Amazing Screw-On Head, Angel

Amazing Screw-On Head

I’ve never been the biggest Mike Mignola fan.  While I recognize the technical and aesthetic merits of his art, Hellboy never connected with me on any emotional level.  Reading it left me with no real feelings about it one way or another.  I nothing Hellboy.  

But I couldn’t not give Amazing Screw-On Head a try.  The title alone deserves my money, and it turns out the contents of the issue are as absurd as the name of our hero, in a most entertaining way.  

The best thing I can do is get out of the way and let Mignola’s wacky-ass humor do all the work.

A good policy.

How do you come up with this shit?  I love it.

Making it on to my list of favorite comic book lines.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Angel: After the Fall 1-8

I bought these issues back when the idea of Joss Whedon continuing his Buffyverse stories in comic form was exciting and full of wonderful possibilities.  (He wrote a parallel Buffy Season 8 comic for Dark Horse at the same time as this.)  

I never watched all of Angel, despite owning the DVD boxed set.  I’d pop in from time to time, enjoying the episodes that I saw, and stuck around for the final season from Smile Time onwards.  I adored Muppet Angel, suffered along with Wes when Fred died, and thought the cliffhanger series finale was a brilliant stroke by Whedon.

I should have left it at that.  These issues, plotted by Whedon and written by Brian Lynch, are like the Michael Jordan Wizard years - a disappointing follow up that doesn’t come close to its former glory days.  What I realize reading this and other comic adaptations of Whedon’s work is that for all the greatness of his writing, so much of the success of these properties is directly tied to the amazing casts of his shows.  Franco Urru does a fine job recreating the likenesses of the actors, but they can’t help but come across as flat when compared to the hilarious and poignant performances that were captured on screen.

Also, this story about how LA intersects with Hell in the aftermath of season 5 bores the heck out of me.  Maybe I never had the same attachment to the Angel crew that I had with the Scooby gang, but I don’t care about a single one of these characters, and their struggles to survive amidst the politics of the demon lords of LA excited me not a whit.  If I want to see this group in action again, I’ll go back and watch the original episodes for the first time. I’m positive it’ll be more entertaining.

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)