Angel & Faith Season 10 #4

By Victor Gischler, Will Conrad & Michelle Madson

Angel & Faith, even with the separate storylines between the two lead characters, is shaping up to be an enjoyable book and a great addition to the Buffy-verse. With this issue primarily focused on the battle between Angel and Pearl, Faith takes a backseat this time around, and whilst the result isn’t perfect, with a few problems here and there, it still provides a good read.

The book is all about the fight between Angel and Pearl, and it’s pulled off very well indeed, with Gischler making it a very entertaining read. With new powers up Pearl’s sleeve she’s more than capable of holding her own against Angel, and it’s great to see the two characters going head to head in a very intense conflict brought to life by the great artwork from Will Conrad, who is really doing this book justice. His pencils are great and Gischler and Conrad are really working together well – with Michelle Madson being delivering some great colours to really help bring this book to life.

We also got a great insight as to how magic worked in the Buffyverse this issue. We saw that with the creation of Magic Town, Angel has created many enemies during his time as a hero and the fact that they have newer powers is very interesting to see, particularly like we’ve come to experience here with the showdown between Angel and Pearl. It feels fresh and exciting and it’s something that has made this issue a very entertaining ride indeed.

If there was a problem with this issue it would come from the fact that there wasn’t much to do on Faith’s part this time around. With the action focused on Angel and Pearl’s showdown it meant that Gischler had to remove the attention from Faith and whilst her part was still important as it provided some interesting developments, it could have really done with a smoother narrative switch between the two as the pacing didn’t really work as well as it could have been handled, which is a shame.

Regardless, of any flaws though, Victor Gischler, Will Conrad and Michelle Mason are the right team to handle Angel & Faith and as long as it remains a fun ride like it was here it should be interesting to see where it goes, especially with an interesting ending scene that hints at promising things to come. Recommended.