cornerofmadness

In full disclosure, I have never been a big fan of Boom!’s updated Buffy and Angel. I collected far more of the issues than intended, mostly because of inertia, nostalgia and being short of reading time and suddenly I have nine months’ worth of books to wade through and finding I didn’t like it when I finally managed to read. Then they started pulling the same thing that made me quit the Marvel X books back in the day: started spinning off multiple side comics, Angel & Spike, Giles, Willow etc. and if you wanted the whole story without gaps you needed to get them all.

Finally, I put a moratorium on the books as far as my pull list was concerned but they still put the new ones in there either because they’re not paying attention or hoping I’ll feel guilty and buy them anyhow, especially in the light of the fact my comic book store is far enough away I only get there every few months. Regardless that’s how I ended up with Boom!’s two newest Buffyverse offerings: Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer and Angel.

This is less a review and more of a dissection of these two books so expect spoilers because really they’re the reason I’m writing this. I only received one of the Buffy and three episodes of Angel (and I wish it had been the other way around).

Buffy the Last Slayer is an interesting idea but bad in execution so far. On the inside cover in small print it says this is an alternative universe. Buffy looks to be seventy years old but you realize she can’t be more than fiftyish. I guess that’s the hard life of a Slayer. It’s told in shifting time lines where in the now we’re living with the supernatural beings openly and the Slayers were meant to be liaisons to the vampires and other supernaturals except something happened. Buffy is unhappy with this turn of events and now her nose bleeds every time she’s near a vampire (not explained why)

You get the idea she’s alone because all the Slayers and Watchers and her friends were in one place at one time (with different friends being alive since this is an alt verse, such as Anya) and an explosion happens (I guess the death of the Watcher council didn’t happen in this verse or maybe they never learn). I’m not sure how vampires and humans are living and working side by side given how vampires, werewolves etc. were portrayed in the Buffyverse and the story telling is as clear as coffee. Episode one ends with a teenaged girl finding Buffy claiming she’s a Slayer too among other surprises.

Here’s the thing, this could have potential but the story line is so muddy and the art muddier that I’m fairly sure I don’t want to try and parse it out. Also it’s unrelentingly depressing without a single joyful thing in it, none of the fun that informed the Buffyverse (If I wanted that, I’d read Boom!’s other offering, the quite incredible Something Is Killing the Children which seriously is Buffy if the Watchers were even bigger dicks and you became a slayer through training ala Supernatural and the hunters)

And that brings me to Angel which also carries the tiny print this is an alternative universe warning. This feels like they went trawling on Archive of their Own for fanfic and not the good stuff because there is a ton of fantastic fanfic for the Buffyverse including alternative universe stuff. No this feels like they found some thirteen year old’s first attempt at fanfic where everyone is sort of human kinda but not really. Now that’s not to bash on that type of fanfic. It has its place. I was a thirteen year old fanficcer once upon a lifetime ago but I should be able to hold published works to a higher standard.

So yes Angel is in L.A. but he and Cordy aren’t monster hunters. They’re actors and she’s playing Lockley (for a moment I held out hope it WAS Lockley, that would have been more interesting). Gunn is Angel’s…agent? I think? It’s hard to tell. Spike is Spike. Fred is a Slayer and Wesley is a Watcher. Lorne is there but I have no idea why. All he does is hang out with Andrew Wells. I’m going to digress for a moment here.

Can we PLEASE stop with Andrew? Kill him off. Forget he ever existed. Something. Anything. That Andrew should never have been ‘redeemed’ is a hill I’m willing to die on twenty years after the fact. To this day I’m haunted by a conversation I had back in the early 00s with someone who didn’t like I thought Connor had potential as a character (squandered in the attempts to punish Charisma for getting pregnant). This person thought he was irredeemable for trying to kill his father (ignoring that his entire life he’d been gas lighted into it) but she was also okay with Andrew in spite of everything he did because ‘he’s funny, we should forgive him.’ I was appalled (and now I forget who this was I was talking to. Don’t tell me if it was you).

Fans have completely ignored some of Andrew’s most egregious crimes because he’s funny. Hell even his official wiki page makes zero reference to it in an attempt to retcon him into someone acceptable as a Watcher. At least the the fandom wiki page didn’t do that.

I find it insulting to women everywhere, especially rape survivors that Andrew has been given a pass and made a Scooby and then a Watcher. He helped to kidnap Katrina, turn her into a sex slave and whine about getting Warren’s sloppy seconds. He was part of her eventual murder at Warren’s hands because they didn’t want her telling people they had raped her. He let loose demons on Sunnydale to hide the rape/murder he took part in. He set them on Buffy specifically. He murdered Jonathan. He tried to kill Dawn and Xander. I will never forgive S6 &7 for trying to redeem him or that Anya gave her life for him. (And I still want to punch the last season of Angel in the face for bringing him back to humiliate Angel and Spike). Feeling bad about it because Buffy made him face his crimes does not a redemption make. Andrew was a large part of why I gave up on the show in the last season.

Okay digression over. We’re stuck with Andrew in this Angel alt verse and he’s a Hollywood manager/producer type because sure why not. Mostly he and Lorne just sit around playing video games and binging TV. The most interesting thing that happens is Oz comes from another universe looking like a spindly legged Howdy Dowdy (yes Seth is little but why does this art look like Opie fresh from Mayberry?)

Stuff goes awry of course. Wes is turned into a zombie but that doesn’t stop Fred. Now that he’s dead and no longer her Watcher this is the time to seduce him. She doesn’t even care he smells like decomposition and parts are falling off. I think this was to prove her love. It was gross.

The story line is a hot mess. Cordelia is a strident whiner. Spike is the voice of reason. Lorne serves up one of the most homophobic scenes I’ve seen in forever when Oz asks if Lorne and Andrew are a couple (and Andrew obviously wants to be). They hinted he was thrown out of Pylea for being gay and now he’s a self-hating homophobe I guess (or trying to hide it so no one gets hurt but whatever the rationale it was an ugly scene and wholly unnecessary so far but maybe it’ll impact down the road). Also Lorne is from Pylea but he’s never heard of interdimensional gates? Um what? Like I said, hot mess of a story line (and way too much is given to the Lorne/Andrew arc).

The art isn’t bad per se but no one looks like you’d expect. I can tell who Spike is because he’s blond and Gunn because he’s still the only African American around and Lorne of course but the rest…Wes and Angel are hard to tell apart (Angel’s hair is stupider that’s how you know) Even Cordy and Fred are tough (Cordy has shorter hair, go with that). I’ve seen far better Angel art. It was disappointing to say the least.

I have no idea why Boom! Thought these alternative universes were a good idea. Is anyone else reading them? Do you like them? I’d be curious to see your thoughts. As for me I think I’ll give all this a hard pass and stick with Boom!’s Something Is Killing the Children and House of Slaughter. Yes Erica looks way too much like Buffy but the story is straight up horror and interesting. We’ll see how long I can handle the heartless organization both Erica and Aaron work for. (House of Slaughter is a prequel so that makes it a little tough because you know how it turns out in SiKtC) here check out the trailer.