I am late to the party, but I had recently enjoyed Brian Lynch's run on Angel after the fall.
So I didn't expect to dislike his Spike after the fall spin off so much.
in the Angel books, Brian had alluded to Spike's time away from the gang as being that of a cool, badass nature. Leading a group of either "sexy" or "kind of gross" female warriors depending on your take. Going from prisoner to lover to leader of the group.
In this series we get to see how it happened, and it was nowhere near as cool or badass as I had expected. For starters Spike had a group of humans he was protecting, one being a kid. This group of females he was leading we find out kills them all, including the kid.
The going from prisoner to lover part, while in a dungeon and surrounded by the bodies of the people he was trying to save, who are now zombie like and watching him, including the kid. This is when we find out he's been having sex with one of the female warriors, right there with all the people he failed to save watching, in their half dead or mostly dead state, including that kid.
Sure there is some quick line about how she was blocking the kids view. It still felt disgusting and tore away the idea I had of spikes transition from prisoner, to lover to leader as being that of legend.
For one, losing everyone you promised to protect is not badass.
Two, doing the deed Infront of the ones you failed to save with one of the ones responsible for it, is not cool.
In the end when he fights the main bad woman responsible for it all, and they say oh, these other woman had no choice, she was controlling them, so he frees them. It still felt wrong. Like okay you beat the main big bad here, you still lost everyone.
I kept hoping they'd somehow still be saved and brought back, especially the kid.
You end up getting everyone saved and back from the dead by the end of Angel after the fall.
Disappointingly they never show spikes gang, or that kid for some closure. They do however note that everyone remembers everything that happened. Which means Spikes group remembers you know what, with you know who, while they were you know, fucking zombies lol.