Discussion of "Angel: After the Fall #1" - Released 11/21/07 (IDW)

I think he was just hungry.

Interesting that he has his own crew again, kinda like how we first met him on the show. Just hanging out on the streets, killing stuff.
 
i cant believe what evry1 is saying!! Gunns dead?! i almost dont wanna read it now!!
 
I guess this is better then any Angel IDW comic I've picked up out of boredom.. but still didn't love it. I liked it, but not until I forced myself to read it again, then I noticed things I missed. I've read all the speculation that Gunn will be a vamp, but the last page still baffled me! I was like 'uh ok, who the hell is eating the girls' ..didn't recognize Gunn for a while. Something is up with the symbols on the walls..
And how did W&H get control of Wesley? And the basically naked girls, and even the clothed ones just annoyed me.
I did like the quality of the paper this comic is printed on though. And I'm convinced that the cover artist assumed Angel had something to do with being an Angel, hence the praying. I really wanted the dragon cover, but they didn't have it at the store.
I'm also of the opinion that the characters didn't sound like themselves in this comic... much. I could hear Angel saying 'resume your looting'. Didn't get the same connection.

Edit:

I still think my Wesley being in hell with them because he also happens to be dead, is much better then him being under contract.. I suppose we don't know for sure why or how he is there. But yeah.. not loving that he's back, but possibly evil.
 
nerd4hire said:
*** Discussion of Issue. Expect Spoilers If You haven't Read It***​

I got it.

Comic guy gave me a choice - official cover, or variant. I took the official for collectibility, but then I was walking out the door and I actually looked at it. It's this fruity, cherry colored thing with kind of a 70s pschychedelia motif. No offense, but there's no other way to put it. It's gay. I went back, and traded it for the variant, which isn't completely horrible.

I got it home and read it. It was better than the first IDW Angel comic I ever read, but that's all the flattery I can force out of myself.

In Brian Lynch's new Angelverse Wolfram & Hart killed Fred. That wasn't the impression I got in the series I saw, but I don't see a big connection between this Angel and (The) Angel even if they are calling this comic canon.

Apparently Joss says he was interested in Lynch because he felt Lynch had the voices down. For the first time ever I'm going to disagree with Joss. Not here Lynch doesn't. I don't know who these characters are, but they're not the ones I know from Angel.

Remember when Wesley died rebelling against W&H. OK now the ghost of Wesley is a W&H toadie. And the motivator for this about face is W&H has a contract with him. So fear of death couldn't make Wesley play ball, but this contract can...uh, yeah...OK.

Remember self-healing Angel? Now he needs some kind of parasites. I played with the idea these were the hallucination parasites from Soul Purpose, and maybe this is all a dream, but I don't think Lynch is that clever. I think, he just wanted some cool little healing parasite things, so he made Angel easier to wound.

There's no Spike, or Illyria yet, but hey we do get Lynch's telepathic fish thing from his previous, definitely, non-canon Spike comics. And we're supposed to what? Thank him. Not today.

And no explanation as to how they got out of the alley. They can say it's about story exposition, but I can't help thinking it's a cheap ploy to suck us into buying more issues. Rots o Ruck.

And on the last page Gunn's a vamp. This is the big story ending surprise, is it? We knew that 2 years ago.

So, in case you're wondering, I didn't like the first issue of Angel: After the Fall much. I want my 5 bucks back.

Get some real writers IDW. Did you hear the news? Drew Goddard is on strike. He might want to make a couple easy bucks writing a comic, or three.
Click to expand...


i pretty much agree with all of that.
 
First off, I love the art. Urru fits Angel just as much as Jeanty fits Buffy. It helps create a really dark tone, which suits the story perfectly. While it is true that it's hard to recognise some of the characters at first, I don't really think it's that big of a deal. The only real problem I had was with Nina, but then she was only in a few eps and she doesn't really have a distinctive look about her, that say Gwen does have.

Now, as for the story.

Interesting. The dialogue isn't quite as good as Joss' or even the other Brian's, but it's not THAT bad either. Page 6 "It's not work, when you love what you do." I can totally hear Angel saying that. And the voice of Wesley if perfect. Sure, it's not the cute and loveable Wesley, but a new stern and serious, and quite possibly evil Wesley, but that doesn't mean his voice is off.

