- Angel & Faith #2 - 16 May, 2014
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- Buffy is Back! The Return of the Slayer in Comics - 11 April, 2014
After the lacklustre first issue that mostly recapped Faith’s actions during Buffy #1 while presenting a slightly dull story involving pixies for Angel, I was hoping this issue would get into the meat of the story a bit more. It is definitely an improvement over the last but not in enough of a way to really draw me in.
Angel’s story continues to move at a snail’s pace while setting up some of the supporting players for the season. It almost feels like they are trying to get the old dynamic of Angel back together with Nadira standing in for Cordelia, providing him clues about where to go, and his new cop friend as his trustworthy sidekick.
Faith has now officially signed on with Kennedy at her private security firm, hanging up the stake for a gun and taking on her first client, a rock star. While protecting him backstage Faith is conflicted when the father of one of the rock star’s groupies shows up, revealing that she is a minor. It’s all too easy to see where this story is going: Faith will end up fighting against her client, leave, be fired from the agency and end up back in London somehow – the title is called Angel & Faith after all! It’s just a shame that they can’t think of much else to do with Faith, a favourite character of mine, beyond having her latch onto whoever offers. She truly grew a lot over the course of the first volume of Angel & Faith but all that threatens to be undone by lazy writing.
The artwork in this issue is definitely an improvement over the last, it appears that Will Conrad has taken more time with Faith this issue who is far more placeable, as opposed to last issue when she could have been anyone. I also didn’t notice any of the tracing that I did last issue, perhaps suggesting that this comic was less rushed than the first. Demons in this series seem to be a bit of a deviation from what we’re used to seeing in the Buffyverse, being closer to mythical creatures. This is most noticeable in the pig monster Angel fights in the sewers, who slightly resembles a minotaur even wearing slightly greek clothing. While not bad creations they do a bit at odds with what we’re used to seeing from this world, in particular whatever the hell that is on the last page!
Right now it is hard to see where this series is going, and also a little hard to care. As a long running Buffy lover, and a Faith fan, I want to stick with this comic but they’re not making it easy for me.
2/5
