Comic Review: Angel and Faith Season 10 #18

• Script by Victor Gischler
• Art by Cliff Richards
• Colors by Michelle Madsen
• Letters by Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
• Cover by Scott Fischer
• Variant Cover by Mike Norton and Michelle Madsen
• Published by Dark Horse Comics

This season of Angel and Faith has been a little strange. It started with the title characters on different continents, and that came back for this arc focusing on how Faith fares in London without Angel. With his arc in the Buffy series coming to an end, this arc had to come to a close to bring him back. Unfortunately, it ends rather abruptly, causing an awkward end to an otherwise solid arc.



The last issue ended in an intriguing place, bringing in Drusilla as the mastermind behind everything happening at the school. Despite the possibilities there, it doesn't play out much differently than if any other generic vampire was in her place. It's played as if she will be back soon, but she has a disappointingly brief part in this arc.

A lot of this issue is given to action sequences. It fits being at the end of the arc, and even throws in a fun cameo I wasn't expecting, but it took away from time I was hoping to have with the characters. It led to Drusilla being underused, and contributed to the kids at the school not being as developed as I hoped they would be. Like Drusilla, some of them are possibly coming back later, but it still feels like an abrupt end caused them to miss out on some important character development.

Despite my negativity, this was still a good arc. The problem is that this is the weakest issue of the arc, making it stick out awkwardly. While not as good as it was last season, Angel and Faith continues to be a good comic that I look forward to each month. This seems like simply a rough patch.