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\nBy Christopher Golden, Hector Gomez<\/b> & Sandu Florea<\/b> (Dark Horse\/Titan Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-84023-163-7<\/p>\n
\nBy Christopher Golden, Hector Gomez<\/b> & Sandu Florea<\/b> (Dark Horse\/Titan Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-84023-163-7<\/p>\n
These days a ingenuous girl loving an undead bloodsucker is so trite and overused it is a subject of parody and jest, but not so long ago the concept was relatively fresh and enticing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
For an entire generation, their first brush with the idea came courtesy of a landmark TV show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/b> began her charismatic career after a clueless cheerleaderValley Girl teen suddenly turned into an indomitable monster-killer: latest winner of an unpredictable mystic\/genetic lottery which transformed unsuspecting mortal maids into human killing machines and martial arts masters\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
The cult series and its assorted media spin-offs refocused the zeitgeist and, since Dark Horse Comics’ clever, witty graphic interpretation is what interests me most, here’s a look at one of their earliest sidebar projects.<\/p>\n
Once the company secured the strip licensing rights, they began generating an engaging regular series, a welter of original graphic novels, spin-offs, specials and numerous miniseries.<\/p>\n
Buffy Summers<\/i> lived in the small California hamlet of Sunnydale<\/i> on the edge of a paranormal portal to the Nether Realms dubbed The Hellmouth<\/i>, where she and a small band of friends battled devils, demons and every sort of horror inexorably drawn to the area and whom\/what\/which all considered humanity an appetiser and planet Earth an irresistible eldritch \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fixer-upper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d opportunity.<\/p>\n
With Rupert Giles<\/i>, scholarly mentor, father-figure and Watcher<\/i> of all things unnatural, Buffy and her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scooby Gang\u00e2\u20ac\u009d began making the after-dark streets of Sunnydale safe for the oblivious human morsels, aided by an enigmatic stud-muffin referring to himself as Angel<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Eventually he was revealed as a good vampire – one who possessed a soul – and he and the Summers girl fell in love. Sadly that broke the spell which made a tragic hero and instead unleashed the diabolical vampire he had been – the red-handed Angelus<\/i> who had turned Europe into his personal charnel house for nearly two centuries.<\/p>\n
Although Angel was eventually restored thanks to the intervention of Buffy and Co, he had briefly carved a savage swathe through town – ghastly even by Sunnydale’s standards – and was left burdened with a double dose of paralysing guilt and faced every night the vigilant, fearful suspicions of his human allies\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Angel eventually won his own TV franchise, but long before that he had graduated from romantic interest\/arch enemy into his own 3-issue tryout miniseries. Angel: The Hollower<\/b> was released from May to July 1999 and detailed how, even after reverting to exquisite evil before being redeemed again, his past would always be there to haunt him\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
This British Titan Books edition commences with an Introduction<\/i> by scripter Christopher Golden (and ends with a light-hearted interview with original series cover-artist Jeff Matsuda) before the action opens with ‘Cursed!’<\/i> by Golden, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (originally seen in anthology Dark Horse Presents<\/b> #141, March 1999) wherein the Brooding Bad Boy regales Buffy with the horrific events that followed his rebirth as a bloodsucker in Ireland circa 1753.<\/p>\n
That handy origin recap concluded, the main event – set during the TV show’s third season – kicks off in present-day San Francisco where a pair of vampires is attacked by a monstrous tentacled horror. Veteran vamp Catherine<\/i> barely escapes with her unlife and, having seen the horror before, knows there’s only one being she can turn to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
In Sunnydale, Buffy and Angel have resumed their after-dark partnership, even though Giles and the rest of her in-the-know friends are still wary of the recently re-redeemed night-stalker. However once their monster-killing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153date\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ends Angel is jumped by a band of fangers and sees a girl he slaughtered and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153turned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d over a century past\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Although their sworn enemy, his undead captors treat Angel with kid gloves. Catherine only wants to talk and she wants to talk about The Hollower<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
In a flashback, the scene turns to Vienna in 1892 where Angelus and his pack-mates Spike<\/i> and Drusilla<\/i> were amongst many vampires preying on the populace in complete security, oblivious and immune to all threat or challenge.<\/p>\n
However, soon after turning Catherine, Angelus was confronted by starving, terrified vampires fleeing from some unimaginable horror that actually preyed on bloodsuckers\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Back in the now, Catherine reminds her sire of the cost the last time the creature manifested and warns him the thing has undoubtedly tracked her to Sunnydale\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
At last convinced, Angel agrees to a truce and prepares to battle the thing again. Unfortunately this is something he cannot share with Buffy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
In end-of-the-century Austria the first fight against the Hollower unsatisfactorily stalled with only a few undead survivors, whilst now in Sunnydale Angel secretly consults eldritch expert Giles and learns the truth about the beast. He also discovers that, blithely unaware, Buffy is already hunting a huge, subterranean tentacled horror that prefers vamps to human meals\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Watcher archives reveal a chilling scenario. Vampires are actually human corpses with the departed soul replaced by a reanimating demon, using blood to fuel the composite creature. The Hollower however, sucks out those demonic riders and ingests them. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, except once it’s full – about 3,000 demons is its limit – the horror explosively regurgitates them and the partially digested devils will infect the nearest LIVING body.<\/p>\n
If the Hollower succeeds in satiating itself in vampire-infested Sunnydale and subsequently pops, most of the town’s mortal souls will suddenly become rabid, blood-crazed killers\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Engaged in the hunt, Buffy however can’t shift a nagging and unworthy notion: if the Hollower sucks out the vampire part of Angel, will she be left with a normal human lover\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6?<\/p>\n
Fast and furious, this tale of two cities and times is a solid supernatural thriller big on action and intriguingly presented. Definitely prescribed for anybody suffering a surfeit of lovestruck face-suckers and kissypoo predators \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which last really should know better at their age…
\nAngel \u00e2\u201e\u00a2 & \u00c2\u00a9 2000 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Christopher Golden, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (Dark Horse\/Titan Books) ISBN: 978-1-84023-163-7 These days a ingenuous girl loving an undead bloodsucker is so trite and overused it is a subject of parody and jest, but not so long ago the concept was relatively fresh and enticing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 For an entire generation, their first brush with … <\/p>\n