Angel & Faith #1- “Live Through This”- Part One by Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs (“Executive Produced” by Joss Whedon)

SPOILERS FOR BUFFY SEASON 8 FOLLOW.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perhaps my favorite television show of all time. When the “eighth season” began in comic book form in 2007, I was obviously excited. The first twenty issues of that book were fantastic. It perfectly brought the show into a new medium, retaining its trademark wit, relationship woes, and gut-wrenching tragedy. Then the release schedule slowed, the season’s focus got muddled, and the book slipped into mediocrity. The huge reveal that Buffy’s ex-boyfriend Angel was Twilight, the season’s mysterious villain, landed without much impact, not only due to an early leak of the reveal, but also because Twilight hadn’t been mentioned in over ten issues. The whole Twilight concept was convoluted and also muddled the impact of the loss of Giles.

However, the final issue redeemed much of the problems I had by bringing it back to basics, and Joss Whedon’s note to the fans at the end of the issue acknowledged the issues, giving me hope for season nine.

“Season Nine” has been split into two different series: the main Buffy book and Angel & Faith. After being released from Twilight’s grasp, under which he killed Giles, Angel flees to London with Faith to take up the work Giles was doing there. The book uses Giles’s “Watcher’s Files” as a framework to keep the character present through the new season. The best episodes of the Angel television series were those which featured Faith as a guest star. The two characters have a great chemistry, since they’re both guilt-ridden creatures. So far, none of the regular cast from Angel have appeared, but it’s only the first issue.

Christos Gage, a journeyman comic book writer whose written dozens of second string Marvel comics over the past five or ten years, does a surprisingly great job capturing all of the characters’ voices, especially Faith’s. Rebekah Isaacs has a style which compliments Georges Jeanty’s art in the sister book. Her illustrations of Angel and Faith evoke the performances of David Boreanaz and Eliza Dushku, without being creepy photocopies of their faces.

After the disappointing second half of season eight, Angel & Faith #1 comes as a great relief for this fan, and it makes me even more excited for Buffy to start on September 14th.