Review - Angel: The Curse #1 from IDW comics

Well, as a mega fan of pretty much anything Joss Whedon (except his run on X-Men, as for some odd reason I have never ever ever been interested in mutant related comics) I was sorry to hear when the bizarre beings know as TV executives at the WB decided to cancel one of their best rated shows. Especially since the last episode ended with a gripping cliff hanger.

This comic takes place at some unspecified time after that - and Angel himself is "alive" (or alive as a vampire with a soul can be). He's off in Romania trying to find the last remnants of the gypsies who cursed him with his soul. However, he finds that the Romanian wilderness is lousy with vampires, all of whom want to kill Angel.

As far as first issues go, this was a decent read. It's a bit sad that we get no hint of what has happened with the other Buffyverse/Angelverse characters, but with licenses still split between companies (Dark Horse is still publishing Buffy comics) and Whedon seems to have reserved the resolution of the season ending cliff hanger to his own brilliant pen, that's to be expected.

The pace moves along well, and exposition is mixed well with action, though much of the exposition cover territory already familiar to anyone who has seen the TV series - in essence there's a condensed version of Angel's backstory for the newbies, and it has nothing new for the die hard fans. However, this is a first issue and it has to fill in the casual readers in - and luckily this author does it in a way that seems natural - it doesn't seem forced.

There are few nitpicks with the art. Some of the sequences that worked well on TV, such as Angel producing stakes from his sleeves and impaling vampires, do not translate well to the comics panel - or at least, in this case they don't. It seems rather stiff and unexciting. But that is such a minor nit, and many fans are expecting such a scene anyway, I wonder why it bothered me so much. Oh, well.

IDW is an overlooked comic company with a lot of great titles. Apparently, they've picked up Peter David's brilliant but cancelled by DC comics Fallen Angel series (no relation to the Angel in this review), so if your comic store doesn't yet carry IDW comics, go in there and demand they immediately start doing so.