Wow, so it turns out Angel has its fans, and they let themselves be known. Rest assured, it also has its detractors, people who think Buffy is a golden classic and Angel is a hot mess. I made my opinions clear last month– Angel is an ambitious, sometimes flawed and sometimes genius show. But what if Angel wasn’t the only Buffy spin-off? IDW is bringing back the vampire with a soul for his own ongoing series, and while that’s pretty cool, there are a ton of worthy characters in the Slayerverse who could totally star in their own spin-off. Here are some ideas, both obvious and outlandish.
Giles/Ripper
The story so obvious, it very nearly happened. Giles is a great character, and everything about his past is intriguing. He was kind of a dark rocker badass as a youth, not unlike comics very own John Constantine. Like John, Rupert Giles is bi, and totally had a complicated relationship with fellow shady wizard Ethan Rayne. There’s so much there! Sure, some of that has already been explored in the comic series “Angel and Faith” but if Buffy can be rebooted, why not Giles? This would be very era specific, meaning it takes place approximately twenty years before “Buffy” does. That means Ripper Giles’ reign of badittude would begin in 1999, the same year Buffy originally graduated high school, wild!
The Vengeance of Anya
The demon Anyanka was empowered to exact her vengeance on stupid men. You know- fuckbois. And if there’s one thing true about Fuckbois, it is that they are eternal. That’s the basis for this series. It’s structured as an anthology, like old EC comics. You introduce the fuckboi and his girlfriend, or boyfriend, or wife, or husband, or kids, or friends. They meet Anya. They make a wish. Horrifying irony ensues. Now apply that structure to the entire world and for a thousand years of human history. Is there an audience who wants to see terrible men get punished month after month after month? I’m rolling my eyes, because obviously there is.
Oz the Werewolf
To me, Dan Osbourne, a.k.a. Oz, is the more obvious than Angel is deserving further spinoffs. Sure Seth Green was kind of blowing up at the time, and the werewolf effects were expensive and bad, but none of that has to be a barrier now. And Oz makes sense: he’s a chill, gentle stoner dude, fun enough to play in a band and wise enough to know they suck. But during the full moon, he becomes a cursed violent monster, looking to eat people. Great start to a character- that contrast between his lovable and monstrous selves is a classic monster story. In the original Buffy comics, Oz went searching for a cure to his curse, but in doing so found peace with Buddhist monks and started a community for werewolves. Things don’t need to go exactly like that, but I think it’s a perfect direction for Oz. In seeking freedom from his werewolf condition, he finds freedom from his human condition, and maybe becomes something of a monster messiah/cult leader in the process. Him trying to work on himself and maintain a supportive community for fellow monsters seems like a story with infinite potential.
Nikki the Vampire Slayer
A few things we know about Spike: he claims to have killed two slayers, and he wears a really nifty coat. Turns out the latter was stolen from Nikki Wood, who was the Slayer from 1970-1977. Nikki had an unusual tenure as the Slayer in that she was simultaneously a single mom raising a kid- a kid who would grow up to be Principal Wood, Buffy’s season 7 beau. But a Nikki series wouldn’t just be different because it combines child-raising with vampire slaying (though that does sound rad). Nikki was living in the sweaty, dangerous New York City of the 70s. This is the era of Shaft, Super Fly, and Cleopatra Jones. The original Buffy series used demons as a metaphor for being a teenager. Angel extended that metaphor to being a young adult. What kind of specificity can be gained by re-framing that story around a black single mom in New York in the 70s? What kind of characters will we meet. Good ones I’d bet.
Gwen & Marcie
Towards the end of Angel, we met Gwen Raiden, a lightning powered… mutant. She manifested her powers at a young age and accidentally hurt a kid she went to school with. She was basically a tribute to the X-Men (Rogue in particular). Whedon’s X-Men influence has always been strong, it’s said Buffy was based in part on Kitty Pryde and Whedon did a draft of the screenplay to the first X-Men movie. When Gwen was being introduced, Whedon was writing the “Astonishing X-Men” comic. Marcie Ross on the other hand, was an invisible girl introduced in the first season of Buffy. She appeared in one episode, and was implied to have been recruited by a shady government agency for black ops. That is, unless you accept that she eventually learned to control her powers, became a secret service agent, and married the president’s daughter (Clea Duvall killed it on Veep yo!).
It’s implied that Gwen had dealings with the shadowe government before she became a professional thief. Here’s where the spin-off happens: Gwen rescues Marcie and the two of them become partners. Thief partners! Hell yeah. Besides vampires and demons and monsters, the Buffyverse is full of spies, and robots, and yes mutants. That’s what this series would focus on. Hated and feared by the world, Gwen uses her skills and powers to steal occult artifacts and puts together a girl gang of the best superpowered spies in the world.
Monstruos Internacionales con Los Cinco Hermanos
In season five, episode six of Angel we are introduced to Numero Cinco. He only ever appears in this episode, but he is one of my favorite characters in the Buffyverse. Cinco works as a janitor for the demonic law firm of Wolfram and Hart, but that wasn’t always the case. He used to battle evil with his four brothers, all of them wearing awesome luchador masks. They even battled el Diablo Robotico! Who or what is that? I have no idea, but I must know. At the end of the episode, Cinco reunites with his brothers for one last battle before dying and joining them in the afterlife.
Now if it were up to me, I would totally just have a series about Cinco, his brothers, and the battle with Diablo Robotico, but realistically there’s probably not much of a plot there. But why do these goofy characters resonate so deeply with me? I’m not Latino. I’ve got no history with luchador wrestling. But I like the way they broaden the scope of the Buffy universe. So much of the story takes place in California. But the fight against evil spans the whole world, and even goes off into other ones. This anthology would be about heroes throughout time and space.
Each story entry would check in with a new hero. They could be in a remote part of the world, or far in the past, or the future, or on another dimension. We could check in with familiar faces like the long lived vampires, Groo, or Fray, but mostly this would be an opportunity to tell new stories with new heroes. Grounding us would be the ghosts of los Cinco Hermanos, our hosts and guides in the wider world. They have a lot of experience, a lot of perspective, and a lot of personality. And everyone would tune in for the fun monster hunter show hosted by five luchador ghosts. You know you would!
