The Cup Is Only Reviewing Comics: Angel #30

New blog feature: comic book reviews.

Angel #30 is the third issue written by Bill Willingham of Fables fame.  I've never read Fables, but I've always heard good things about it, so I was looking forward to Willingham's run on Angel, but I'm a bit underwhelmed so far.  He's introduced an intriguing story idea: Angel has been kidnapped by people who want to use him to turn people into vampires.  And I'm interested to see where that's going, but there are some things about the way he writes that just grate on me.  The biggest thing is the dialogue.  Sometimes it's okay, especially when he's writing a character I'm not already familiar with, but most of the time, and especially when he's writing one of the long-established characters, there's just something about the way he makes them talk that sounds...wrong.  Like, Spike wouldn't say these words in this order that you wrote him to say here.  It just doesn't work.  Basically, he just doesn't have that great a grasp on the established characters.  He seems to be doing the best with Angel, but even with him, there's some strangeness.

Then there was this thing he was doing in issues 28 and 29 where he'd have everybody in a big group, and he'd have them each say something.  And they wouldn't actually be talking to each other, they'd just each be saying something.  They'd all more-or-less be talking about the same thing, but none of the lines were in direct response to any of the other lines.  It was the weirdest thing.  Thankfully, in 30, he actually has them talking to each other, but I think part of the problem is that the cast is way too big at this point.  There's no reason to have all these people sitting around together all the time.  I don't know whose idea it was to bring Kate back, but she's kind of useless.  And the two forgettable characters who were introduced by the previous writer could stand to go too.  I don't even remember their names.  One of them is an angel and the other's a girl who turns into a cat or something?  Yeah, why are they still there?  And is Gwen still hanging around too?  I can't even remember.  She wasn't in 30, but I feel like she might have been in the previous issues.  Angel, Spike, Gunn, Connor, Illyria, and George is a big enough cast.  Really, George could go too, except I like George.  Or at least I did when Brian Lynch was writing him.  Now he's this not-quite-himself character, the way they all are.

Basically, I miss Lynch.  His stuff got confusing sometimes, but at least he knew how to write these characters.