazing-Buffy-sex or afterwards in Twilight land? Or are Buffy's doubts putting a damper on his happiness? What about Angel's curse?

-Angel at some point claims he didn't know demons would be flooding earth after the Twilight zone got born. So does that mean he was just so fooled by Twilight, that he was convinced somehow (but how?) that not killing all those people would lead to the end of the earth, but killing them would prevent that and not lead to demons pouring over the land? Angel is not that gullible, is he? Twilight must've had some good 'proof' for his claims, for Angel to just start doing his bidding, long long before Twilight actually possessed him.

-So yeah, that happens next. Buffy goes back to our universe to help her friends. Angel comes along, and then Twilight is pissed, because apparently he needed them to shape his new shiny dimension. Without them it is just empty or doomed or whatever. So he possesses Angel and tries to steal the Seed of Magic.

-The Seed, another McGuffin which was conveniently located below Sunnydale all this time, and that Watchers, and vampires, and who not, apparently knew about, but never mentioned. But now suddenly Spike knows all about it and the race for the egg starts.

-Trying to keep the players straight here. A Twilight-possessed Angel tries to steal the Seed to take it back to his empty Twilight dimension to fill that new world with magic stuff, so that it's not that empty, right? The demons are trying to take the egg, because it also works as a cork holding in apparently more Old Ones. Not so sure why all these Old Ones as so fond of each other, but that's apparently what they want to do. Then The Master (really… come on… couldn't you have left at least one dead guy dead) wants to protect the Seed, because he is raised and controlled by the Seed and apparently the Seed doesn't care much for being taken away for whatever reason. Buffy and the gang also want to protect the Seed, because they don't want more demons coming to earth, but in the end she sees no other option but to destroy it (because Angel!Twilight almost takes it), thereby 'breaking the cork in the bottle' and stopping new magic from coming into the world.

-Apparently magic can still leave the world, because Twilight disappears, and also no new slayers are called and (according to early season 9) no new demons posses vampires (even though other vampires are killed), so all those slayer and vamp demony bits disappear after their hosts die. Just like the magical souls I suppose.

This seems more or less to be the story, but like I said, I can't make heads or tails of Angel's motivations, unless we (rather unsatisfactorily) explain it all away by "he was completely fooled by Twilight". But even then, I'd like to know what Twilight made him believe to push him to do so much evil, for what he apparently believed was a good, and unavoidable, cause. Angel wasn't possessed all that time, as far as I could make out.

Come to think of it... Could the whole Shanshu prophecy and Angel getting visions of him being a force for evil at the end of the world in ATF, play into his motivations somehow? The current status of those things is also quite muddy (or is this something that's addressed in the 'ongoing', possibly non-canon, issues of IDW's Angel? If it is, no spoilers about what they address exactly, please. I might still read those issues at some point.).

[Ethros]

Wow, sounds like you've read a lot in that space of time



I haven't got time to write a full answer at the moment, but basically Angel appearing out of that portal in Season 8 isn't meant to be right after ATF or anything.
As for when it does occur, god knows. Thats one of my main gripes about Season 8/9, that there has still been no explanation or anything of how Angel became Twilight *really* (apart from about one page in the Riley one shot where he's talking to Whistler about it)

It was just like-
Comic- "Who is Twilight.... it's Angel!"
Reader- "oh right, so how did that happen?"
Comic- "erm, anyway..."


I still say their should have been a mini of the Angel we know in his time in LA, like the end of IDW run, with Connor, Gunn, Illyria etc, and then slowly how he became this masked "supervillain" if you will.

[Brikar99]

Do any of these comics mention what happened to the Groosalugg?

[RoJoHen]

Brikar99 wrote:

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Do any of these comics mention what happened to the Groosalugg?

He popped up in the Angel: After the Fall comics.

[Plain Simple]

From some comments in the season 9 comics, it seems the writers themselves also acknowledge that Angel's motivations were rather muddy. Something about how he was planning to take everyone with him to the Twilight Zone, but Buffy didn't let him finish his sentence or some such...

Btw, is there a way to get the Free Comic Book story "In space no one can hear you slay" somewhere for free? Or does that only work on the day itself?

[DevilEyes]

Plain Simple wrote:

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From some comments in the season 9 comics, it seems the writers themselves also acknowledge that Angel's motivations were rather muddy. Something about how he was planning to take everyone with him to the Twilight Zone, but Buffy didn't let him finish his sentence or some such...

