Angel: The Wolf, the Ram and the Heart

Angel: After the Fall (collected editions)

by David Tischman

IDW's final arc of ANGEL is an epic, bittersweet, last stand to save the city Angel loves! Ripped from the "now" into the far future, Angel discovers that if he doesn't stop James or "Myr", the not-angel, Los Angeles will end up as a Blade Runnery disaster of demon breeding farms and war. His ally in this stark world is Wolfram & Hart, who he knows better than to trust. Yet, it's clear that some things are worse than the Apocalypse. Maybe.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Vampires, Horror, Urban Fantasy, Supernatural

179 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 21, 2011

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last collected edition for the IDW Angel series was a little...confusing. They tried tying everything together but the way they explained how things were connected felt forced and convoluted. Plus they did these mini time jumps per panel that left me a little muddled. They packed so much into this volume that I had kind of forgotten James’ plan when he finally came around again. I wish they expanded on Connor’s role as leader. Instead, we were shown the horrible future that could’ve been that was soundly erased by the end of the series. I think my favourite part of this volume was the end, when the story was wrapping up and all the characters were just sitting around and talking. I will say that last page did get me emotional as it reflected on Angel’s past and the people he’s lost. Overall, not the greatest collection of Angel issues however that ending did leave us with hope for the future.

[Risa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, this final story continues the downward slide that ran through Angel's last three volumes. There are theoretically some good ideas here, like a trip into the future, a final confrontation with Myr, and a touchback on Wolfram and Hart that recalls the whole series. Unfortunately Tischman's writing is quite hard to follow, such that events seem to come out of nowhere several times. In addition, the art is again uneven, like it was in volume 2, and the second issue of this arc has some of the worst art I've ever seen in a comic.

Not an awful ending for this Angel series ... but not a great one either.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. A lot of derivative future hopping ghost of future shit. No hint of upcoming spoilerworthy season 8 arc, either. The only interesting feature was Connor, surprisingly enough. Big bad or future god? Who knows, eh?

[Jenny Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story got a little lackluster at times and the changing art styles was super distracting, but otherwise it was a pretty good wrap-up. And I especially liked all the nods/hints to what might be coming down the pike for Angel during Buffy's comic runs (some things make a lot more sense now)

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting end to this trilogy, but the weakest of the three imho. Wolfram & Hart take Angel into the future to battle the demon gods that will turn LA into a demon breeding ground. I really didn't care for the comic caricature art in the second chapter. Recommended.

[Anastasiaadamov · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art style hurt my eyes. It turned out blury, unfinished and plainly ugly. The story made up for three star rating. Story was a bit cheesy but I liked it anyway.

[pianogal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read. Some of the art was a little more cartoony that I would have picked. Thought the story line ended well though.

[Grace Kimmerling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't like the art in this one and was a little too choppy to hold my interest.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

New writer who dis?

Interesting story. Interesting ending. Story wasn’t my favorite. But Good wrap up. I didn’t love the big bad. And it’s too bad Spike wasn’t around.

3.5 stars.

[Love_booksforlife Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all I wasn't a huge fan of this series. It had some good moments but not enough of them. Also the art in one of the chapters was very much not my taste.

[Thereysa Tabert · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 rating.
The entire series unfortunately all went downhill when Joss Whedon stopped writing it. This one had some bad art on top of writing that was mediocre at best.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

After Lynch left the Angel title after his excellent "After the Fall" storyline ended the comic failed to genuinely find any kind of real voice or direction and its been a hodgepodge of ideas from different writers, none of whom stayed for long enough to really make their mark. Bizarrely, its never bad enough to be boring and I'd like to say that the whole effort was worthwhile, but ultimately it ends with a bit of a damp squib and I'm back to feeling that Angel is an inferior Buffy spinoff, lacking the vibrancy, potency and humour of its big sister. Big Bads emerge here that are really not interesting, Wolfram and Hart are still a meandering and pointless superpower and no single character gets an opportunity to shine in ways that Lynchhad previously managed. The story that has, in its own way, been running for nearly 20 issues just sort of ends with a deus ex machina and Angel proclaims that "it was all leading to this". In a sense it was, since Whedon shut this title down in order to finally bring Angel back under the Buffy umbrella. There's a sense that everyone at IDW knew that this was coming since this all feels a little half-hearted.

[Sarah Weiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was disappointing.

Angel spends a lot of time in the future playing nice with Wolfram & Hart - which is stupid because Wolfram & Hart are not the bad guys again. Then he defeats James, who was the worst villain of the series.

It doesn't end with any real victory over Wolfram & Hart - just the guarantee that in this eternal struggle with good and evil, Angel will keep fighting.

That's nice, but it's not catharsis. We've already seen this. Multiple times. This isn't a new story.

What do I want? I want Wolfram & Hart to be unmasked. I want them to get their apocalypse - or almost get their apocalypse. If Angel can't defeat them, if you can't kill evil, then I want him to drain them of their resources, to target everything they touch and one-by-one, take them out.

I want Angel to stop reacting. I want him to make a stand.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm done reading these. It's sad to say that I am no longer addicted to everything Buffy and Angel. But the Buffy graphic novels are way better than these so I'll still read those.

*two minutes later*

Damn it, there's only one book left. I guess I'll read it.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a 3-star story, and some of the artwork was not appealing, but I gave it 4-stars because the tribute at the end made me weepy in a good way :)

[Yomna Asar · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh the floods of memories .. The entirety of my childhood passed before my eyes.This was incredibly true to form, as always.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, this was painful to read. The dialogue's so bad that I longed for the Last Angel In Hell dialogue in which Brian Lynch makes fun of bad dialogue. Oh, it's so bad.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

IDG! Learn to spell H-A-R-T.

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all I wasn't a huge fan of this series. It had some good moments but not enough of them. Also the art in one of the chapters was very much not my taste.

[Arie ☂ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars. A disappointing end to a disappointing last batch of stories.