Post by Paul on Feb 17, 2009 18:07:09 GMT -5
So now that After the Fall is complete and all issues can be viewed with the context of the bigger picture, how do you feel about it? Write your own review of the series detailing what you liked and what didn't work for you.
Personally, I've had mixed feelings towards the series from the start. After reading the first issue, I realised that this wasn't as good as Season Eight. A lot of people disagree, but whatever... to me, Buffy is the more professionally written series and the one that does most justice to the television show. The story itself is solid and I agree with the overall direction. Gunn being a vampire is just perfect, given his prejudice towards them in seasons one and two. He made for an interestingly unique vampire as well, given his heroic delusions and self-loathing, and I loved how they worked the visions into his story. Angel being human is also interesting and ironic, since his ultimate dream is being exploited and used against him (ie, when he needs to be a vampire to help people). Also, giving Angel a dragon steed was just fantastic and gave the series an epic feel to it as he flew through Hell-A. However, some of the other character arcs are lacking, IMO. The Illyria/Fred storyline could have been executed better; while the concept of Illyria trying and failing to be Fred was fascinating, this wasn't apparent throughout most of the series, and instead felt like Brian was just bad at writing Fred's dialogue. In retrospect, it was great Illyria characterization, but the way it was handled was just confusing at the time. Then there's the silly "reveal" at the end of #5; we've seen Illyria take on Fred's appearance before, so how is this shocking in any way? The only reason I thought there must be more to it was because of IDW's hype leading up to this issue, and the idea that Illyria was taking on Fred's personality was not conveyed until three issues later. Having Illyria revert to her true form later on was a great decision, and like the dragon, gave the series an epic feeling to it.
Spike's character arc in this series could also have been better. Spike: After the Fall gave us a great Spike-centric story with a clear arc, but the main Angel series didn't. He spent the whole time worrying about Illyria and delivering incessant one-liners that became annoying at times. We got some vague foreshadowing about Spike not having a destiny, which only amounted to something in the last issue. Destiny-free Spike is an interesting idea, however, and I look forward to it being followed up in the Spike ongoing series, especially since I'm convinced Lynch writes Spike better as a protagonist rather than a sidekick. I have no problem with Wesley being back, but I wish they'd given him more to do besides deliver exposition. It seems like they gave Spike his role as Illyria's sidekick, and his whole relationship with Illyria seemed very diluted. It didn't help that #16 should have been Wesley's chance to shine; only he loved Fred enough to stop Illyria, and it would have made his role in the series worthwhile. But what did they do? They let Spike steal his thunder, again! That said, there were some nice sentiments in #17 when Angel mentions how much he misses Wesley. As for Connor, Lynch did a brilliant job of making him into a likable character, he seems to have a talent for writing sarcastic, down-to-earth characters like Jeremy and Betta George. The absence of Vincent Kartheiser was also a plus, since I'm not a big fan of that actor. However, I didn't like the half-baked "Gwonner" relationship. It seemed like the two were just slapped together half-heartedly, with no time spent showing the dynamic of their relationship, how they met, how they fell in love, etc. It felt like a fan fiction pairing, to be honest, and didn't seem to benefit either character. Nina was just... well, even she points out how useless she is, it was practically an in-joke.
Two characters I think were handled brilliantly were Kate and Cordelia. I loathed Kate on the TV series, she was just so humourless and miserable, with her woe-is-me attitude to Angel and the supernatural. Realistic? Yes. Entertaining? Hell no. However, her reappearance in First Night worked perfectly because we saw just how much she'd grown as a person. Gone was the self-pitying loser who tried to kill herself, and instead was a cool demon-hunter who accepted the supernatural world and had the balls to fight it. Like Anne in "Not Fade Away", Kate has become the embodiment of the series' themes; an ordinary person in a dark world who keeps fighting even when there's no hope of winning. I liked how First Night left the question of Kate's survival unanswered, it was very similar to "Not Fade Away". I believed at the time that she went out to her death, and am disappointed that's she's back in Aftermath. Oh well, it's not like it's canon.
Cordelia was just fun to have around. At a point when I had totally lost interest in the series (three issues of Runge's art will do that to you, see below), Cordelia rejuvenated things and Brian, who seemed to struggle with other female characters like Spider, Gwen, and Nina, was surprisingly perfect at writing her dialogue. It was as though the character came alive again on the page, she just felt like Cordy. Her return was totally justified by the story, and it was great to see her again... I love her final, no-nonsense message to Angel: "See? Are those the words of the vampire destined to bring about the fall of civilization? No way! Be good, big guy."
