Angel started as a character on Buffy. He was a mysterious and brooding love interest in season one, a tragic antagonist in season two, and not too long after that, he got his own spin-off. In the rebooted comics, Buffy and Angel are crossing over and like, is that a good idea? Shared universes are hotter than ever, but do Buffy and Angel need each other?
The Sound of Her Voice
The first “crossover” between the two separate shows was a quieter, emotional note. In the first episode of Buffy season four, Buffy receives a mysterious phone call, but the person on the other end hangs up the moment she says hello. Then, in the pilot episode of Angel, the lonely vampire calls up his ex, but hangs up immediately when he hears her voice.
This was totally awesome. Subdued, affecting, and at the time practically unheard of. Buffy owes a lot of its storytelling to superhero comics, and superhero comics are not renowned for subtlety. In the 60s, you’d totally see the Mighty Thor in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man and while Peter Parker didn’t explicitly turn to the reader and tell them to buy Journey Into Mystery #94, cross-marketing was the essence of the thing. And it was silly, harmless fun.
In TV though, that sort of thing didn’t happen all that often. The various Star Trek shows sometimes shared elements or characters, and that was cool. But by and large, you weren’t expected to watch one show to understand another. DVD wasn’t really a thing yet. Streaming was certainly not a thing. So the “crossovers” had to be subtle, so as not to turn off someone only watching one of the shows.
But it really worked here! Buffy was just starting college, and getting a frustratingly unexplained phone call just added to her whirlwind of confusion. Angel was trying to start a new life in a new city, so getting hung up on his ex represented everything he needed to move past. Wow, that’s true for him as a character, and his show in a meta-fictional sense. By necessity though, it worked with or without understanding that a crossover was taking place.
Quest For the Gems
For a while, the crossovers between the shows sort of followed along the same lines. They weren’t nearly so thoughtful, but stories would be unified by shared MacGuffins. Buffy battled some vampires who wanted the Gem of Amara, which would allow them to walk in the sun. The episode ends with Oz saying, “Oh hey, I’m going to LA for a gig. You want me to deliver that to Angel?” Then, Angel got an episode around the themes of what would happen if a vampire could walk in the sun.
While it had the subtlety of a superhero crossover (watch this other show to find out what happens next!), the writing was still pretty good. The shows used a common item to tell different kinds of stories, and in doing so, made a good case of why these two different shows needed to exist.
A lot of crossover episodes followed this sort of structure. There’s a pretty excellent two-parter where Faith menaces Buffy, then goes on to make a connection with Angel. A flashback episode on Angel hits on some big moments in the vampires’ centuries of life. The same week, Spike recalled his personal history on Buffy.
Now we’re living in an MCU world where superhero storytelling is the norm. Crossovers are the very essence of storytelling. There are no fewer than four superhero shows on the CW that regularly cross over. The Crisis On Infinite Earths miniseries brings in two more CW superhero shows, with allusions to Smallville, the Wonder Woman show of the 70s, Brandon Routh’s stint as Superman, and even the 1960s Batman show. But the quaint crossovers of Buffy and Angel were more than spectacle. They used the concept of a crossover to advance plot, to deepen characters, and to develop themes.
That Time When Buffy and Angel Had Cosmic Sex and Birthed a Universe Or Something
Continued belowTelevision isn’t the only place where Buffy crossovers have happened though. Buffy had a long life in comics, and the end of season eight actually turned into a major reunion for Buffy and Angel. Unfortunately, as with a lot of the Buffy comics, the story got a little overexcited about the lack of special effects budget, and became absurd to the point of near nonsense.
Throughout the “Buffy Season Eight” comic, Buffy faces off with a mysterious masked man named Twilight. In the final few issues, he’s revealed to be Angel, and despite collaborating with some of the worst villains the Buffyverse has to offer, Buffy immediately forgets all of that, and the two of them fly off like Superman, having mid-air sex and shattering the walls of reality with their orgasms. Then, Buffy promptly births a glowing feline creature, who it turns out is the real Twilight, and is the embodiment of a dimension of magic. Loyalties rapidly shift, and it all culminates in feline-Twilight possessing Angel and using his body to kill Giles. Angel’s guilt becomes his motivation for the rest of the comic series.
It’s… not great. No, it’s a disaster. It’s not just because it’s a meeting of Buffy and Angel’s respective sensibilities, but that element doesn’t help. If Twilight had been a totally new character, the story might have worked a little bit better. But by forcing Angel into a role that made no sense for him, the story was worse than an oddity. It makes Buffy look like an idiot for trusting him, and Angel’s motivations are garbled beyond repair. The fact that it ends in a tired guilt-over-a-murder-you-did-while-you-were-possessed plot makes it even worse. It’s a great argument against doing any sorts of crossovers, ever.
Welcome (Back) To the Hellmouth
It’s happening again. The rebooted “Buffy” and “Angel” comic are crossing over, spearheaded by “Buffy” writer Jordie Bellaire. It’s still way early in their respective runs. “Buffy” has gotten through one full story arc, and “Angel” hasn’t even gotten to finish one. Not only that, but this crossover is going to be the story of the two characters meeting for the first time in this new continuity. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to mirror their first encounter with Angel brooding in a shadowy alleyway, offering cryptic advice. This thing is going full apocalypse.
That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Bellaire has already gone to some pretty funky places in “Buffy.” There have been dragon-creatures, mystic cave guardians, and soul-siphoning vampire cures. The series has managed to say “screw the effects budget” while still keeping the story as grounded as the original show. “Angel” has been even more “street-level,” taking place in grimy mental institutions in a terrifyingly bleak L.A.
None of that seems in line with what this crossover is shaping up to be. It looks like its all giant monsters and world ending spells. So I guess the lesson is to look back at the relatively simple and subdued crossovers of the early run of the show. Buffy’s world and the city of Angel are best joined thematically. Having two series means having a compelling separation between those two series. A good Buffy crossover shouldn’t drown that in all the noise.
