Angel: After The Fall #1
So I got the first ATF last week. I bought it from Kings Comics with much less anticipation and giddiness than when I bought The Long Way Home and even had lower expectations for it compared to TLWH. And it still disappointed me.
Overall, the story felt somewhat weak and barely had a touch of Joss in it. Used to the brief Buffy issues, I was somewhat pleased by the length of the issue but, despite the extra pages, the story left me dry. I've broken down my gripes into two sections:
Art
I remember reading that Joss specifically selected Urru to illustrate the series, impressed by his work on Shadow Puppets and Asylum. But I don't see how the art style matches the tone of Angel at all. Maybe it's the shift of Los Angeles into a war zone, but the art left me unimpressed and somewhat confused. The panels seem to focus on the demons, settings and dragons more than the character's and their thoughts and feelings. Angel had some of the best characterisation on TV and this issue didn't have a drop in it.
Angel was never as feminist as Buffy. I'm totally aware of that. Feminism was never really part of its themes or issues and that was great. But it was never objectifying. I'd say the closest it came to doing that was Illyria's body suit but even that was pretty tame. People complain about how TLWH objectifies Buffy and the other slayers (which I don't see at all) but After the Fall is absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth it is necessary for the Skeleton Demon's slave girls to all be clad in G-strings? Why is Nina dressed in a mid-riff top when her clothing in the series was far more conservative (she looked like a freaking nun compared to her comic version)? Gwen's wardrobe was part of her character and made sense, but it makes no sense with Nina. Brian Lynch doesn't seem to understand the show's message and themes at all.
Story
Many of the story choices Lynch has made irk me. When I first found out about the Dragon, I wasn't as sceptical as others, feeling that it could be pulled off. However, instead of doing something interesting such as giving the character some intelligence or, y'know, character, Lynch has opted to use it as an opportunity to indulge in fanboy fantasies of flying around on a dragon. It also makes absolutely no freaking sense that Wesley would be tied to W&H by a perpetuity contract. It would be completely and utterly OOC for Angel to even consider letting his friends sign the perpetuity contracts even if it meant not having Connor mindwiped. It would mean binding all of them to the Senior Partners' will. There is no way he would be so short sighted as to do something that stupid.
The storytelling was very confused and unsophisticated. It jumped from story to story with no real purpose besides reintroducing characters. The worst episodes of Buffy and Angel were better than this. Also, was I the only one who had no freaking idea that Gunn was a vampire the first read through? The dialogue and art weren't clear enough.
Good Points
Sadly, few and far between. Lynch hit the nail on dialogue a few times (heh, "Makes you bi-curious") and the idea that W&H have Angel under their thumb again is interesting, although poorly communicated. Gunn's Gang had a few funny lines and Betta George, while not as funny as I expected, was pretty amusing. I like that Connor's back into helping people and has got a gang of his own but I hope that they deal with where his fauxfamily is interestingly. None of this 'they were all killed by demons' bullcrap that conveniently sweeps them underneath the carpet.
While TLWH focused on characters and the human side, After The Fall seems to follow all of the fantasy elements of Angel sans the characters that made it awesome. In fact, I was more interested by the Demon King (who's ridiculous name I can't be bothered looking up) than Angel. His character fell completely flat. I'm just hoping against hope that the series improves because it has so much potential and has already been marked canon by Joss.
In other news, Winterbells is the most addictive game ever.
Overall, the story felt somewhat weak and barely had a touch of Joss in it. Used to the brief Buffy issues, I was somewhat pleased by the length of the issue but, despite the extra pages, the story left me dry. I've broken down my gripes into two sections:
Art
I remember reading that Joss specifically selected Urru to illustrate the series, impressed by his work on Shadow Puppets and Asylum. But I don't see how the art style matches the tone of Angel at all. Maybe it's the shift of Los Angeles into a war zone, but the art left me unimpressed and somewhat confused. The panels seem to focus on the demons, settings and dragons more than the character's and their thoughts and feelings. Angel had some of the best characterisation on TV and this issue didn't have a drop in it.
Angel was never as feminist as Buffy. I'm totally aware of that. Feminism was never really part of its themes or issues and that was great. But it was never objectifying. I'd say the closest it came to doing that was Illyria's body suit but even that was pretty tame. People complain about how TLWH objectifies Buffy and the other slayers (which I don't see at all) but After the Fall is absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth it is necessary for the Skeleton Demon's slave girls to all be clad in G-strings? Why is Nina dressed in a mid-riff top when her clothing in the series was far more conservative (she looked like a freaking nun compared to her comic version)? Gwen's wardrobe was part of her character and made sense, but it makes no sense with Nina. Brian Lynch doesn't seem to understand the show's message and themes at all.
Story
Many of the story choices Lynch has made irk me. When I first found out about the Dragon, I wasn't as sceptical as others, feeling that it could be pulled off. However, instead of doing something interesting such as giving the character some intelligence or, y'know, character, Lynch has opted to use it as an opportunity to indulge in fanboy fantasies of flying around on a dragon. It also makes absolutely no freaking sense that Wesley would be tied to W&H by a perpetuity contract. It would be completely and utterly OOC for Angel to even consider letting his friends sign the perpetuity contracts even if it meant not having Connor mindwiped. It would mean binding all of them to the Senior Partners' will. There is no way he would be so short sighted as to do something that stupid.
The storytelling was very confused and unsophisticated. It jumped from story to story with no real purpose besides reintroducing characters. The worst episodes of Buffy and Angel were better than this. Also, was I the only one who had no freaking idea that Gunn was a vampire the first read through? The dialogue and art weren't clear enough.
Good Points
Sadly, few and far between. Lynch hit the nail on dialogue a few times (heh, "Makes you bi-curious") and the idea that W&H have Angel under their thumb again is interesting, although poorly communicated. Gunn's Gang had a few funny lines and Betta George, while not as funny as I expected, was pretty amusing. I like that Connor's back into helping people and has got a gang of his own but I hope that they deal with where his fauxfamily is interestingly. None of this 'they were all killed by demons' bullcrap that conveniently sweeps them underneath the carpet.
While TLWH focused on characters and the human side, After The Fall seems to follow all of the fantasy elements of Angel sans the characters that made it awesome. In fact, I was more interested by the Demon King (who's ridiculous name I can't be bothered looking up) than Angel. His character fell completely flat. I'm just hoping against hope that the series improves because it has so much potential and has already been marked canon by Joss.
In other news, Winterbells is the most addictive game ever.