On the art side of things, I wasn't a big fan of Urru at first. He takes some getting used to, but I think his work picked up a lot in the final three issues. I'm not sure if that was the colouring, because the series felt rather muddy and brown most of the time, and #15-17 were much more vibrant and colourful. I really grew to like Urru in the last few issues, and I'm looking forward to seeing him again in the Spike series (hopefully... it's not confirmed is it?) I hate Runge's work. I'm sorry, I know he reads this forum, but I'm going to be honest. He was too concerned with capturing the actor's likeness, and it was painfully obvious in some panels that he had just copied publicity stills. For God's sake if you're going to reference a photo, don't use a well-known one where the reader instantly thinks "hey, that's been copied from that publicity still". Also, when Runge didn't copy photos, his work was borderline cartoony (see the Loan Shark) so you had this awful mismatch of photorealism and cartoons. Runge's work felt more like a scrapbook of random pictures than a living, breathing story, and he became increasingly sloppy and rushed during his run. When you're a professional artist, the last few pages of #11 are downright inexcusable. I'd rather the series been delayed for a few months than have to live with that artwork. That said, he kicked ass with his amazing double page spread in #12 so he's obviously a capable artist when he's not fighting a deadline. Stephen Mooney is a great artist (his Cordy was spot-on!), but I think he deserves better than the 3-issue filler run than he got. The inconsistant artwork really damaged the series and was one of the reasons I got so fed up with it half-way through.
Merging First Night into the main title was just a bad idea; whenever the TV series did flashbacks, they were interlinked thematically with the present day story, they didn't just stop the season to show random raw flashbacks. As a result, First Night is just this huge speedbump that, while containing a lot of great material, damages the flow of the series due to poor placement. Similarly, spinning Spike off into his own mini-series while the main series was ongoing was kind of ill-advised. It fractured the storyline and robbed Angel of it's artist. Whereas Season Eight has fill-in art planned out for specific stories, it felt like AtF was just winging it by getting Runge and Mooney in last minute. With more preparation, the events Spike: AtF and First Night could have integrated more seamlessly with the main series; again, see how Buffy handles multiple storylines happening under the same title.
So, looking back at the After the Fall, I think that it's very enjoyable but has a number of serious flaws. Which makes it quite similar to, say, season four of the TV series (which I love). My review skews more toward the negative points, but that's only because I want to balance out the unrelenting praise the series gets from fans. I think if there had been more careful organisation and planning, the series could have been a lot better but it's still a good comic book and a worthy follow-up to the TV series. And I must say, the last three issues were just fantastic, which makes up for a lot. (Buffy season seven, for example.)
Personally, I've had mixed feelings towards the series from the start. After reading the first issue, I realised that this wasn't as good as Season Eight. A lot of people disagree, but whatever... to me, Buffy is the more professionally written series and the one that does most justice to the television show. The story itself is solid and I agree with the overall direction. Gunn being a vampire is just perfect, given his prejudice towards them in seasons one and two. He made for an interestingly unique vampire as well, given his heroic delusions and self-loathing, and I loved how they worked the visions into his story. Angel being human is also interesting and ironic, since his ultimate dream is being exploited and used against him (ie, when he needs to be a vampire to help people). Also, giving Angel a dragon steed was just fantastic and gave the series an epic feel to it as he flew through Hell-A. However, some of the other character arcs are lacking, IMO. The Illyria/Fred storyline could have been executed better; while the concept of Illyria trying and failing to be Fred was fascinating, this wasn't apparent throughout most of the series, and instead felt like Brian was just bad at writing Fred's dialogue. In retrospect, it was great Illyria characterization, but the way it was handled was just confusing at the time. Then there's the silly "reveal" at the end of #5; we've seen Illyria take on Fred's appearance before, so how is this shocking in any way? The only reason I thought there must be more to it was because of IDW's hype leading up to this issue, and the idea that Illyria was taking on Fred's personality was not conveyed until three issues later. Having Illyria revert to her true form later on was a great decision, and like the dragon, gave the series an epic feeling to it.
Spike's character arc in this series could also have been better. Spike: After the Fall gave us a great Spike-centric story with a clear arc, but the main Angel series didn't. He spent the whole time worrying about Illyria and delivering incessant one-liners that became annoying at times. We got some vague foreshadowing about Spike not having a destiny, which only amounted to something in the last issue. Destiny-free Spike is an interesting idea, however, and I look forward to it being followed up in the Spike ongoing series, especially since I'm convinced Lynch writes Spike better as a protagonist rather than a sidekick. I have no problem with Wesley being back, but I wish they'd given him more to do besides deliver exposition. It seems like they gave Spike his role as Illyria's sidekick, and his whole relationship with Illyria seemed very diluted. It didn't help that #16 should have been Wesley's chance to shine; only he loved Fred enough to stop Illyria, and it would have made his role in the series worthwhile. But what did they do? They let Spike steal his thunder, again! That said, there were some nice sentiments in #17 when Angel mentions how much he misses Wesley. As for Connor, Lynch did a brilliant job of making him into a likable character, he seems to have a talent for writing sarcastic, down-to-earth characters like Jeremy and Betta George. The absence of Vincent Kartheiser was also a plus, since I'm not a big fan of that actor. However, I didn't like the half-baked "Gwonner" relationship. It seemed like the two were just slapped together half-heartedly, with no time spent showing the dynamic of their relationship, how they met, how they fell in love, etc. It felt like a fan fiction pairing, to be honest, and didn't seem to benefit either character. Nina was just... well, even she points out how useless she is, it was practically an in-joke.
