By Victor Gischler, Derlis Santacruz, Andy Owens & Michelle Madson
With Faith in America, working for Kennedy’s Slayer-For-Hire company Deepscan, Angel’s in London’s magic town trying to aid people beset by a magical virus that he played a part in unleashing. However, ever since the Scoobies have planted a new seed of magic in the world, Angel’s starting to grow more and more aware of several new rules.
Victor Gischler has become a welcome writer on Angel & Faith and so far, he’s rarely disappointed. This issue sees the launch of a new arc as Angel is propelled into a new mystery in London, with vampires being able to kill people in broad daylight, with three bodies having shown up so far. It’s an interesting development for the storyline that’s entitled Old Habits – which appropriately starts with a flashback/nightmare to darker times.
The issue itself is focusing squarely on Angel and the mystery, which is interesting to see as it’s the first time this series that we’ve lacked the Faith/Angel split. Hopefully we’ll see an entirely Faith-centric issue further down the line, but the mystery was compelling enough to serve as a simple standalone one that works as a good breather from the previous arc, and a chance for readers to see Derlis Santacruz in action, who delivers some pretty awesome artwork.
The pencils that Santacruz brings to the table are awesome, and great for the noir-ish feel that this issue has. A great sense of atmosphere is created and enhanced by the inks of Andy Owens and Michelle Madson’s always good colours. The book’s horror feel is really brought to life by the artists on board, and this reviewer wouldn’t mind if there was more to come from Santacruz in the future.
We got a good supporting cast this issue as well, with the inclusion of lesser known characters, sisters Lavinia and Sophie, and an appearance from Inspector Brandt. Whilst Brandt doesn’t get as much attention as the other three, his appearance is welcome but hopefully he’ll play a bigger role in the future.
The twist is fun and this issue is a nice story that works just as well on its own as it does in a series. Angel & Faith continues to be a strong series and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here, whether we’ll see Faith get her own whole issue next month or the attention will be split back between the two. One thing’s for sure though, Angel & Faith Season 10 #5 showed that it was capable of handling an issue with just one of these characters well and comes recommended as a result of this.
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