Angel no 28 review
Dec. 17th, 2009 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightWent down the comic shop and walked straight into the middle of Comic Shop Boy saying to Comic Shop Bloke, "Well, I could always go outside and just stab them."
This was a good opening line even from Comic Shop Boy.
More behind cut with spoilers for the latest Angel comic and for The Authority.
As it turned out Comic Shop Boy and Bloke were both steaming angry in a Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells-type way, because a bunch of drug runners (corner boys, I suppose, to use an expression from The Wire) have taken to hanging around outside the shop because it's just over the road from the post office and they can see when the 'smackheads' go and cash their giros and then phone the dealer to bring the drugs for them to sell. This is scaring off customers, not surprisingly. Comic Shop Boy had been on the phone to the CCTV camera operators to ask them to swivel the camera in the direction of these drug runners, because that usually scares them off. However, today they'd got a right jobsworth on the phone who'd refused to do it because the drug runners weren't actually doing anything wrong. They were just standing there.
Comic Shop Boy: Maybe I should just go out and start a fight? They'd be doing something then.
Me: What if they had knives?
Comic Shop Boy: I've got my screwdriver. :brandishes an enormous screwdriver; Anyway, they'd only have stanley knives and while they were trying to slash me, I'd stab them. :demonstrates stabbing motion:
Comic Shop Bloke: :laughs:
Me: :also laughs, if a bit uncertainly:
Comic Shop Boy: Mind you, if there's only two of 'em, I'll just use my stick. :gestures in the direction of enormous shilleleigh-like stick hanging on the back of the shop door:
Me: You probably have a very long reach, don't you? (Comic Shop Boy is tall).
Comic Shop Boy: Yeah, they hate me in classes.
Dunno if I've given anyone the impression, btw, that Comic Shop Boy resembles the comic shop guy from The Simpsons? If so, please cast that notion from your mind. He's well over six foot, has a long ginger beard and is a bit of a martial arts expert.
A-anyway, came away with the latest issue of The Authority, which ends with a beautiful, romantic kiss between Apollo and the Midnighter while all the other characters stand around looking very moved and tearful. I love that book.
And, of course, the first Bill Willingham issue of the Angel comic.
Bit of a mixed bag really, like all these things. The art's quite good - stunning likeness of Kate, and Spike's not bad, though Illyria's terrible - but also some very typical comic book art-type stuff. Connor, for instance, takes off his ripped shirt, to reveal a body that a body builder would be proud of, and while I'm happy to believe that Connor is reasonably muscular, I just don't see him having that kind of physique. Also, he's rescued from a group of demons by a bunch of mysterious women in armour, and the armour is of course utterly ridiculous with huge boobs and legs up to their armpits.
It's too early to comment on the story. Certain aspects of it are intriguing, like who these armmoured women are and why they want to follow Connor, and what on earth has happened to Angel, but other aspects of the book are a bit jarring. Willingham doesn't have the character voices down pat yet (something Brian Lynch had from the first), though he's way better than Kelley Armstrong. His Spike isn't bad, though so far we're only seeing one side of the character, and the side I'm least fond of. But the continuity seems a bit shot with what's gone before. Gunn is bizarrely cheerful given what happened in A: AtF, while Spike is talking about some adventure he had in Las Vegas, which, since Brian Lynch said part of his Spike story is set in Las Vegas, suggests that this story follows on from that. But it can't do, because Lynch hasn't finished his story yet, which just leaves me feeling that IDW aren't paying attention to their own continuity, or perhaps the coup of getting a comic book star like Willingham to write for them means they daren't ask him to alter his plans to fit in with anyone else's? I don't know.
Also, there are just too many characters cluttering up the place now, and I honestly don't know why Willingham decided to keep Kelley Armstrong's OCs, Dez and James. Neither character is a good fit in the Angelverse. In fact, ironically, they would probably fit better in Willingham's own Fablesverse. If he does get to do this crossover he wants to do, which I hate the very idea of, maybe Dez and James should stay crossed over permanently?
Also, I do wonder why everyone just accepts it when Connor says he thinks he should lead A.I. in Angel's absence. Why? Just because Illyria says so?
That said, there are some fun lines of dialogue involving Dez, to do with her and Kate deciding that Angel's absence means he's off with some girl again. Apparently, this has been happening a lot since Angel got famous, though he only moons over them and then tells them they can't be together. Heh!
