Reunited and it feels so good.
Creative Staff:
Script: Victor Gischler
Art: Will Conrad
Colors: Michelle Madsen
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
“United Part One”
After a short term of employment with Deepscan, Faith is ready to return to London’s Magic Town—which she left in a hurry after Whistler’s magical virus spread through Hackney, and where Angel has been helping folks transformed by the virus, keeping the peace, and getting a little guidance himself from Nadira. Now the sudden appearance of Winifred Burkle has given Angel a little shock…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Faith’s back in London, now Magic Town, and so is Fred. And Eldre Koh. Magic Town is weird but it’s good to have everyone in the comic back in the same general area. It’s been kind of a mess both story-wise and thematically up until now with Angel and Faith’s stories never melding completely together. As this is just the first part of this arc, it’s hard to tell if it’ll work better now, but I have high hopes. They’re still doing that scene transition thing where Faith’s first line is on Angel’s last page. It still isn’t working great for me.
There’s woefully little to talk about in this issue, though. Faith’s met up with Brandt and is heading up Zane’s security on a temporary basis. Both seem to be going well as Faith knows a lot about general magic stuff that isn’t the forte of Zane’s current personnel.
Angel’s got barely any time to do anything, dealing with Fred’s re-arrival. As has been said, there’s no killing the old ones, just getting rid of them temporarily. Fred may be back, but Illyria is still inside of her…somewhere. The new magic is was messing with Illyria’s own when she reappeared in Buffy’s “Welcome to the Team” story.
Nadira has a fantastic line in this issue, telling Faith that her quest for redemption is not perhaps what she should be seeking. Redemption is not what those who she wronged want. Sometimes, they’ll never forgive her. Sometimes, they don’t even blame her and are better off for Faith’s actions. In Nadira’s case, that’s probably true.
In Summary:
This was a pretty great setup issue. I’m looking forward to what will happen now that Angel and Faith, long in the same comic, are in the same area. Their parallel stories of redemption never melded as being separate and Magic Town is too weird for those two not to be connected. There wasn’t much meat on these bones, but it’s but a fledgling.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: February 4, 2015
MSRP: $3.50
FRED’S ALIVE. YAAAAAAAAAAY.