Angel: Blood and Trenches

# 4 out of 4 issues

Story and Art: John Byrne, Letters: Neil Uyetake, Edited By: Chris Ryall

Cover By: John Byrne with Coloring By: Tom Smith/Scorpion Studios

Where We Are: Angel is in France, tracking down vampires who are preying on the ally forces. At the same time, Colonel Wyndam-Pryce is also attempting to track down and stop the German Vampire forces… and he doesn’t see Angel as an “enemy of my enemy is my ally” sort.

We’ve discovered that Kakistos is the main bad guy and he’s recruited to woman, Lady Margaret D’Ascoyne, who appeared at first to be destined to be an ally and friend to Angel.

Page 01: This issue, like the last, starts with a flashback. When we left Issue #3, Angel had somehow returned to the Red Cross station which houses Lady D’Ascoyne even though we’d seen him taken prisoner in issue #2 by Crixus – the lieutenant to Kakistos.

Now, we return to three days ago and we’re back with Angel as prisoner in the nunnery that Crixus and his demons had taken over. It starts with an aerial shot of the nunnery and a blurb saying ‘Three Days’.

Page 02: Angel is chained to a wall. One of the three Germans he was brought here with has been tortured to death (“It took him nearly two days to die.”). The other two lie dead or unconscious at his feet.

Page 03: Two German vampires come for Angel, allowing him to attempt an escape; doesn’t work.

As Angel points out in his narration, he’s weak after two days with no blood, while his foes are at the peak of their strengths.

Page 04: Crixus has been left in charge ‘back at the ranch’ while Kakistos is elsewhere. (Here’s a hint – he’s at the Red Cross station, as seen in Issue #3.)

We get to see a nasty scene here, with the missing German. He’s been strung upside down above a brazier… remember it took him nearly two days to die?

Yeacch. Anyway, his throat was finally slit and there’s blood running from the corpse.

Crixus taunts Angel(us) by holding a cup of the man’s day old blood under his nose.

Page 05: Crixus foolishly forces Angel’s head back and dumps the stale blood down his gullet.

Foolish because even though the blood doesn’t have the power inherent in fresh, Angel is quite a good fighter and the sudden short-lived surge in strength is enough for him to break free.

Page 06: Good bye vampires – especially Crixus.

Page 07: Angel runs for the river he used to reach behind the German lines back in Issue #2… in the meanwhile, more of the vampires have discovered he’s making his getaway and come after him.

Page 08: Angel makes his way back to the Red Cross Aid Station featured in Issue #1 in order to recruit help from Lady D’Ascoyne.

Page 09: As we know from Issue #3 – that didn’t work out so well. Here we get a very brief overview of what happened at the end of that issue. Before Angel snuck up the outside wall to the Lady’s bedroom window, he’d also visited the blood bank and gotten the ‘power boost’ he needed.

Page 10: Kakistos follows Angel out of the window he’d been thrown out of. He’s very, very strong and is able to swing Angel around like a rag-doll. He calls his followers to kill Angel(us).

Page 11: It’s another mistake (like Crixus’ releasing him and forcing stale blood down his throat in the first place). Angel is more than able to dust his followers.

Angel and Kakistos are ready for a final battle, when the rooster crows… literally!

Due to the coming dawn light, Kakistos retreats, climbing up a wall. At the same time, there is a growing roar that causes Angel to cover his ears.

Page 12: The roar belongs to a plane, which is hanging down a rope ladder which Kakistos grabs for a ride.

Angel follows.

But Kakistos has a head start and is able to disconnect the ladder, sending Angel plummeting to the ground!

Thankfully, he falls into a haystack, which shields him from the now risen sun. It’s also covered in snow, which Angel uses to make it back to the Lady D’Ascoyne’s residence.

Page 13: Back in the Lady’s room, she is helping the Colonel who is currently awakening from a blow to the head by Kakistos.

We know the Lady is under Kakistos’ influence, but here we see she also has two fang marks on the side of her neck. Something that isn’t a shock, but is sad – I rather liked Lady Margaret (as I did Corporal Dowling who died last issue).

Page 14: Thankfully for the groggy Colonel, Angel bursts into the room again. He grabs the Lady and forces her into the sunlight streaming into a portion of the room. She immediately goes to ashes with a scream.

Page 15: Angel informs Colonel Wyndam-Pryce that Kakistos’ long term plan is to sire an army of undead to flood London. He forces a temporary alliance in order to put a stop to the plan. Geoffrey Wyndam-Pryce is less than happy with this, but his men are all dead, so there isn’t a lot of choice.

Page 16: Angel (covered from head to toe) and the Colonel make it through enemy lines (since the Germans were already turned by Kakisto, and ergo, were hiding out from the daylight).

Just as the sun is going beyond the horizon (how convenient!) they arrive at Kakisto’s keep – the destroyed nunnery.

The bad guys begin to take off in a plane….

Page 17: Angel is able to grab onto a wing by his fingertips and yank himself aboard the plane.

Kakisto is there to confront him (see the cover).

Page 18: As Angel and Kakistos fight on the plane’s wing, one of them is thrown into a propeller block, tearing it loose from the fuselage. The plane begins spinning out of control.

Page 19: Whoops! More fighting only leads to even more damage of the already falling aircraft!

Page 20: Kakistos and Angel’s fight comes to a sudden end when Kakistos takes a dive off of the damaged wing of the plane.

Thankfully for Angel, he’s able to also make it the ground relatively safely.

Page 21: Angel is able to make it back to the ex-nunnery and another confrontation – this time against Wyndam-Pryce again.

The Colonel makes it clear that Angel is still the enemy and when next they meet, he’ll try to destroy the vampire. But, in light of the fact that Angel did save his life from the turned Lady Margaret, he’s allowed to walk away this time.

Page 22: The Germans that were taken prisoner with Angel by the vampires are also allowed to leave unmolested by the Colonel… probably due to the fact that he’s all by himself there, and not really in a position to take them captive as prisoners of war.

One of these men makes it back to his own lines, desperately wishing to report about ‘the monsters’ he’d been threatened by.

Page 23: The soldier is ordered to not mention ‘the monsters’ again… to anyone. No doubt because the Kaiser was actively involved in attempting to use the vampires against the allies.

Oh… and the soldier? His name is Corporal Hitler.

The Good: The fighting scenes between Angel and Kakistos were really good and exciting. In fact, Kakistos was a good villain throughout the issue. The issue had to end unresolved, because Kakistos had to live to show up later in Buffy – and for that matter, so did Angel – so the wrap up was good that allowed both of them to show up later.

The Bad: Nothing was badly done. I do have to say the twist at the end with Hitler was unnecessary and not nearly as clever as John Byrne obviously thinks.

The Score: This was a decent issue that wrapped up the story of Angel’s involvement in WWI nicely. Kakistos was a nice touch, bringing one of the more impressive vampires from Buffy back in the only way that wouldn’t cause a roll of the eyes (a past story, rather than bringing him back from ashes). The artwork throughout the series was pretty great, including this issue and the final fight between Kakistos and Angel was exciting: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars.

The series score comes out as: 4.125 out of 5.0 stars for the series.

Angel: Blood and Trenches

# 3 out of 4 issues

Story and Art: John Byrne, Letters: Neil Uyetake, Edited By: Chris Ryall

Cover By: John Byrne with Coloring By: Tom Smith/Scorpion Studios

Where We Are: Angel has traveled to France after reading in a U.S. paper that soldiers in the war effort (WWI) are being found mysteriously drained of blood. He’s discovered that his suspicions are true – there are vampires interfering in the war. He’s met up with a Red Cross volunteer, but has been discovered by Colonel Wyndam-Pryce and barely escaped death by sunlight.

Traveling behind enemy line, he’s discovered that the vampires active against the allies are Crixus (who he’s had contact with as Angelus) and a ‘big bad’ vampire who looks suspiciously like Kakistos. We know the latter because he was hunting down Faith in BTVS: Faith, Hope & Trick – assuming it really is him….

I also have to flash-forward to Issue 4 and mention that the confusing jumps in the time line here are made clear in that issue… I can see that John chose to play with the events and their timing between these two issues and I get the creative challenge he was setting up for himself. I’m just not enamored with the results… but onto this issue….

Page 01: First thing I want to do is mention that this is mostly a flashback issue. The reason I’m mentioning that up front is because at first I was confused as we open the issue in London at night during a heavy rain. We’re looking at a huge building and there’s a word bubble coming from a window of someone confirming they’ve been summoned.

Page 02 & 03: We are in the presence of Colonel Wyndam-Pryce who is getting a briefing from three ministers (maybe that should be Ministers – they’re the government kind, not the religious kind). Anyway, they inform him about the rash of strange deaths that Angel will be reading about in the papers in Issue #1 in America.

A symbol found on the drained bodies reveals the involvement of a cult which had been reported destroyed – the Cult of Antemorh who the Colonel’s father died while destroying at some point in the past.

Page 04: As the Colonel leaves, he’s updating his right hand man and driver, Dowling (a relative of Father Dowling who solves mysteries? Never mind.). Anyway, the rain has stopped and the Germans take this opportunity to begin bombing London using their ‘airships’… i.e. blimps.

Page 05: As our heroes are shepherding civilians to the underground shelters, the Colonel hears a hideous scream. He immediately recognizes it as he has heard it more than once before.

As he rounds a corner into a short alley, he sees a vampire killing a woman.

Page 06: The Colonel is quick to dust the offending vampire….

Page 07: …, but he’s not alone. The Germans are dropping vampires from the blimps… not just bombs. Which neatly answers a question I had re: the Kaiser’s involvement with the vampires on the front lines.

It’s obvious that the Kaiser’s program of using the supernatural in war is the predecessor of Hitler’s doing so during WWII (Angel: Why We Fight).

The Colonel finds himself outnumbered, but is saved by Dowling.

Page 08: The battle continues against the dropped vampires, with one of them retreating as it recognizes that the Colonel and Dowling are well trained to fight them. This may be a sly admission that the Colonel is a member of the Council, but I can’t be sure. He has certainly had plenty of experience fighting the fang-gang before this.

Page 09: The Colonel mentions letting the ‘Home Guard’ know that German vampire-troops have landed in England. I thought that ‘Home Guard’ might be another sly reference to the Council, but it was a real group of volunteer militia that helped defend England during the War.

Anyway, Wyndam-Pryce also takes care of the victim off screen (but it’s apparent he’s going to behead the corpse).

Page 10: Later, aboard ship, the Colonel and Dowling are on their way to France when they spot the U-Boat that Angel hijacked in Issue #1. They take a dingy to investigate the grounded craft.

Page 11: Going aboard the U-Boat, they find the German crew dead from vampire. Angel must have done this in order to survive the trip, but it’s still disturbing to see the mass murder of these soldiers – even though they’re on the wrong side. Part of this is the artwork – John Byrne likes wide-eyed, shocked grimaces frozen in a scream to represent victims of vamps.

Page 12: There are some discussions here about the motives of the (at this point) unknown vampire. Obviously, the Colonel doesn’t believe for a moment that the vampire in question could actually be on the allies’ side.

Page 13: Wyndam-Pryce arrives at the Red Cross station… the one that Angel has already arrived at. We see a replay of both the German tri-plane and the ambulance crash of Angel’s from Issue #1.

Page 14: We see the confrontation between Angel and the soldier who capture him for interrogation from Issue #1 from the distant viewpoint of the Colonel and Dowling (using field glasses).

Page 15: The portion of Issue #1 where Angel is exposed to the dawn’s early light and dives into the frozen river (which will lead to him being taken captive in Issue #2 by Crixus).

Page 16: This page repeats where the soldiers are shooting into the river at Angel and the Colonel deciding it’s time to interrogate Lady D’Ascoyne.

Page 17: Now here, we pick up the story after Page 5 of Issue #2 briefly. A shadowy figure sneaks into Lady D’Ascoyne’s room.

Page 18: It’s Angel.

And, here is where I get back into the mixed time line of the series. In Issue #2, we saw that Angel was taken prisoner by Crixus and was confronting the group of German vampires.

Now, here he is slipping into the Lady’s room after his escape from Wyndam-Pryce which led directly to his being taken prisoner.

With hindsight being 20/20 and having read Issue #4, this does make sense. It’s just confused because of the way the story has been structured.

Okay – Angel tries to explain that he’s on the allies’ side. This is really awkwardly written, I have to say as Angel goes into Angelus’ history unnecessarily.

Anyway, the good Lady rings for assistance when Angel’s back is turned.

Page 19: Wyndam-Pryce and Dowling rushes into the room, and even Lady D’Ascoyne gets into the act by nailing Angel in the back of the head with a bed-heater.

Page 20: Angel is able to kick Wyndam-Pryce off of him just as he’s ready to plunge a stake into his chest.

The Colonel and Dowling are thrown back against a closed door (a closet, maybe). As the Colonel makes a joke at Dowling about his “providing a nice cushion” since he’s a wee bit overweight, blood starts to trickle from Dowling’s mouth.

Poor Dowling gets a vampire claw punched through his back and out his chest.

Page 21: And, here, FINALLY, it is confirmed that this is Kakistos!

We find out that he is the leader of the Cult of Antemorh – and killed Wyndam-Pryce’s father.

The Colonel tries the stake through the heart trick, but as we learned in BTVS, Kakistos is harder to kill than that.

Page 22: Angel tries to intervene, but is knocked out of the window. More vampires close in on him as he lies on the ground.

The most important thing about this scene though, is Angel’s asking how Kakistos was able to get in…

Any guesses…?

Yes, Kakistos has gotten to Lady D’Ascoyne who invited him in.

The Good: The cover is pretty darned cool, as well as the artwork within.

The story has nice pacing, even though for a large part of it we’re seeing events we already know from Angel’s POV in previous issues.

Dowling’s death was sudden and well handled (though I have to admit, I didn’t see him making it to the end of the series).

The Bad: Before you read Issue #4, this one is just confusing. The way Angel has moved from prisoner to his place and actions in this issue is a sudden, nonsensical shift from where we left off in Issue #2.

I can see it’s a purposeful playing with time and linear storytelling, but I don’t think it was successful if you take this issue on its own.






The Score: I liked this one (even with my confusion), especially Lady D’Ascoyne who I’m sorry to see will not be making it out of this as a friend and ally of Angel’s.

I also like the way Wyndam-Pryce and Dowling are handled, particularly since Dowling came across as witty and warm. His death was sudden and unwelcomed. For those who don’t mind non-linear storytelling, I’m sure this will come across a lot better than it did for me. I’m rather prosaic and like things to occur in a logical order.
So… 4.25 out of 5.0

Angel: Blood and Trenches #2 (of 4)

Story & Art: John Byrne

Letters By: Neil Uyetake

Edited By: Chris Ryall

Where We Are: Angel is living in New York as WWI rages across the Atlantic. When he sees in the paper that British soldiers are being found completely drained of blood with no natural explanations, he sneaks off to investigate, suspecting vampires.

There, he meets pretty Aid Station worker Lady Margaret. But, he also runs afoul of some grunts who find him suspicious. A Colonel arrives by the name of Wyndam-Pryce who wishes to eradicate the supernatural menaces plaguing Britain’s troops as well. Angel’s nature is revealed when he is exposed to the dawn’s early light.

Page 1: Angel, his arms bound via strait-jacket, bursts out of the window of the room he’s been held in.

Page 2: With some fancy footwork, he manages to get a canopy of snow onto his back in order to smother the growing flames (as an aside, it’s difficult to imagine he’d have time to do all of this… on the other hand, Spike managed to walk miles covered in nothing but a little blanket after an RV crash in BTVS: S5). One of the soldiers manages to shoot him in the back.

Page 3: The snow pack doesn’t smother the flames for long and Angel is again burning. He makes it to a river and throws himself through the ice to make it to the waters below.

Page 4: The soldiers fire blindly into the river until ordered to stop wasting precious ammunition by Col. Wyndam-Pryce. An alert is sent downriver to all allied positions to be on the look out for Angel.

Page 5: It is evening again, and Lady D’Ascoyne has spent a grueling day tending the wounded (she has red blood all over her black and white apron). At first, she is a bit ‘stand-off-ish’, but he quickly charms her with real tea. The privations of war, you know.

Anyway, he informs her that he works for an organization dedicated to the eradication of the vampires. And although Angel has escaped, he’s somewhat mollified by the fact that if he’s managed to drift downstream far enough, he’ll become the Kaiser’s problem.

Page 6: Angel is indeed traveling along the river bed. Sensing that darkness has fallen, he again breaks through the ice. He’s weary, freezing and injured.

Page 7: Entering a zone of shattered and burned trees, he realizes that he has crossed the front lines in the war. A German patrol quickly surrounds him, but he’s able to convince them that he’s not an enemy combatant (the trace of Irish accent helps, everyone knows the English don’t appreciate the Irish). The soldiers on this side of the line also give some indication that they’ve been beset by “them”.

Page 8: We get a quick flashback to three days ago when the German squad were nearly decimated by human looking creatures… vampires, of course.

Page 9: They’ve been hauling one of their comrades who had been bitten, but he is dead now. He has fang holes (with oddly fresh looking blood). Angel breaks the news to them… he was left just alive on purpose so that he’d be moved to a evac center where he would die, and then come back…

Page 10: … In order to ‘recruit’ more blood-suckers. It appears the Kaiser isn’t using the vampires (which I stated in issue #1 review) but is actually losing troops to them, as well as the English. As Angel prepares to be-head the corpse and tries to convince the squad it needs to be done – Mueller re-animates and puts the bite onto Schultz, the squad’s leader ‘til now.

Page 11: Schultz won’t be coming back, however, as Mueller rips his head off of his shoulders (with a spray of red in the black and white panel). The surviving squad men and Angel begin fighting the new vampire.

Page 12: One of the soldiers draws his pistol and shoots Schultz directly in the forehead, but this doesn’t do much good (it does give us more splashes of red color, though). Angel takes care of the problem with an improvised stake.

Page 13: Angel returns with the men to the site of their days earlier battle against the vampires in order to find and destroy their comrades corpses. They find them all missing and very little blood left behind, naturally.

Quick note – in both BTVS and AtS, the amount of time it took for re-animation seemed to change with the episode’s plot, circumstance and how quickly they needed them to attack. For Byrne’s story, he’s chosen the ‘3-Day Rule’.

Page 14 & 15: Those missing bodies? They pop up out of the snow. Angel demands that the soldiers with him stop thinking of the re-animated as their friends and start finding some wood to use as stakes. They soldiers go on the offensive – probably for the very first time – against the fang-gang.

Page 16: The battle is brutal, but Angel’s new allies are out-numbered. The battle is interrupted by the arrival of more vampires. The new group of demons is lead by someone which Angelus knows… Crixus.

Page 17: Angel tries the ol’ “I am still evil and I claim these humans” thing. Crixus doesn’t give an inch however, pissed that ‘Angelus’ has killed his own kind. Angel’s got a stake to his chest by a pawn of Crixus when he changes his mind off-panel voice shouts to ‘STOP!’

Page 18: Crixus decides that though he doesn’t trust Angelus, it’s up to their new leader to decide his fate. Crixus gives us a quick history lesson of what has been happening in Europe as far as the vamps are concerned while Angel and the surviving men are lead to an abandoned monastery.