I like the general set-up of the story. LA sucked into LA. Demons ruling the place. I think I'm also one of the few people who enjoy seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar situations. Of course, like everyone I want to know how they got in these places. But I think that not-knowing, puzzling out who's doing what and for whom, and finding out gradually how they got in these new places, is a big part of the suspense.

I never really cared much for Gunn, but I'm very intrigued by this new Vampire Gunn. Of all the characters that could be sired, Gunn is dramatically the best choice. I wonder what his plan is. Of course, he has this "firepower" that Angel needs to get out of "here"? (Does here mean Hell or under W&H's power?) Gunn also says "one lord down" after he's killed Kr'ph; does this imply that he's going to try to take the rest out too? Something Angel is afraid to do it seems. Although then again, he does kill the Son of Burge in the end.

Then there's ghost Wesley working for W&H. I really wonder about him. He could be evil, but I somehow doubt that very much. I think it's more likely that he has a scheme of his own that he's not letting anyone in on. Or at least he simply has a slightly different agenda that he believes in the end will lead to the least amount of casualties. I also think the dynamic between him and Angel is really interesting; I'd like to see that explored more.

I'm glad they included Nina, Gwen, and Connor. I hope they'll have recurring roles in this series. I know a lot of people don't like Nina, but I think of this as her second chance. With that new sun/moon deal I doubt her character is going to be as bland as some people accused her of being in Season 5.

All-in-all, I think this first issue only makes us ask more questions about what happened after the NFA, rather than answer them all. I'm definitely going to keep reading/buying this series to find out more.


A lot of people here mentioned that they think the characters are too far removed from the place they were in in NFA. To those people I only got one thing to say: middle of page 3 "Hell, for the last few months, it's the same song and dance.' The story doesn't start the day after NFA, or even the week, but months! Of course, the characters are different from what we're used to, because God knows what they've been through. The same thing was with S8 applies here.


A few side-notes:
Healing-Parasite: Vampires can heal pretty quickly by themselves; at least faster than humans, but they're no Claire Bennets either. Remember Drusilla and later Spike in Buffy Season 2 needing time to heal? Angel probably would've healed by himself all right, but the parasite speeds up the process considerably.
"They Killed Her": W&H didn't have a hand in killing Illyria. However, wasn't it Cordelia's death that opened Angel's eyes? Not that W&H had a hand in her death either, but that's beside the point. Also, if you really wanna fanwank here, you could always say that the "they" in this sentence didn't refer to W&H but evil scum bags in general. Also if we really want to blame someone here, why not blame Joss. He shouldn't noticed the error here, when he read the script, just like he knew that Warren couldn't be alive... oh wait, never mind.
 
I always loved Gunn... cept for when he was giving Wesley crap about Conner.
Don't get why people wouldn't like him. And I know it seems like I love everyone 😛 (can't stand Kate for instance... and Nina is fairly dull, especially for a werewolf. Harmony can annoy me.) I guess I've accepted that he's a vampire, but it's just so horrible after all he's been through with his vampire history. Reminds me a little of Long Nights Journey.. when the human vampire fighter dies bravely, but gets turned. I hope he doesn't end up as dust.. or completely evil.

Owh and I'm also really happy that Conner is back, almost as much that Wesley is.
 
I finally got my copy and I dislike it. I hope issue 2 gets better.

Where was Illyria and Spike? Why is Harmony (a useless character) in it?

I don't like the art but it's something to get used to.


A telepathic fish? Oh please.
 
A
Allycat
Harmony wasn't in it. I think you might have mistaken Nina for her.
I haven't read it yet, but I read what happens on wikipedia and I dont' know if I like the whole Wesley still around thing, however I mean can we really be surprised? I mean they've done the same thing for basically all the dead people of Wolfram & Hart so why would Wesley be any different. The whole LA Hell thing I don't like cause it makes the Buffyverse seems a little bit too fantasy. Plus wouldn't that kind of alert the entire world to the presence of demons if all of LA is one giant hellfest? And Gunn being a vampire doesn't surprise me cause if the show would have lasted that would have been his fate anyway, however they get Willow to give him a soul though lol. Then we'll have 3 souled vampires. Then Spike, Angel, and Gunn can form the Charmed Vampires.


PS- Now that Season Six is out shouldn't there be an Angel Season Six thread kind of like how we have Buffy Season Eight?
 
