Everything has a beginning…
Creative Staff:
Scripts: Christos Gage
Pencils: Rebekah Isaacs
Inks: Rebekah Isaacs
Colors: Dan Jackson
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
“Daddy Issues”
While keeping the streets of London safe, Angel and Faith struggle with their sin-filled pasts. For now, Faith finds some peace in guiding a group of Slayers—one of whom has a lethal grudge against Angel. With reluctant assistance from Faith, Angel seeks to undo his greatest sin and resurrect Giles from a natural death…somehow…in a world without magic.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Trauma starts somewhere. How someone became who they are starts somewhere. For Faith and Drusilla, it’s their fathers. Faith’s real father and the man who sired Drusilla…Angel.
This pain lives in both Faith and Drusilla and, in a way, that’s the thing they’re trying to get over. This story is about dealing with those issues. For everyone, it’s different. Hell, for different parts of an individual’s life, it’s different.
For Drusilla, the solution is always to escape. She ran into a lorophage demon, who takes your trauma away from you. You still remember it, but you don’t remember the pain it caused.
The important thing to remember is that the pain shapes you as a person. As much as Faith wants to forget the father who hurt her, the father figures who manipulated her, and the people she’s killed, she can’t. She can’t forget what she’s done and what’s happened to her because she’ll make the same mistakes again. There’s a reason why Angel is so tall, dark, and brooding. One is because David Boreanaz is tall, two is because of the things that happened in his past, and three is because he’s trying to fix it. But if he doesn’t have the drive to fix it, the memories of enjoying the hunt and the torture and the killing, then there’s no going back.
These issues are all about trying to confront what’s messed you up. That’s the first step in any recovery and it seems that neither Angel nor Faith wants to do that just yet. Faith finally got her chance when she succumbed to the lorophage, but I don’t know if Angel’s quite there yet.
In Summary:
This story gets right at a problem we’re so unwilling to admit: sometimes, it isn’t our fault. Sometimes, something did something to us and it’s not our fault that we’re who we are. We are who we are, and there’s no denying that. But Angel didn’t have a soul when he committed those, well, soulless acts. Faith’s dad molded her into something that was willing to accept what’s wrong for her. Drusilla was tortured by Angel. But on the other hand, some things are our fault. Faith killed people when she knew it was wrong, even though she was being manipulated. Angel’s killed people since he got his soul back. The path to redemption isn’t so easy, but Angel and Faith have each other to get through it. Hopefully that’ll be enough.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B+
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date:
Issue #06: January 25, 2012
Issue #07: February 29, 2012
Issue #08: March 28, 2012
Issue #09: April 25, 2012
