Sunday Splash Page #28

"Do Not Feed The Wildlife," in Angel and Faith #13, by Christos Gage (writer), Rebekah Isaacs (artist), Dan Jackson (colorist), Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt (letterers)

OK, not exactly a full-page splash, but there weren't a lot of them to choose from that I really liked. Certainly was not going to pick one that prominently featured Angel.

This series ran from 2011-2013, which means it's been almost exactly 5 years since it wrapped up. Which doesn't seem possible, but here we are. I've always liked Faith enough as a character to be able to tolerate Angel. Christos Gage had written a couple of books for Marvel I'd generally enjoyed, he's pretty good at keeping subplots going in the background until it's time for them to take center stage, and he seemed to have a good handle on the characters' voices. I wasn't familiar with Isaacs' artwork prior to this, but she was able to draw the characters to look recognizable, without being too obviously photo-referenced, so things don't look awkward and stiff. She draws a solid fight scene, and she can draw giant, disgusting creatures.

I thought the book dragged a bit in the last third, but overall it was pretty good. Giles' vain aunts were a solid comedy duo. I might have just been annoyed at how Gage wrote Spike when he popped up, since Spike is my second-favorite character in the Buffyverse. Gage and Isaacs went on write the next season of the main Buffy title, which I did not buy, because I don't care for the title character.

All Life Is Meetings, And Partings, And Reunions

I'm probably going to refer back to this post. I think that scene, and the one I want to discuss today, from Angel & Faith #25, make nice bookends for the Faith and Giles interactions. I've included to two relevant pages. Yes, the photos are a little blurry. Sorry. You can click on them to make them larger, though.

We start with Faith walking away from Angel and towards Giles (he was resurrected as a 12-year old, if you were out of the loop). Faith has just affirmed to Angel that she's still his friend, but she needs to get away for awhile, figure out who she is on her own. Working with Angel cost her everything of the life she'd managed to build around herself, with the younger Slayers and whatnot. That's pretty important by itself, since Faith has often seemed to be stuck with the castoffs other people didn't want, or if she starts to gather friends, she's accused of stealing them, as Buffy frequently (sometimes validly) accused her. Nadira and the other girls were hers, but getting wrapped up in Angel's quest to undo his screw-ups cost her them.

Anyway, Faith is resigning herself to working for Kennedy and going forward alone, but here's Giles - waiting for her, asking if he can accompany her in panel 2. Isaacs makes it clear Faith is both surprised, and touched. The smile, the hand over the heart gesture, this wasn't something Faith was expecting, but she's glad to hear it. Also, the shift in viewer perspective emphasizes how close they are at this point. Faith has definitely narrowed the distance between them from panel 1 to panel 2. One might even suspect the possibility of a hug. But panel 3 brings us Giles alone, as he lays out his current difficulties adjusting. By panel 4, as Giles admits to his need to find a new path, we can see Faith still looks relaxed. Her stance is easy, leaning slightly forward, there's what I'd describe as a curious look on her face, like she wants to see where Giles is going with this. But the perspective has shifted to a bird's eye view, which is more impersonal, making us less a part of the conversation, and more the audience in the balcony. It increases our distance from them, reducing the intimacy, and I think it makes the distance between the two characters appear greater as well, without either having to move.

And then in panel 5, Giles comes right out and says it: He wants to go back to Buffy, and we get a close-up on Faith's reaction. It's hurt, maybe angry, mostly resigned. This isn't really new for Faith. One of the other recurring themes of her life has been to be compared to Buffy, and be found wanting. Never as good, never as welcome, never anyone's first choice. It's what helped the Mayor sink his hooks into her, that he made her feel second to no one. It's part of why she's so ride or die for Angel, not just because he stuck up for her, but he did it against Buffy. Look back at the page in the older post. Where Faith comments she hasn't heard from Giles in a while, and he tries to apologize, she states it outright: 'You can skip the friendly uncle routine. I ain't your beloved Buffy.'

