Welcome to Buffyness and Nightlurkers Presents: Angel: After the Fall, Issue #2 – “After the Fall (Part 2)”! In the previous installment… you know what? I don’t have my bearings on this at all so far. Maybe I need to read another issue to coalesce some of the crazy shit I’m already reading so far. Let me try a stab at it:

-Wolfram & Hart declared war?

-Angel can’t leave the building?

-Wes is a ghost?

-Gunn is some sort of rogue?

-Los Angeles is burning?

One to five of these may be entirely untrue! Let’s continue now before I implode like a Titanic submarine (topical).

Angel: After the Fall, Issue #2 [December, 2007]
Written by: Bryan Lynch / Joss Whedon
“After the Fall (Part 2)”

Angel is headed to Santa Monica, possibly to bone some yuppie pussy. He finds his car in the parking garage and tells Wes that he killed Burge’s Large Adult Son, which Wes boggles at. Burge’s son is like a tank! And you killed him?! LOL!

“Most of his remains are right outside if you need them for your report,” Angel tells him. I’m sure Wes finds joy in sorting bones. He likes to sort things. Now be a good lad and stay behind, k? Angel doesn’t need you for this mission, Wesley old boy.

Angel leaves the parking garage and chugga-chugs his way through the apocalyptic Los Angeles landscape. “Burge is a powerful lord. I killed his son. He’s going to want revenge, and he can’t take me. He obviously can’t touch Wesley. If he’s at all intelligent… and admittedly that’s up in the air… I know who he’s going to go after.”

Jeff Bridges?

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT WITH CONNOR?” yells a rather buxom young blonde woman. Someone named Nina, an ex of Angel’s. I guess. I really need to watch the show again. She’s the werewolf who licked the girl in the last issue. Angel tells Nina that Connor needs to watch his back lest Don Draper fucks him up.

Sounds sexy. You can chew on my bloody meat any day of the week. *eyebrows*

Anyway, Connor’s not here, man. He’s in Westwood fucking some yuppie pussy. “A lord was killed last night,” Nina informs the One Whom Killed the Lord. Word gets around fast.

In Westwood, various demons who claim to be the new lord of Westwood are eating each other in order to claim to be the new lords of Westwood. “So many demons want the crown. So many people caught in the crossfire.” Angel stalks around looking for Connor while the streets fill with people trying to run away from demons while the demons do demon things. Angel enters the fray with his own various weapons: a crossbow, an axe, a toothpick. Other things found in a Swiss army knife. Tweezers.

Angel thinks it’s going to take a while before he earns Connor’s trust again. Meanwhile, Connor is beheading demons with a gaint sword. “Hi, Angel. What took you so long?”

Apparently, this killing of the lord’s son puts a big target on Connor’s head. Hopefully, and I mean this sincerely, someone decides the snipe the little creep. While they fight, Connor asks where Angel has been all this time. Angel responds by whipping his dick out and avoiding the question.

NOW some woman named Gwen enters the fight, blasting bitches with blue electricity. I really need to watch the show again. “I just found out where the lord was killed, and it’s messed up. And I’m well aware we’re in Hell and we see messed up things every day and I’m talking messed up in comparison to that.”

Gwen mentions a new player in town, and, I quote, “he’s out for blood”. And here I am thinking that everyone is out for blood. Jesus. That’s the only motivation from anyone here.

Or last night’s Salisbury steak.

Gunn’s the one out for blood. This is fine, though, because Angel and Connor already know the guy. He’s got Kr’ph’s telepathic fish flopping on a bed.

“What’s your name?” Gunn asks.

“George.”

“George, I’m Gunn. And I know what this is gonna sound like, but I promise you, I’m one of the good guys.”

Suuuuure, Gunny Gunn Gunn. You just keep right on lying your ass off. When Gunn tells the fish to trust him, the fish doesn’t trust him. George calls Gunn “the vampire who kidnapped me”, which Gunn takes offense toward. “Don’t call me a vampire. Don’t.”

“I spent a good part of my life dusting them. Best part of my life, actually. And then… I was fool enough to trust one.”

*note to self: figure out what Angel did to fuck over Gunn*

“Led me into a battle that ended with me being dragged away and turned while he played goddamn dragon-whisperer.”

