Have you read “Angel and Faith” yet? You haven’t? Well, open it up immediately and after you do, come back and check out our commentary for the issue, which is filled with spoilers. It’s your twice-monthly installment of Buffyversity, y’all!
Written by Christos Gage
Illustrated by Chris Samnee
Angel and Faith are forced into battle, less by choice and more by circumstance, when two mysterious women from Giles’s past call on the unlikely duo for help. But that’s only the beginning of Angel and Faith’s troubles as the ladies settle in for the night!Series writer Christos Gage (Avengers Academy) and guest artist Chris Samnee (Thor), the creative team of Vertigo’s Area 10, reveal more about Giles’s past and further Angel’s quest in bringing the Watcher back from the dead!
- Samnee and Gage reunite!
This month’s “Angel and Faith” was an important one. Since the last arc is what put our two heroes on the same page rather than tearing them apart even further, it seemed only natural that the dormant other lead, Giles, would take somewhat enter stage in his own way. It turns out his family takes its turn as the source of much of his childhood angst, much like our heroes Angel and Faith had in the previous four issues. Instead of a father or a daughter, though, it’s Giles’ creepy old great aunts that aren’t actually that old…or great, for that matter.
His aunts were witches, much like Willow was, but they used their powers for shallow gain, mostly giving in to their vanity. While they are quite old (over a century by some hints), they appear to be not much other than Faith. All of their magic was focused on keeping themselves young and beautiful, which is where our heroes come in.
As it turns out, they’ve sold their souls to many demons along the way, and while they were safe as long as they appeared young, the disappearance of magic in the world means that they’re debts are being called in. In their mind, this is all Angel’s and Faith fault. So who has the clean up the mess? Angel and Faith, obviously.
As new characters, Lavinia and Sophronia Fairweather are some of the most fun characters that have ever had the privilege to come from the United Kingdom. They’re very droll and, well, English. Their posh attitudes come into direct conflict with Angel and Faith’s somewhat…more working class backgrounds. It fits perfectly because of their distinct differences to our leads.
Their introduction gives a great, action packed epilogue with plenty of comedy to cleanse the palate from the earlier, much heavier storyline. While our heroes decapitate and disembowel the demons that came to get the souls they’re due, Sophie and Lavinia drink wine and generally act like Angel and Faith are the rude ones for not topping off their wine. It was all very much in tone with what I expect Giles’ family to be like, but there was a missed opportunity for Angel to bring out his Irish roots to intimidate or attempt to intimidate the sisters. However, the comedy didn’t fail, as even when there’s a fight for the lives of these two women going on, Angel and one of his enemies can appreciate another demon forcing a kiss upon Sophie as part of her payment for a talisman that prevented cancer.
However, In terms of story and character progression, there wasn’t a great deal, but there was enough to move the story along in a pleasing manner. This book still introduced two great characters and told us how they fit into Rupert Giles’ backstory before he joined the Watcher’s Council (against his will), and it also served a great twist to the book at the very end. One that might bury an important lead.
Giles was actually quite the adorable child. He dreamed of being a pilot (presumably for the RAF) but when his latent magical abilities kicked in, activating a mystical artifact that looks like it can transmute matter into energy and vice versa. Considering that everything is a state of energy, this Shard can also help raise the dead, which seems to be quite important to Angel, whose whole quest is to bring back Giles (interestingly enough, there seems to be a piece of Giles within in the shard itself, as his innocence was lost when he activated his magical abilities). This is also quite important as Angel was looking for what looked to be pieces of Giles’ soul, for lack of a better term.
Continued belowFinally, the sisters Fairweather decided to play whatever mind games they could on our eponymous heroes, Faith and Angel, one telling Angel that what he was doing is necessary; while the other tells Faith that she might have to kill her companion, the vampire with a soul. One wonders what exactly their endgame is. It seems to me that they might want to resurrect Giles for their own use, being witches and all, or they’re simply bored. That’s a likely scenario as well.
But I think it’s more than that. I think these were likely the most important pages of the issue, as they were buried as soon as they finished. Like clockwork, the big twist that sets up the next leg in the season’s arc shows up as Willow comes with the broken scythe that was instrumental to the end of season seven, probably looking for some help of her own trying to restore magic in the world. She’ll probably even stick around for the sext arc or two, and then move on to her own series as planned.
One thing’s for sure, Angel’s never been around so many women in a while, as far as I can remember. When Angel was still on the air, there were precious few female characters on his show, with the women limited to Cordy and Fred, until Charisma Carpenter left the show. On the other hand, Buffy was much more women centric, with a mostly female cast dominating the cast (well, relatively). How will he cope? Well, I hope.
I personally can’t wait for the next arc. This issue was a lot of fun, and we can only hope it continues at this level.
Do you have any thoughts about the issue? Leave them in the comments below!