Not going to grade it. Still going to buy, but the jury is still out.
This was a good opening line even from Comic Shop Boy.
More behind cut with spoilers for the latest Angel comic and for The Authority.
As it turned out Comic Shop Boy and Bloke were both steaming angry in a Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells-type way, because a bunch of drug runners (corner boys, I suppose, to use an expression from The Wire) have taken to hanging around outside the shop because it's just over the road from the post office and they can see when the 'smackheads' go and cash their giros and then phone the dealer to bring the drugs for them to sell. This is scaring off customers, not surprisingly. Comic Shop Boy had been on the phone to the CCTV camera operators to ask them to swivel the camera in the direction of these drug runners, because that usually scares them off. However, today they'd got a right jobsworth on the phone who'd refused to do it because the drug runners weren't actually doing anything wrong. They were just standing there.
Comic Shop Boy: Maybe I should just go out and start a fight? They'd be doing something then.
Me: What if they had knives?
Comic Shop Boy: I've got my screwdriver. :brandishes an enormous screwdriver; Anyway, they'd only have stanley knives and while they were trying to slash me, I'd stab them. :demonstrates stabbing motion:
Comic Shop Bloke: :laughs:
Me: :also laughs, if a bit uncertainly:
Comic Shop Boy: Mind you, if there's only two of 'em, I'll just use my stick. :gestures in the direction of enormous shilleleigh-like stick hanging on the back of the shop door:
Me: You probably have a very long reach, don't you? (Comic Shop Boy is tall).
Comic Shop Boy: Yeah, they hate me in classes.
Dunno if I've given anyone the impression, btw, that Comic Shop Boy resembles the comic shop guy from The Simpsons? If so, please cast that notion from your mind. He's well over six foot, has a long ginger beard and is a bit of a martial arts expert.
A-anyway, came away with the latest issue of The Authority, which ends with a beautiful, romantic kiss between Apollo and the Midnighter while all the other characters stand around looking very moved and tearful. I love that book.
And, of course, the first Bill Willingham issue of the Angel comic.
Bit of a mixed bag really, like all these things. The art's quite good - stunning likeness of Kate, and Spike's not bad, though Illyria's terrible - but also some very typical comic book art-type stuff. Connor, for instance, takes off his ripped shirt, to reveal a body that a body builder would be proud of, and while I'm happy to believe that Connor is reasonably muscular, I just don't see him having that kind of physique. Also, he's rescued from a group of demons by a bunch of mysterious women in armour, and the armour is of course utterly ridiculous with huge boobs and legs up to their armpits.
It's too early to comment on the story. Certain aspects of it are intriguing, like who these armmoured women are and why they want to follow Connor, and what on earth has happened to Angel, but other aspects of the book are a bit jarring. Willingham doesn't have the character voices down pat yet (something Brian Lynch had from the first), though he's way better than Kelley Armstrong. His Spike isn't bad, though so far we're only seeing one side of the character, and the side I'm least fond of. But the continuity seems a bit shot with what's gone before. Gunn is bizarrely cheerful given what happened in A: AtF, while Spike is talking about some adventure he had in Las Vegas, which, since Brian Lynch said part of his Spike story is set in Las Vegas, suggests that this story follows on from that. But it can't do, because Lynch hasn't finished his story yet, which just leaves me feeling that IDW aren't paying attention to their own continuity, or perhaps the coup of getting a comic book star like Willingham to write for them means they daren't ask him to alter his plans to fit in with anyone else's? I don't know.
Also, there are just too many characters cluttering up the place now, and I honestly don't know why Willingham decided to keep Kelley Armstrong's OCs, Dez and James. Neither character is a good fit in the Angelverse. In fact, ironically, they would probably fit better in Willingham's own Fablesverse. If he does get to do this crossover he wants to do, which I hate the very idea of, maybe Dez and James should stay crossed over permanently?
Also, I do wonder why everyone just accepts it when Connor says he thinks he should lead A.I. in Angel's absence. Why? Just because Illyria says so?
That said, there are some fun lines of dialogue involving Dez, to do with her and Kate deciding that Angel's absence means he's off with some girl again. Apparently, this has been happening a lot since Angel got famous, though he only moons over them and then tells them they can't be together. Heh!
Not going to grade it. Still going to buy, but the jury is still out.