…ok, so that sounds familiar? So Gunn’s, like, a good vampire? Does he have a soul? Speaking of a vampire with a soul, that Angel cat probably wasn’t a good guy to begin with. It explains why he’s even kind of shitty with a soul.

Then Gunn starts punching George while hollering about saving everybody. Doesn’t sound like he’s particularly interested in saving the fish, though. “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE SOUL! I’M LIVING PROOF OF THAT!”

After he’s done walloping the fish, Gunn apologizes. Then he grabs a large, glowing yellow orb and takes it to what looks like a couch surrounded by a slew of swirling, angry demons. Gunn’s gonna save everyone, and everyone’s going to thank his ass. “And two seconds after Angel figures it out… Angel dies.”

HOLY MOLY! WHAT A PICKLE! ANGEL IS ALREADY DEAD, GUNN, YOU IDIOT!

What? The illustrations? I agree.

Elsewhere, Connor wonders how the now-dead Kr’ph was able to become lord in the first place. Angel tells him he had the Eye of Ramras! Of course! The Eye of Ramras! I had one of those once, then I dropped it in the toilet. Anyway, the Eye of Ramras amplifies the holder’s power. It’s why Kr’ph, known pussy, was able to step up and be lord. It explains why he had a target on his back, too. Everyone wants the Eye of Ramras, toilet water notwithstanding.

Gwen knows that vampires are to blame for this. She knows this because she saw a pile of dead women with vampire neck bites!

“Any idea who did this?” Connor asks. Angel says no, but he lied. He lies a lot. Shitty person with a soul, remember? He puts his vampirely hand on Connor’s shoulder and asks him to go back to Wolfram & Hart and get his dragon. Connor thinks this is a silly request. Thinks the old man is off his dang rocker. But Angel insists. He’s going to leave now, but the dragon will know where to find him.

Connor thinks he’s cuckoo bananas. Don’t we all.

“All signs point to it,” Angel thinks. “It was bound to happen. Our paths were going to cross. I should have handled this before. No time like the present.” It’s going to be Spike, isn’t it? Angel’s old bone buddy. Billy Idol himself. The unknown, off-panel figure is surrounded by scantily-clad women who are feeding him blood from an ornate fountain. The vampire drones on and on about how great and powerful and superior and brave he was as he led everyone to battle. “I was perfect. When the smoke cleared, I looked the devil square in his big, red face and over Angel’s blubbering, I yelled ‘IS THAT ALL YOU GOT, MATE?’”

No, you reek of pig’s blood and Funyuns.

Spike is now revealed. He drinks heartily from a chalice while his women hail the nerd. “As a reward for my selfless bravery, Los Angeles was sent to Heaven.” Sounds lame.

Angel shows up with a big NOT SO FAST, CUNT. “After he led us to victory,” Angel claims, “we proclaimed we’d be friends forever and did a synchronized hand-jive at the big carnival. Hey, Spike.”

A woman lets the moody, broody vampire know that nobody gets to have an audience with Spike, their lord and savior. Spike agrees, and isn’t interested in Angel showing up just to fuck with his good fortune. Angel doesn’t even want to be here, but he has to be. Eye of Ramras!

A little late with the exposition dialogue, but Spike tells Angel that he’s sorry that Wesley died and that Gunn became a vampire. Angel tells him to cork it and then he punches him right across the jaw. “We all knew what we were getting into. We knew what could happen,” Angel tells the sniveling vampire. Spike still ain’t having it! There are going to be two hits: Spike hitting Angel, and Angel hitting the floor! Bam! Boom shakalaka! Woop woop woop!

And then Angel cracks him in the face again.

Eat all my shit, dirtbag!

So Angel hits Spike, and Spike hits the floor. That’s what happened.

Angel tries to tell Spike that a lord is dead. An Eye of Ramras was stolen. People are dead. There was an inscription on the walls written in blood in primordial Sanskrit.

“So where is she?” Angel finally asks.

Someone lifts Angel up off the ground. “YOUR PRESENCE IS IRRITATING MY PET. PERHAPS YOUR DISMEMBERMENT WILL SOOTH HIM.”

Remember Fred? Remember when she was blue? It’s Blue Fred.

Blue Fred was sexy.

Final Thoughts

It’s all coming together! And by that I mean that the entire cast of Angel has finally shown up!

Except for Lorne. And Cordelia. But who gives a shit about them?

Didn’t Cordelia die? Is that a thing that happened?

I’m hungry.