“Angel & Faith” Season 9 comes to an epic conclusion that’s not quite as great as the end of “Buffy” Season 9, but still pretty darn good, especially with the way it charts a new course for Giles. In the end, the best thing about Season 9 in the Buffyverse is that it was split into two monthly titles, rather than one 40-issue run.
We got more total issues in Season 9 (throw in the two miniseries and this has the most total issues of any comic season), but in a shorter time period, with the focus rarely straying from Buffy, Angel, Faith and other core characters. While the storytelling is good, the structure might be the smartest thing about the season.
The concluding five-issue arc — “What You Want, Not What You Need” (Issues 21-15, April-August 2013) — has a lot going on, but writer Christos Gage (who pens all 25 issues of this season) does a good job of juggling everything and artist Rebekah Isaacs and colorist Dan Jackson make things look epic in the final battle on a London rooftop where all the major players come together.
Narratively, it’s arguably a repeat of Season 8, with Whistler (instead of Angel/Twilight) trying to jump-start magic on Earth, but Angel trying to stop him this time. Whistler’s obsession with “balance” continues to be nonsensical, but I guess it’s appropriate that he looks like the burned husk of Anakin Skywalker after essentially jumping on the magic grenade, since Anakin was prophesied to “bring balance to the Force.”
Like Angel in Season 8, Whistler eventually realizes his folly. At the same time as the reader, Whistler gets a firsthand look at some of those people (2 billion, we’re told, if Whistler’s plan had gone full-scale) who will die in agony upon the Earth’s magical reseeding. (Others, however, survive the blast of magic and actually become stronger.)
So it all ties together, albeit in clunky fashion, with metaphors about the mathematical value of warfare peppered in (Whistler defends the atomic bombs the USA dropped on Japan as being life-savers in the big picture). But hopefully we can be done with people trying to “save” Earth in one fell swoop for a while.
That’s the wider narrative. But the focus of Season 9 – in this title and “Buffy” – is characters, and the resurrection of Giles is what this five-parter is most remembered for. He returns as a 12-year-old, and Gage and Isaacs start off with some humor, like when Giles is distracted by Faith’s cleavage. I suppose it’ll be hard to stop smirking at the Kid Giles concept, but I don’t doubt that lots of great stories will spring from a 50-something man trapped in an adolescents’ body. This concept is the opposite of “Big” and “13 Going on 30” – wherein kids magically become adults — and it hasn’t been explored too often in fantasy fiction.
It’s interesting that Giles is not excited about a “second chance,” because he wisely notes that people’s wishes for a do-over of their younger days are predicated on doing specific things differently. In his case, he’ll be going through the hell of adolescence again. That said, he retains all his accumulated knowledge, so it’ll be interesting how that will make things easier or perhaps harder for him this time around.
All told, “Angel & Faith” Season 9 is a case where the parts are better than the whole. Although the whole is solid – with the plan to resurrect Giles always holding my attention – it is kind of convenient that Angel is allowed to feel good about this resurrection whereas Willow learns that Buffy didn’t want to be resurrected. Granted, it is clearly stated that Giles was not in Heaven, and he admits that being in his 12-year-old body is better than being trapped inside Angel. I’m just saying it works out rather tidily for Angel.
Faith is such a great character that it’s hard to complain about a title where she’s in every issue, but she is ultimately a supporting player in Season 9. She alternates between saying she’ll stop Angel if he goes too far and saying she’s all in on resurrecting Giles. Faith learns something about herself: Once she lets someone in, she’s fiercely loyal to them. Thus, no matter her words, she was destined to go along with Angel’s plan all along.
Interestingly, considering that there is an “Angel & Faith” Season 10, Faith parts ways with Angel at the end of this season, believing she needs to strike out on her own; she aims to join Kennedy’s security firm as a trainer of young Slayers. Meanwhile in London, those victimized or enhanced by Whistler’s magic bomb now find themselves residing in a neighborhood redubbed Magic Town. Perhaps Angel will go back to his “helping the helpless” mode, only this time with demons and magical creatures needing his help more so than humans. Some fun could be had with this new perspective.
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