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Angel: The Curse #1 Book Released: 29 June 2005 Review posted: 11 July 2005 Writer: Jeff Mariotte Artist: David Messina Publisher: IDW Publishing  0.25 out of 5 Stars Reviewed by Adam White

As a huge fan of the Angel television series, I was ecstatic when I learned that IDW would be continuing his adventures beyond the television series. Considering the massive cliffhanger in the finale,

Angel: The Curse #1 falls into the same trap that most comics based upon licensed properties fall into: it rahashes material from the show…

I wanted to see who made it out alive. I eagerly awaited the book’s release and then, after reading it, wish that they had never appropriated the license.

Angel: The Curse #1 falls into the same trap that most comics based upon licensed properties fall into: it rehashes material from the show in a vain effort to attract new readers. First of all, the majority of people that will buy Angel (or any licensed comic) are already fans and thus do not need a recap. Writer Jeff Mariotte devotes almost the entire first issue to recapping Angel’s history and why he was cursed, something that both the Angel and Buffy TV series covered at length. If Mariotte felt it necessary to have an origin recap for these mythical “new readers,” he should have crammed it onto a character history on the first page or the inside cover.

The next problem is that the only other thing that happens in the issue is that Angel fights a horde of generic vampires; even the TV series quit doing that during the second season (out of five). Mariotte offers no indication of when the story takes place (during or after the TV series), nor any character development whatsoever. Angel comes across as stiff and one-dimensional, something that never happened on the show. The one-liners are bland and old, as is the action. The whole thing is one big generic exercise that you should only expect from an inexperienced writer with no knowledge of the character (which is not Mariotte; he’s written prose stories for Angel that are good — what happened here?). Strangely enough, although the book offers ample rehashing of who cursed Angel, it offers no explanation as to who cursed comics based on licensed properties.

I had honestly never heard of David Messina before I opened this book, but I actually thought he did a decent job capturing the likenesses without making the characters stiff or rigid. Unfortunately, the story was so devoid of anything new or interesting that his burgeoning talent was sadly wasted. I think he would be a fine choice for an Angel artist if he was given a story to work with.

Angel: The Curse #1 lacked all the character depth and complexity that made the television series such an amazing work of fiction. If companies are going to license characters for their comics then they need to make sure they’re willing to put the time and effort into making it a worthy successor to the original material. Not only that, but I have a beef with IDW because I pre-ordered this book and received it upon release and found that it was a Second Printing! What happened to the first print? In the final analysis I guess it doesn’t matter because it was a terrible book and I will not be purchasing the rest of the series anyway. The fact that it was a second printing on day one is really just adding insult to injury. The only redeeming quality of the book was the always versatile Igor Kordey’s outstanding variant cover of Puppet Angel.

So if you’re an Angel fan, skip this book. If you’re unfamiliar with the series and are thinking about trying it out, don’t — it won’t turn you into a fan either. Go buy the DVD sets and watch them instead. Here’s hoping Peter David’s Spike one-shot will restore at least some of my faith in licensed properties.