Well Wesley could have signed a contract to free Lilah's soul. When it comes to the parasite, how is the new LA setting effecting a vamps healing power. Hell-A could have a mirror spell so to someone from the outside its nice and normal once you step inside you see it for what it realy is
 
I thought I was going to hate the comic visually and when I got it I was like..wow, it's pretty great. I also love the nice thick shiny pages. I'm a girl, whadya want?!!!? 🙂 I also enjoyed the storyline, even tho I have no clue what to think about a certain dead person. And another certain undead dead person. It's all very odd. Oh well, I am in for the ride.
 
I just read issue number 1, I liked it, because ANY post TV stories, especially those penned by Joss himself, are bettr than the ending the TV show gave us. That being said, i hope the whole L.A. in Hell story isn't dragged out for the entire "season". Sure, Angel was always darker than Buffy, but we have to have hope that our Dark Avenger will find a way to save the day.
 
A
Allycat
After the Fall won't be like a season of the series. More like a long epic movie... or maybe a mini-series.
AFTER THE FALL REREAD -- #1

Official Angel: After the Fall reread Issue 1:

I liked the first issue. It continued in the vein of all the Buffy/Angel seasons of having a bit of a time jump between the previous season finale and the new season opener. I thought they did a great job of getting across that L.A. was truly and totally in hell. There was a splash page right at the beginning where Angel is flying the dragon that I really liked.

The dragon was neat. Especially with the way S5 ended, it was cool seeing Angel has now teamed up with the dragon. Having no budget certainly helps it making things like that possible.

It was weird seeing Wesley back, I wasn't expecting him. It looks like the shattered remains of the old Angel Investigations are now just Angel and a ghostly Wes. He seems neat so far. Angel staking the demon lord's son through the eye was just awesome, and so was his reaction to it. I thought the lines and inner monologue of the characters, particularly Angel, was really accurate to the way they spoke and thought in the show.

And of course, the big twist in the end that Gunn is now a vampire. Very cool.

What did you guys thing?

---------- Post added at 10:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 PM ----------

Whoops, forgot to add the icon.
 
I enjoyed the first issue. My favorite part was Angel's inner dialogue - I thought it was pretty spot on.

So...GhostWesley! Pretty neat, though not surprising that W&H didn't release him from his contract after death. (Same fate as Lilah 🙁 )

Gwen, Nina and Connor working together was pretty random; but I like the thought of getting to see more of these characters.

Nina's bi-curious wolf thing was odd - Hell LA must have some sort affect on her wolfie instincts.

Loved Angel staking Burge's son in the eye and throwing the desk out the window...pretty loud and clear F you to The Lord of Downtown.

Gunn is a vampire now. I'm glad his character is still around since he has always been a favorite but my first thought when I saw him was why hasn't Angel staked him? This development should be very interesting to see.

**I've only read the first 3-4 issues so most of this re-read is going to be new to me. I'm excited to finally getting around to finish it!**
 
R
Robb Stark
Me too, it's going to be fun
OK...and back to ATF again 🙂

Wesley steals the show in this issue. His "only when you went bad" line was great.

I'm not crazy about Urru's art.
 
brinkster130 said:
OK...and back to ATF again 🙂

Wesley steals the show in this issue. His "only when you went bad" line was great.

I'm not crazy about Urru's art.
Click to expand...

I actually like his art. His characters are good but, granted, not outstanding. However, I think he really shines at setting the tone for Hell-L.A. There's just pure chaos in every shot.

I liked the first issue a lot. It really feels like a season opener. No Spike or Illyria, but the reveal with Gunn at the end was awesome and George was pretty funny. It set the stage really well I felt. The ending was cool too, with Angel staking the lord's son.
 
Robb Stark said:
I actually like his art. His characters are good but, granted, not outstanding. However, I think he really shines at setting the tone for Hell-L.A. There's just pure chaos in every shot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it really does visually fit with Hell-LA. I guess his art just seems a little rough to me.

The ending was cool too, with Angel staking the lord's son.
Click to expand...

Seriously. Angel doing what he does best.
 
I feel like it's really hard to follow what's going on in this. I thought the art looked like the characters, but there's just something off about a lot of this stuff. And it's trying to be too clever with the demons etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom