Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Angel ("The Hollower" Part 1) [COMICS]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Angel #1
(Dark Horse) (Ltd. Series, 1999)

Creators: Chris Golden (writer), Hector Gomez (penciller), Sandu Florea (inker), Ken Bruzenak (letterer), Guy Major (colorist)

Setting:  Season 2


T.V./Movie Character Appearances:  Buffy, Angel/Angelus, Giles, Spike, Drusilla,

Major Original Characters: The Hollower (monster), Catherine (vampire)

Summary:  A pair of vampires, Catherine and Johnny Lee, are hunting in San Francisco when Johnny Lee gets snatched by an enormous tentacle monster!  Over in Sunnydale, Buffy and Angel work together to kill a chaos demon.  Later that night, however, Angel is accosted by a pack of vampires led by Catherine: it turns out that she was part of his inner circle during the 1890s.  Back then, Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, and Catherine were in Vienna when heard tales of a terrible monster called The Hollower that feeds on vampires!  In the present, Catherine tells Angel that The Hollower is back and headed for Sunnydale.  When he says that he no longer considers a monster that eats vampires a problem, she says there's something he doesn't know: that once The Hollower eats enough, it could turn the entire town into vampires overnight!

Review: A solid story, with more depth than the usual monster-of-the-week that plagued long stretches of the regular series.  Christopher Golden loves telling tales about Angelus at various points throughout history, and although this is the first time we've heard of Catherine, it doesn't seem like a ret-con.  The idea of something that even vampires are afraid of is cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story is going.


Notes

* The back cover is an ad for The Phantom Menace.  Man, that movie's gonna be good!

* There's an ad for a variety of Buffy stuff, like usual.  This one spruiks a cool Buffy doorknob hanger--someday!

* The letters page contains multiple missives complaining about continuity conflicts between the show and the regular series.  It must have been tough for the editors to get comic stories synched with the show, considering how different the production schedules are.

* This issue came out with the usual art and photo covers, plus a Dynamic Forces Gold Foil cover and a 1500 issue run autographed by Christopher Golden.