Angel: Spotlight TPB

[catalyst2]

This TPB collected the five Spotlight issues: Illyria, Gunn, Wesley, Doyle and Connor. I know now why I like multi-arc comics more than one-shots (generally) because all five stories seemed a bit simple and linear for my liking. However, that was the format here so I will look at each of the stories with that in mind. None of these stories worked 100% for me but some were definitely better than others.

Issue	Story	Character likeness	General Artwork
Illyria	I liked this story - it showed Illyria at her puzzling best, trying to work things out and I loved the scenes where she went back to the Burkle family home. I am not sure if Illyria would ever have really shed a tear but, if she did, it would have been a moment of enormous insight and resentment for her.	Illyria likeness was good but the Fred ones were hopeless.	OK - great use of different panel shapes and layouts to create different feels.
Gunn	A very simple story with no real twist or drama to it. The T2 hanging-onto-the-bumper trick was fun to see. At least it was good to see Gunn get out of the lawyer suit and kick some ass!	Hopeless - if not for the title, I wouldn't have had a clue who the hell this was. Angel and Spike were also drawn very badly.	Awful - bizarrely shaped bodies moving in anatomically impossible angles - and that was just the humans!
Wesley	Good story - Wesley was just perfectly in character as was ghost-Spike. The dialogue crackled along and the story worked well.	Ordinary - the close-ups on Wesley's face were good but the longer shots were very "generic stubbly guy" shots. Spike was OK. Fred, Harmony and Knox were awful - not even the faintest resemblance.	Good - sharply drawn panels that added real zip to the story.
Doyle	Good story - just the kind of directionless chaos that I always imagined Doyle's life to be in before he met Angel. He acts in character and the story very neatly ties into AtS S1e01 City of .	Good likeness, whether Bracken or human.	Good action, well done and very dynamic. Just one question - why did "The Butcher" (don't know her real name) answer the door in her bra - it just seems like an excuse to show lots of gratuitous shots of her large breasts being barely contained by her bra?
Connor	So ordinary it made my teeth ache. The Avery (OC)/Connor banter was the best part of the story.	Just appalling - not at any point did this look like Connor and Angel's appearance in the last panel is laughably bad!	Some good fight scenes but often people end up with very strange proportions when angles change.

Overall? Another ordinary early outing for IDW but three stories definitely had potential - all written by writers who have written a bit of AtS before this (Peter David, Scott Tipton and Jeff Mariotte). Marriotte's Doyle was definitely the pick of the bunch with some good artwork from David Messina.
1. Doyle
2=. Illyria/Wesly
4=. Gunn/Connor

We should have had a CORDELIA one-shot. Where's the Cordy love in all of this? She doesn't even appear as a character within any of the stories!

Comments

[harmalicious.livejournal.com]

I HATED the Connor story. There was just no point...I think I probably liked the Illyria story the best. She is by far my favorite Angel character. I love her innocense yet she is so dangerous. I haven't read the Doyle one. I guess I need to do that. The others were good too!

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

The Doyle one was very good, I thought, apart from the gratuitous boob shots! The Illyria one was also good - I loved the scenes up on top of the mesa - and then the single tear that courses down her cheek when she is at the Burkles. Could Illyria ever have felt remorse for killing Fred? I don't know but, if it were going to happen, it would be like this story, I think.

[tijnat.livejournal.com]

I agree with your assessment, catalyst2. The Doyle and Illyria were my favourites, with Wesley just behind.