Boom Studios took fans by surprise this week, dropping a zero issue of Angel along with the new Buffy comic last Wednesday. As this is the twentieth anniversary of the vampire with a soul, surely the writer has something up his sleeve. Angel #1 releases this July from Boom Studios. I was lucky enough to receive an exclusive variant from the store only one variant per store, per 100 copies! I am super excited about the vampire’s revival in every sense — film, comic and maybe even tv show. The zero issue ends with him leaving Los Angeles and heading for Sunnydale. Before he had anything to do with Buffy, he loses someone, a life he saved to watch her disappear into the night.
Angel is all about paying for your sins. Once he received a soul, he fought every day against the terrors that go bump in the night. Not unlike Batman in that sense. The vampire with a soul feels all the pain from everyone he has ever killed. A lovely gift having a perfect photographic memory. This gift is given to him when he received his soul. In the television series, he has issues making friends and those he does end up having would do anything for him. However, the beginning of the show establishes Angel’s infamous brooding and how much he needs and deserves to suffer. He is a martyr. He enjoys not enjoying the pain. But this pain might be the last he feels when he’s truly alone.
Angel is paralleling with the new Buffy comics written by Jordie Bellaire. Bellaire and Byran Edward hill, writer of Angel, are working together to time the meeting of both stories just right. Buffy is on its fourth issue. Makes sense the show indeed established Buffy with Angel right about midway through the first season. With Angel skulking and brooding and Buffy being a cheerful teenage badass.
I am looking forward to reading and watching both writers develop the stories, coming this July 2019 Angel #1.