Which is a load of bullshit (that Buffy didn't let him finish), since we know that Buffy let him talk and he had all the time to say all those stuff, but he didn't. It just makes Angel look like a liar. Maybe he's also lying to himself. But it's an incredibly annoying scene. "Oh, that's sexist. And funny. And true." Are the writers trolling us? Surely Gage can't be expecting us to forget what actually happened in 8.35 - we can easily look it up in the actual issue.

However, he said a few issues before (the Harmony issue, #5) that he was actually planning to take just the "worthy", "good" people - which actually makes him look even worse. Playing good and making decisions who deserves to live, and apparently still thinking it was a good idea.

[Methos]

People seem to be getting all fired up in the angry way over some comic, that may or may not be from 'dark stallion' or whatever the company name is....

I have no idea what they're onabout, I mean, real comics dont go on about androids thinking they're pregnant and talking about abortions. Maybe it was in one of those comic fanzines or something?

And I heard about one supposed comic about xander staying with a vampire for a year. Obviously it was just fanfiction written by a 13 year old girl, I mean, seriously, that sounds like the basis of a slash mpreg fic that rational people try to avoid. I mean, I'd love a BtVS Comic series exploring a Season 8 and 9 and so on, but there isn't one.

I mean, come on, all these rumours about 'a gay male slayer' who goes the batman route, sorry but that's just fanfiction. bad fanfiction at that, as it sounds like the prelude to a xander slash mpreg fic... oh just like that vampire one.

/sarcasm

M

[Plain Simple]

DevilEyes wrote:

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Which is a load of bullshit (that Buffy didn't let him finish), since we know that Buffy let him talk and he had all the time to say all those stuff, but he didn't. It just makes Angel look like a liar. Maybe he's also lying to himself. But it's an incredibly annoying scene. "Oh, that's sexist. And funny. And true." Are the writers trolling us? Surely Gage can't be expecting us to forget what actually happened in 8.35 - we can easily look it up in the actual issue.

However, he said a few issues before (the Harmony issue, #5) that he was actually planning to take just the "worthy", "good" people - which actually makes him look even worse. Playing good and making decisions who deserves to live, and apparently still thinking it was a good idea.

Yes, Angel's motivations in season 8 are a mess. To me it looks like the writers realized after the fact that they didn't explain things well in s8 and now try to retcon in an explanation after the fact which doesn't really fit with what was published before.

So as far as I can make out now, according to the 'new' retconned version, the idea is the following: Twilight was going to the happen, with or without Angel's interference. But by being the big bad and focussing all Buffy's attention onto him, somehow Angel thought he would become in charge of the Twilight zone to enough of an extent to start taking people from our universe to the zone? If not, everyone would just die together with our universe during child birth?

Methos wrote:

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People seem to be getting all fired up in the angry way over some comic, that may or may not be from 'dark stallion' or whatever the company name is....

I have no idea what they're onabout, I mean, real comics dont go on about androids thinking they're pregnant and talking about abortions. Maybe it was in one of those comic fanzines or something?

And I heard about one supposed comic about xander staying with a vampire for a year. Obviously it was just fanfiction written by a 13 year old girl, I mean, seriously, that sounds like the basis of a slash mpreg fic that rational people try to avoid. I mean, I'd love a BtVS Comic series exploring a Season 8 and 9 and so on, but there isn't one.

I mean, come on, all these rumours about 'a gay male slayer' who goes the batman route, sorry but that's just fanfiction. bad fanfiction at that, as it sounds like the prelude to a xander slash mpreg fic... oh just like that vampire one.

/sarcasm

M

Okay, so I guess you don't like it (but apparently not enough to not stay informed). I agree that not everything worked out, but overall I'm enjoying the comics. It's not like the tv series didn't have any clunkers.

Not sure what the gay male slayer reference is about. The Siphon?

[DevilEyes]

Plain Simple wrote:

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Not sure what the gay male slayer reference is about. The Siphon?

The storyline of the upcoming arc called "Billy the Vampire Slayer" that's been hyped through interviews with Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg, who are writing the arc. He's not an actual Slayer, just a 'badass normal' ordinary boy who looks up to the Slayers and slays vampires, he's got no superstrength.

So, this is a proper spoiler even for those who are up to date with the comics, but it's DH themselves who are spoiling it.

[Ethros]

^ As they always do. ie, Twilight is Angel. "oops we made a mistake putting the wrong cover out." Yeah bullshit, it was nothing to do with pushing sales at all was it?