But a lot had changed since then. She and Giles had worked together for months, independently of Buffy. Even so, at the end of the previous season, there was a sequence where Giles rushes up to her, and Faith begins to assure him she's fine. But Giles is there to retrieve the scythe, because Buffy needs it. So he runs off to get killed, and leaves Faith with a bunch of burning Slayer corpses. But now she'd helped him return from the dead. Not as either of them would have liked, but still, it has to count for something. And still he wants to go back to Buffy.

Incidentally, I've been trying for some time to figure out the panels where the background is just one color, with no details. The best explanation I've managed is that it's designed to focus the reader's attention on one specific thing, typically a character's reaction. In this case, Faith's. Why wouldn't you? Her face is the only thing in the panel, so it gives the reader a chance to look it over a bit, let it sink in.

The second page starts with us back in the balcony. I think we're in essentially the same spot, but they've moved beneath us. Faith has backed up to the foot of Nadira's bed, and Giles is advancing, a bit of entreaty in his posture. I'd like to think he recognizes his mistake and is trying to mend the damage, but mostly he's offering more justifications for why he should get what he wants. A true adolescent. I wonder if the perspective, which lets us survey the whole scene, is meant to make us impartial? Giles does have a good point about being in an unusual circumstance and needing some help. That's about as impartial as I can be, I'm in the tank for Faith, if you hadn't guessed. Note the placement of Nadira and Angel in the upper right corner. Faith had been walking away from them originally, towards a future, possibly a very different one. But confronted with Giles using her as a way to hitch a quick, discreet flight to the States, she's backing up, falling back into her past. Heck, you even have a Slayer in a coma with a well-meaning (but seriously messed up) father figure next to her. Angel isn't anywhere near as close to Nadira as the Mayor was to Faith, but in each in his own way contributed to the girls' self-destructive paths that put them in those beds.

From there, we get another close-up of Faith in panel 2. The color choice is curious. Yellow seems like too cheery a color for a response whose word balloon could have those little icicles hanging off it. The angle is different from panel 5 on the previous page. We seem to have shifted into Giles' position, so that we're looking up at Faith. I think it's to set up panel 3, as she walks out past him, the old Faith armor firmly in place, trying her best to appear as if nothing's bothering her. Of course, Giles has spent enough time around her to know better, and his posture makes it look as though he wants to follow. Or at least raise an arm to call after her. But he doesn't. Maybe he knows better at this point.

What it boils down to is, Faith stopped retreating into her past and went forward, on towards that future she was headed to before this whole conversation. She goes right past Giles and out of the tent, leaving him with Angel and Nadira. All important parts of her past now, but not her future.

You can chart a difference in Faith in how she reacted in the older scene and this one. In the older one, she brought up that Giles hadn't been in touch, as a way of pointing out the distance between them. But when he tries to address it, she throws Buffy up as a wall, and tries to brush him off. Now, when Giles makes the initial point that she has people who care about her, Faith accepts it easily. There's no defensiveness to it, until she gets her hopes about Giles, only to have the dashed against the rocks of Buffy Summers' continued existence. She's progressed, but she still has trouble with getting too hopeful, and the letdown that comes with it.. However, whereas in the older scene she turned away from Giles, looking backwards to keep people at a distance, now she's moving forward, and if other people don't accompany her, so be it.

Angel Has More Than Two Expressions! Maybe.

I mentioned last Saturday I loved the expression Rebekah Isaacs gave Angel as Spike announced his presence. So why not look at it?

As best we can from this blurry photograph, anyway. Sorry about that. It looked better on the camera screen.

The upper and lower halves of his face tell different stories, don't they? The lower half is a slight frown, which might not even be notable. This is Angel we're talking about. Slightly down-in-the-mouth is his default setting. The upper half, though, has the raised eyebrow as he looks to his left.

