Overall this was not the all-out battle experience readers wanted from Angel. We want more authentic characters and an expansion on the original stories we know. The artwork was lacking the realism. Especially the depth it takes to portray these specific vampires in artwork and still keep them terrifying. Angel #8 was a progression book, hopefully #9 moves in a direction that will satisfy readers. Read Full Review

I don't give out ones lightly. I think ones as a concept are frankly absurd. But... I genuinely hate this book. There aren't many comics that can create such ire within me nowadays, but this one did. I understand that I'm a huge, mega fan of the TV show this comic is based on. I'm going to have a bias towards the version of the characters I know. I try to know that and make up for it with an open mindedness that I work hard to maintain. Same for... MCU movies. In fact, when Boom's first reboot of Buffy happened, my early reviews were full of optimism and ardent defenses of that optimism. As that first reboot has finally fallen flat, and these later attempts have suffered similarly, I can safely say that I was wrong. I was totally, horribly wrong to be optimistic. I should've let myself fall into the trap of cynicism. It would've saved me so much. Instead here I am, having just finished Boom's second Angel series, written by a writer that I actually like, and I feel nothing but despair. I think I hate pretty much every moment in this book, but the one moment I hate the most is the ending. They tried to ape Not Fade Away. The series finale to the television show. The perfect distillation of the show's themes, all encapsulated in one final fleeting moment before the credits roll for the very last time. I love the ending of the show. I think it's powerful, understated and brilliant. And... to just repeat it in a story that constantly relied on you knowing the characters, and never gave you the space to care about their new incarnations... it's just awful. Reading this issue felt like Cantwell had so much he wanted to do, with zero focus, and half of the ideas he had were actually pretty much trash.

For instance - and this might be a bit controversial - making Lorne gay. I don't think Lorne should be gay. At least, I don't think it should be an important, essential part of his character. He'd probably be best labeled as bisexual or pansexual, in my mind, being an empath demon. But making him gay is lazy. So fucking obvious and lazy. Oh and to drag out Andrew to do it, a character so coded as gay, but never explicitly such, is just compounding on that laziness. Lorne was never given a significant other. He was never explored in that way. In fact, the actor who played him said that his sexuality was unimportant, and as much as he put himself into the role, he himself was uninterested in relationships. So, as close to canonical as we can get, Lorne is asexual. I just feel like, Cantwell and probably many fanfic writers see a stereotypical flamboyant male character, and they think, "Well, of course he's gay!" It's reductive and I could go on and on about how often, especially in comics, gay characters are stuck into stereotypical boxes that do nothing to humanize them. It's so frustrating, and I'm not okay with it.

Oh, and that random Buffy appearance does nothing for the story. Why is she here? Did we need to know that she died? I thought we could figure that one out.

Ugh. more