BOOM! Studio’s Buffyverse loses a companion piece, but as the series comes to an end, there is potential for more stories down the line.
Angel & Spike 16
Written by Zac Thompson
Art by Hayden Sherman and Roman Titov
The road to the final issue of the newest incarnation of Angel felt like it was going out with a whimper instead of a bang. Writer Bryan Edward Hill – who I felt had captured the feel of the original SERIES perfectly – left the series a few issues back and everything since had just seemed a little off. The characterizations all shifted slightly, but just enough that they no longer felt familiar.
New writer Zac Thompson wrapped up the series by drawing us a little deeper into the evil law firm of Wolfram & Hart, who has co-opted Fred and turned her into the living embodiment of their god, Baphomet. As she struggled to learn how to live with a complete other entity inside of her, Angel and company were delayed in rescuing her by the other goings-on in Los Angeles. With the final issue, the Fang Gang – Angel, Spike, Gunn, Det. Lockley and werewolf Oz – put down a gang of werewolves before storming the gates of Wolfram & Hart.
But Fred has already taken care of the problem, as a third entity living inside her exiled Baphomet and took complete control over Fred. As the gang escapes Wolfram & Hart, they are magicked out to a place that’s unfamiliar to them but is very recognizable to anyone who watched the WB series.
The Hyperion Hotel was the base of Angel Investigations for years, before the group was promoted to running the L.A. branch of Wolfram & Hart, but the BOOM! Studios versions of the characters had never once stepped foot into it. Until the final pages of the final issue. And as the issue comes to a close, the group is confronted by the hotel’s occupants – alternate reality versions of Angel and Spike! And this Spike has a man-bun!
Definitely not the versions of the characters that we know!
The writers of BOOM! Studios’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer series have already hinted at a larger multiverse with different versions of the Slayer. It’s an intriguing idea that holds a lot of promise for the all-new, all-different Buffyverse, but until now it hadn’t come penetrated Angel & Spike. Ending the series like this, with an all-new story at the ready should feel like it’s leaving us lacking, but for Angel, it feels right, considering the WB SERIES ended on the cusp of a fight between’s Angel’s cohorts and a horde of demons.
I hope there are more stories to come, even if it’s just included into the larger story being told about the Buffy multiverse.