Dark Horse’s “Angel” comic series ends its run with a surprising but appealing smaller scale. With the “Buffy” characters facing a major threat in their Season 11, Angel would have to be seriously sidetracked to not help out, and new writer Corinna Bechko (“Star Wars: Legacy Volume II”) finds a perfect way to occupy him: He’s traveling through the past. While this might seem like the most epic concept so far, “Angel” Season 11 maintains a personal scope. There are just three main characters – but only two at a time, since Illyria and Fred share a body – and the three time-travel stops reflect important moments from their pasts.
“Out of the Past” (Issues 1-4, January-April 2017)
Bechko and artist Geraldo Borges start off with something engagingly simpler than the epic stakes of “Angel & Faith” Seasons 9-10. Angel and Fred/Illyria are performing a simple exorcism on a friend’s hotel in Dublin. The jumping-off point is similar to “Fight or Flight” (Season 10, Issue 15), which nicely illustrates the Angel-Fred dynamic as Angel again returns to his Irish homeland.
Angel is being haunted via visions of his past as Angelus, and that’s certainly old hat for “Angel” readers, but “Out of the Past” then takes a neat side-strip into Illyria’s past. Attempting to go to Angel’s past, the time-traveling Old One instead whisks them back to the ancient times when Illyria ruled Earth and humans were a minor race at best.
This is where the artists excel. Borges’ art is a departure from the crisp likenesses of Rebekah Isaacs and other “Angel & Faith” regulars, but he’s tremendous at creature design. Illyria’s subjects are suitably alien, with some of their bones and organs on the outsides of their bodies, and Illyria’s rival monster is huge and grotesque. Throw in Michelle Madsen’s colors and we’ve been transported to the ancient times.
Borges also does a nice job of illustrating the Fred-Illyria transitions, and Bechko deftly handles the dialog and thoughts of the two entities sharing the same body. Borges also uses the morphing effect to show Angel changing into vamp-face.
The story itself is something we haven’t seen too often from this saga: Angel and Fred (and even modern-day Illyria, eventually) realize they can only win this fight by convincing everyone to not fight, since Illyria’s rival beast gets stronger the more warriors it consumes.
4 stars
“Time and Tide” (Issues 5-8, May-August 2017)
Next up, Illyria throws herself and Angel through a time portal again and they end up on a pirate ship that’s being terrorized by Angelus and Darla, not to mention bugs that burrow into the pirates’ brains and turn them into zombies. Ze Carlos steps in on art duties and draws nice, clean versions of the characters; it’s quite a contrast from Borges’ rough-and-tumble work, but Madsen’s colors maintain a continuity of sorts.
The sheer drama is quite good here as Angel and Fred must escape the melee on a lifeboat with daylight approaching and zombie pirates in the waters all around them. It’s neat to see Angel cross paths with Angelus thanks to the magic of time travel, but Bechko doesn’t do a whole lot with it.
Angel and Fred, as is often the case in time-travel stories, are reticent to change the past. They want Angelus and Darla to survive because that’s what’s “supposed to” happen. But Angel doesn’t exactly spend time shooting the breeze with his former self or his former flame – who are just kind of baffled by his presence — so the meeting is more of a novelty than something that provides character insights.
It’s also disappointing that there’s been no advancement to the mystery of the meaning of Angel’s vision of his past from the start of this season. “Time and Tide” is simply a fun adventure in the past. I gotta assume the bigger picture will coalesce in the season’s final volume, though.
3.5 stars
“Dark Reflections” (Issues 9-12, September-December 2017)
Borges rejoins the team for an excellent closing chapter that finds Angel and Fred/Illyria in the time where Liam is about to be sired by Darla. We can feel Angel’s temptation to spend time with his sister, Kathy, but also understand Illyria’s insistence that they get out of there lest they mess up the timeline.
That’s standard stuff for time-travel stories, but I admit I didn’t see this one coming: Emotionally confused, Angel and Illyria spend a romantic night together. This is crazy enough on its own and it only gets weirder when one considers that Illyria and Fred share a body, and that, as Fred admits, “No matter who is in control, neither of us can force a decision the other is truly against.” How’s that for a love triangle?
As for the overall mystery, it ends up being simpler than I had assumed, but in a satisfying way. Angel and Fred/Illyria needed to go into the past to pick up apocryphal items. By throwing them into the maws of the killer plant creature (another cool design by Borges) in present day, it kills the creature because of the time paradox.
If there had been more “Angel” comics from Dark Horse, it might’ve been interesting to dig further into the Angel-Illyria-Fred love triangle. This ended up being the final “Angel” story, though, and it’s a nice grace note. The TV series starts with three characters doing what they can to fight evil in a big city, and the comic series ends the same way.
4.5 stars
Click here for an index of all of John’s “Buffy” and “Angel” reviews.