Page 19: The huge castle like structure is striking in the blowing snow. Naturally, all of the nuns who used to reside there were slaughtered by the vampires now using it.

(Aside – What is it about nuns, anyway? In ‘Spanderverse’ I also had a nunnery attacked and wiped out by Glorificus – not that monks seem to fair much better!)

Page 20 & 21: Angel spots a huge plane and asks about it. Here we find out that the Kaiser is at least somewhat involved with the vampires, after all. He’s given it to them as a ‘gift’, but it’s unclear whether he realizes they are preying on his own men – or if he has tacitly approved of them growing their vampire army. Angel and his new friends are led deeply underground to meet Crixus’ new master.

Page 22: An obviously old vampire makes his dramatic appearance. He’s tall, built like a block engine and has huge clawed hands. And, he still looks an awful lot like Kakistos, but he’s not named here. He threatens ‘Angelus’ with a staking if he can’t adequately explain the “stench of a soul” coming off of him.

The Good: Again, the artwork is top notch in this second issue. The black and white panels are beautiful and the splashes of red blood throughout made a dramatic choice.

Angel’s break-away from the English soldiers was well-handled, for the most part. It was certainly better than Spike’s ratty blanket hike across the desert in BTVS.

The main vampire bad-guy is suitably threatening.

The plot is still interesting and the pace is good… nothing gets belabored, drawn out or repetitive (a problem which the first issue of Spike: After the Fall suffers).

The Bad: Only the highly convenient and clichéd “I have the hero just about dead, but I change my mind and not kill him so that I can be defeated later” trope. Crixus had Angel dead-to-rights, but suddenly decides he can’t kill him without the master’s approval; Even though he’d already made it clear in dialog that Angel had to die for killing his men just a few panels earlier.

It remains unclear (especially between Issues 1 & 2) what the German Kaiser’s role is in all this. Is this an official program to use vampires as instruments of war (which it seemed like in Issue 1 – before German soldiers were the targets)? Is the Kaiser unaware that his own men are being recruited into the demonic force? Or, did the Kaiser expect them to limit the demons’ damage to enemy troops? Some of Crixus’ explanations to Angelus could have made the point clearer.

The Scoring: The plot continues to hum right along with excellent pacing. The artwork remains excellent throughout. The obligatory bad guy shows up and is suitably vicious looking. The only problem is some muddling of how these German vampires fit into the larger war effort – especially with the vampires attacking German troops and then finding out that a plane was a ‘gift from the Kaiser’… though that could have been said sarcastically, I suppose: 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Angel: Blood and Trenches #1

Story & Art: John Byrne, Letters: Chris Mowry, Edited: Chris Ryall

Cover Art: John Byrne, Cover Coloring: Tom Smith/Scorpion Studios

Set Up: This story takes place during WWI. This issue is also largely black and white, with red being used sparingly to highlight blood.

Page 1: There’s a winter storm going on. Someone (hint: It’s Angel) is narrating that they are carrying wounded men in a ‘lorry’. There is only an hour before dawn, which is praying on the mind of our narrator. Nearby, an explosion goes off.

Page 2: Angel struggles to control the vehicle, but it’s a lost cause. The truck tips over. As Angel recovers from a tumble down an embankment, we see the cause of the explosion. There is a plane fast approaching.

Page 3: The pilot of the plane is a vampire. Using the mounted machine gun, pilot opens fire on Angel. Our hero takes several rounds, being unable to maneuver in the deep snow.


 

Page 4: The Fokker tri-plane swoops in for another run, this time targeting the truck carrying the wounded. Angel watches in horror and outrage as the truck is shot up. As the plane flies off, for good this time, Angel goes to the back of the now burning truck. He grabs the men and drags them away from the fire. The men’s blood covers his hands and the smell invades his nostrils. He backs away and tries to control himself.