Maybe it's different for other folks, but for me, a raised eyebrow doesn't usually accompany anger. A smug expression? Absolutely. A cocky grin? Hell yes. Admittedly, a cocky grin is more Spike's style than Angel's, but we know these two have been changing themselves in response to each other for decades, as part of some macho posturing, alpha male thing.

I look at the eyebrow, and I think Angel's smiling a little, maybe in spite of himself, but he is. Of course he isn't, but that only makes me believe he's suppressing it. He can't be surprised that Spike would announce himself with a jab at Angel. It's Spike. Poking fun at Angel is what he does. Maybe he's relieved. He's so close to being able to resurrect Giles, to set things right, and it's the moments when Angel's almost got what he wants when things tend to go south. Sure enough, there's a full-fledged demon between him and his goal, and he has to rely on a lot of brassed off Slayers. What's more, they Slayers are pissed at Faith, which means she's pissed at him, which means he's on the verge of losing the one person who's had his back throughout.

But here's Spike, leaning against the doorframe, the swagger, the cigarette, the little swipe at his grandsire. Even with everything else going wrong, Spike's the same as he always was. Has to reassuring after the shock Angel received when he ran into Drusilla.

I wonder if Spike knows about that. He has contacts. Could he have heard? I wouldn't be surprised if he was keeping tabs on Dru. Trying to make sure she didn't cause enough damage to land in the Slayers' crosshairs, for everyone's sake.

I Don't Want To Know What Yellow Bricks Are Made Of In Quor'Toth

I told you I'd get back to this cover eventually.

There are a couple of small details I like I want to mention fist, just to get them out of the way. One, Angel's cautious glance over at the spider, fitting for a Cowardly Lion to be nervous about giant arachnids. Two, Faith and Connor both have strides that suggest they're skipping, which fits with the the Wizard of Oz motif (even if Connor looks like he's skipping off the edge of the road).

OK, on to possibly more substantive analysis. The first thing, and it's something I just noticed, is they appear to be moving away from the Emerald City. In the original Oz story, that was their destination, to go and see the Wizard. So you could take it to mean they're completely lost. The goal of the trip to Quor'toth was to get Willow's plan to bring back magic in gear (and in doing so, get her to cough up the scythe and a chunk of Giles' soul). We could take it to mean they're going about this entirely the wrong way. Certainly, Whistler's plan suggests there are other avenues to explore which didn't involve visiting Quor'toth (but did involve killing lots of people).

There's another aspect to consider. In the original story, the quartet visit the Wizard because they all want something. What they find is they already have all the things they desire, meaning the Wizard was unnecessary. So this could mean Angel & Co. are simply smarter than a young girl from Kansas and her weird friends, and figured out what they needed and what they had before they started. The other side of it is that Dorothy and the rest had what they needed, but it took the Wizard for them to realize it. Which means by possibly forgoing a visit to the Wizard our heroes are ignorant of some key information. Perhaps Connor and the scythe could have been used to restore magic some other way.

There's also the matter of who the characters are depicted as. Connor's the Scarecrow, who wanted a brain. Connor seems to have mostly wanted a relationship with his father, which is more of a "heart" issue, but part of the reason he didn't have one is because Angel screwed around with everybody's brain to set Connor up with another family. A spell which crashed once magic vanished, meaning Connor has his true memories or the first 17 years of his life back again. At the same time, the family he was placed with no longer remembers him, so he's lost that period of his life. In a sense, mind is still an unstable thing when it comes to Connor, because there are always people he should be close with that he can't, because they don't remember him. If it isn't one, then it's another. At any rate, Connor does seem to have the relationship he wants with his father, as their jaunt to Quor'toth established. He has family, even if he doesn't always know it.