Two characters I think were handled brilliantly were Kate and Cordelia. I loathed Kate on the TV series, she was just so humourless and miserable, with her woe-is-me attitude to Angel and the supernatural. Realistic? Yes. Entertaining? Hell no. However, her reappearance in First Night worked perfectly because we saw just how much she'd grown as a person. Gone was the self-pitying loser who tried to kill herself, and instead was a cool demon-hunter who accepted the supernatural world and had the balls to fight it. Like Anne in "Not Fade Away", Kate has become the embodiment of the series' themes; an ordinary person in a dark world who keeps fighting even when there's no hope of winning. I liked how First Night left the question of Kate's survival unanswered, it was very similar to "Not Fade Away". I believed at the time that she went out to her death, and am disappointed that's she's back in Aftermath. Oh well, it's not like it's canon.
Cordelia was just fun to have around. At a point when I had totally lost interest in the series (three issues of Runge's art will do that to you, see below), Cordelia rejuvenated things and Brian, who seemed to struggle with other female characters like Spider, Gwen, and Nina, was surprisingly perfect at writing her dialogue. It was as though the character came alive again on the page, she just felt like Cordy. Her return was totally justified by the story, and it was great to see her again... I love her final, no-nonsense message to Angel: "See? Are those the words of the vampire destined to bring about the fall of civilization? No way! Be good, big guy."On the art side of things, I wasn't a big fan of Urru at first. He takes some getting used to, but I think his work picked up a lot in the final three issues. I'm not sure if that was the colouring, because the series felt rather muddy and brown most of the time, and #15-17 were much more vibrant and colourful. I really grew to like Urru in the last few issues, and I'm looking forward to seeing him again in the Spike series (hopefully... it's not confirmed is it?) I hate Runge's work. I'm sorry, I know he reads this forum, but I'm going to be honest. He was too concerned with capturing the actor's likeness, and it was painfully obvious in some panels that he had just copied publicity stills. For God's sake if you're going to reference a photo, don't use a well-known one where the reader instantly thinks "hey, that's been copied from that publicity still". Also, when Runge didn't copy photos, his work was borderline cartoony (see the Loan Shark) so you had this awful mismatch of photorealism and cartoons. Runge's work felt more like a scrapbook of random pictures than a living, breathing story, and he became increasingly sloppy and rushed during his run. When you're a professional artist, the last few pages of #11 are downright inexcusable. I'd rather the series been delayed for a few months than have to live with that artwork. That said, he kicked ass with his amazing double page spread in #12 so he's obviously a capable artist when he's not fighting a deadline. Stephen Mooney is a great artist (his Cordy was spot-on!), but I think he deserves better than the 3-issue filler run than he got. The inconsistant artwork really damaged the series and was one of the reasons I got so fed up with it half-way through.
Merging First Night into the main title was just a bad idea; whenever the TV series did flashbacks, they were interlinked thematically with the present day story, they didn't just stop the season to show random raw flashbacks. As a result, First Night is just this huge speedbump that, while containing a lot of great material, damages the flow of the series due to poor placement. Similarly, spinning Spike off into his own mini-series while the main series was ongoing was kind of ill-advised. It fractured the storyline and robbed Angel of it's artist. Whereas Season Eight has fill-in art planned out for specific stories, it felt like AtF was just winging it by getting Runge and Mooney in last minute. With more preparation, the events Spike: AtF and First Night could have integrated more seamlessly with the main series; again, see how Buffy handles multiple storylines happening under the same title.
So, looking back at the After the Fall, I think that it's very enjoyable but has a number of serious flaws. Which makes it quite similar to, say, season four of the TV series (which I love). My review skews more toward the negative points, but that's only because I want to balance out the unrelenting praise the series gets from fans. I think if there had been more careful organisation and planning, the series could have been a lot better but it's still a good comic book and a worthy follow-up to the TV series. And I must say, the last three issues were just fantastic, which makes up for a lot. (Buffy season seven, for example.)