Page 5: Trying desperately to focus on something else, he remembers why he came to Europe in the first place… six weeks ago:

(reading the paper): “Sources inform the Enquirer that there is no kind of medicinal machine which could so completely drain a human body without collapsing and damaging veins and arteries. Sources say no such damage has been found in the fifty or more bodies discovered thus far. One thing has been reported to be consistent in all these mysterious killings. An unidentified mark or sign has been found scribed in the blood of the victims.”

Page 6: Angel breaks into the public library and researches the symbol that had been reproduced in the paper.

Page 7: He finds evidence that the mark is a symbol for a particular vampire cult (I’m not sure if this is deliberate, but the vamp looks a whole lot like Kakistos from BTVS that was hunting for Faith). Angel makes his way to Nova Scotia and sneaks aboard a supply vessel bound for England.

Page 8: The Germans torpedo the ship and then shoot at the survivors in the water. As the ship goes into its death throes, our vampire manages to sneak aboard the German U-boat.

Page 9: Two days later, the sub breaks the surface near the coastline of France and Angel swims to shore….

Page 10: … Only to get hit by a truck. Brilliant. He’s knocked unconscious, but of course, the soldiers driving the truck believe he’s dead. They load him up.

Page 11: He comes to at an aid-station. As the young woman overseeing the place insists on helping him, one of the soldiers who brought him in is convinced that he was dead.

Page 12: As Lady Margaret D’Ascoyne tries to get him to submit to a physical, and offers him a hot bath to clean up….

Page 13: Corporal ‘Jealousy’ is reporting the strange turn of how Angel was dead and then he wasn’t: they have standing orders to report anything strange, no doubt due to the odd conditions of the 50+ bodies that have been found without blood. Meanwhile, Margaret is flirting with Angel, when a vampire breaks through the window.

Page 14: There are two of the things, but Angel is able to dust one of them. The thing loses the advantage when he reacts with shock to discover Angelus at the aid-station.

Page 15: The second creature is dusted. Angel explains to Lady Margaret that he has been fighting such monsters for a long time. He asks for her assistance in helping him to blend in. She gives him a job as an ambulance driver.

Page 16: As Angel begins evacuating soldiers that require more attention than the aid-station can give, a Colonel from command shows up and begins asking questions about him. When he hears that Angel only works the night shift, he orders his driver to follow the ambulance’s route.

Page 17: We catch up to where we started the story: A tri-plane swoops over the ambulance and the vampire pilot drops a hand grenade which blows up near the ambulance and leads to the crash.

Page 18: Back in the present, Angel is no longer able to resist the call of the dead men’s blood soaking their garments. He bends over a body and feeds… just in time for the Colonel and his men to show up.

Page 19: Angel is beaten and bound and then tossed in a trunk.

Page 20: Lady Margaret is awoken by the awful racket made by Colonel Geoffrey Wyndam-Price returning to the station with Angel bound in a trunk.

Page 21: Wyndam-Price orders the personnel at the station to be rounded up. Angel is quickly bound to a chair.

Page 22: In order to root out any ‘infected’, Wyndam-Price opens the curtains on the dawn. Angel, naturally, doesn’t react well….

The Good: I’ve always liked John Byrne’s artwork, so this gets high marks, even though all of his faces look very much alike.

Using black and white, so that things like blood (in color) stands out, is a neat creative decision and really works well.

The continuity is nice. We have the Germans experimenting with using vampire soldiers, which they’ll go back to in WWII. We also have Wyndam-Price, obviously the grandfather of Wesley (who is currently serving Wolfram & Hart in Angel: After the Fall). And, we can see why Angel was so reluctant to help the United States during WWII when the government agents came to recruit him (AtS: Why We Fight).

The Bad: Nuthin’, as long as you don’t mind largely black and white artwork. And, John’s habit of drawing faces all the same shape – especially mouths agape.

Scoring: With an interesting storyline, hints of future continuity and some great looking artwork, this one is a winner; 4.0 out of 5 Stars.