Willow's the Tin Man, who wanted a heart, presumably to be able to feel things. Willow wants to bring magic back, supposedly because the world needs it, but let's be honest here, she likes having power. She's always going to like having power, and she wants it back. Which is kind of interesting, as it means what she wants is potentially harmful to a lot of other people. I'm not sure how she already has what she's looking for. If we go with the idea that Willow wants control, it could be that with her brains and knowledge of computers, she already has what she needs. If it's more about how magic helps her feel connected to the world, well, it's not hard to envision Willow being so wrapped up in misery of magic's disappearance she's closed herself off, experiencing only anger and resentment. Most of what I've seen of her is angry retorts and sarcasm, which is really more Faith's bag, you know? In which case Willow, quite simply, just needs to get over her mopey, self-pitying self. Third possibility, that she's out to save the world, well, she has the scythe in the picture there. It has some connection to the Slayer line, plus it was used to smash the Seed/Egg, so why wouldn't there be residual magic stored within, along with Giles' soul?

We all know what Angel's after: yet another chance at the Big Redemption Play. I mean, Giles' soul. The Lion wanted courage, which was inside him all along, naturally. Angel is gathering up pieces of Giles' soul within him, but those are coming in from other places. The redemption thing is the key bit. Angel is always making this big attempts to fix things, as a way to try and make up for what he's done. This even as he acknowledges that he'll never stop paying, that it's never as simple as making the number of lives you save outnumber the lives you take. Which means, since he can never get clean, he keeps beating himself up over it. I think it boils down to the same thing it always does with Angel: he needs to stop trying for these big plays. Stop trying to fix the entire world, because that always turns him into a puppet of some big power. He needs to accept he did awful things, but now he's going to help people in need as he comes across them. Stop acting like Angelus is some other bloke who just happens to look like him, whose messes Angel is left with. He keeps trying to stick with that lie (as Dru pointed out), and it's a dodge. As long as he didn't do the awful things, he can't receive forgiveness for them, but he can still beat himself up for them, like a dog owner whose pet gets out and mauls someone. He's the only one who can make himself stop with that noise.

Finally, Faith. Dorothy was kind of the odd one, since she just wanted a way home. Home can be a state of mind, a place you feel uniquely comfortable, that fits you just right, but it was also a definite destination. I don't know if Faith has a home. Where's the place she feels right? She and Angel form a decent support group for each other, but they're different enough they grate on each other (Angel's perpetually dour mood would wear on anyone eventually). We've seen her father, that's a no-go. Even if Giles were alive, Buffy would always come first for him. I don't think she has a place, a person, who puts her first. Which is incredibly sad. Is that what Faith wants? Maybe on a macro scale. More immediately, for this story arc, I think she wants somebody else to take over. She keeps having people dump responsibility in her lap. She has to keep an eye on Angel. She has to keep an eye on Willow. She has to keep an eye on all these kid Slayers, including the revenge-obsessed one. And since she doesn't trust her judgment (because all everyone else has ever done is make her question it), she hates it. She can't make decisions without worrying she's wrong.

Dorothy wanted to go home. Even though home was a crappy little farm in Dust Bowl, Depression Era Kansas. Even though she was in a strange magical land where she had seemingly just eliminated the two greatest threats to peace and stability (I'm sure there were others, but at the time, the Wicked Witches seemed to be the only game in town for Evil). I thought perhaps Faith would rather be alone, no responsibility to anyone but herself. But, she's pretty happy on the cover, and they're headed away from the Emerald City, away from the Wizard who could tell her how to get "home".

Also, Dorothy killed one Witch without even realizing what she'd done, like Faith killing the Deputy Mayor. And in each case, it made things worse. Dorothy found herself targeted by the other Wicked Witch, Faith found herself hounded by the freaking Watcher's Council (good one Wes, you poncy jackass). What it really suggests, is two characters who find themselves the center of things beyond their control, that they either don't know, or don't care about. Dorothy had no grudge with the Witches, but finds herself a target. Faith isn't sure they should bring Giles back, but she wants to look out for Angel. She isn't sure going to Quor'toth is a good idea, but she gets sucked into that, too. And somehow, she's the one trying to keep things together, even when she'd rather be any place else.