Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Writer), Adam Pollina (Art), and Matt Hollingsworth (Color Art)
On sale 5/29/08
Before I get into the review, let me say that this series grabbed my interest when the solicitation revealed the unique, religiously inspired cover. Angel has always been an interesting character to me and the prospect of a series highlighting his religious connections definitely grabbed my interest. I admit that I have some hopes built up for this miniseries, but I find myself disappointed by how things have started. Angel: Revelations #1 left me with a number of mixed feelings due to the equal number of high and low points present in the issue.
The bulk of Angel: Revelation #1 has to do with Warren Worthington III’s senior year at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School for Wayward Boys. The guy who will eventually become Angel is a popular track star dealing with girlfriend issues, a jealous teammate, and a coach who is suspicious about how his student has improved so much in so little time. What makes this familiar story unique is Warren’s sense of confusion about the change his body is going through as he finds himself rapidly becoming more athletic. A letter to his parents offers some nice insight into the character and the confusions of growing up. This sets the stage on how Warren’s story will most likely progress. The issue also introduces a priest who seems to perform exorcisms and while his work is only shown briefly, it threatens to overshadow anything told in Warren’s portion of the story. Another issue or two will decide whether this subplot is a good or a bad idea, but at least I can say with certainty that the scenes are incredibly effective.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s writing is quite strong at times, but overall I found it to be frustrating. The problem is that Warren comes across as a thoroughly unlikable, angst-ridden, teenage cliché at one point, than a sympathetic, complex character the next. I can appreciate the complex inner feelings of a character, but when every interaction that Warren takes part in leaves him looking like a moody jerk. It is hard to care about the guy.
It will be interesting to see how Warren is written in the coming issues. As I said, the letter to his parents was excellent, but outside of that, Warren came across as a tired cliché. The rest of the characters don’t fare much better; they come across as a generic stereotypes. The priest and his client are the only characters that truly grabbed my attention, but to avoid spoilers I will just say that the priests dialogue is incredibly effective.
Adam Pollina’s artwork also frustrated me because his people look like bizarre caricatures. The look is quite fitting for the surreal exorcism scenes and it actually adds quite a bit of atmosphere, but everything with Warren just looks incredibly odd. The look for the characters is unique, that’s for sure, but I found it to be more sloppy and ugly than satisfying. That said, Pollina knows how to create some nice scenery and architecture. The color work by Matt Hollingsworth is easily the visual high point as everything has an appropriate tone, especially the darker scenes. His use of color in darkness impressed me quite a bit and it helped create some interesting imagery.
Overall I found this issue to be quite disappointing and inconsistent. I’ll keep reading simply because I find the priest character to be compelling, but I don’t think I could recommend this to anyone that has little or no interest in Angel. This one is probably best for fans only. (Grade C-)
- Kyle Posluszny
Filed under: Marvel Comics, Reviews Tagged: | Adam Pollina, Angel:Revelations #1, Marvel, Marvel Knights, Matt Hollingsworth, origin, Reviews, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Warren Worthington, X-Men, X-Men
Hey Rodrigo thanks for the great comment. I appreciate your take on the book and can totally understand where you are coming from. Good to see a non X-Men fans take on things and I am sure readers will appreciate the extra perspective.
Angel was a strange book for me in a couple of ways, as you can tell from the review. I will be sticking with it for at least another issue to see where the story is headed as it’s not as though the first issue was a complete loss to me or anything. You may be right about the fact that I do “know” the character and have some attachment to the character I am familiar with so not a whole lot of the story was meant for the longtime fan. After reading some other reviewers opinions on the comic I can see that it is definitely a love or hate type of thing. It is good to see you liked it, as the more comic fans the better.
Keep reading the site Rodrigo as we strive to do our best to bring you honest, open reviews of everything that we check out. To be honest, this is a great time be a comic fan and I feel like I jumped back into reading comics at an excellent time. Feel free to comment any time, as it is always great to hear from readers.
Hi Kyle Posluszny.
I was looking forward to see a review of this magazine and I am glad that I found yours.
The cover was also the first image that grabbed my attention to pick up this book. And I did.
I know too little about the x-men and I know less about the character Angel. So when I read the book I found things that I never knew about the character and that I found interesting.
About the writting, I read “4″ of Marvel Knights writen by Roberto Aguirre and I love it. I read a Fanstastic Four in a way I never did before. I only knew that he wrote this Angel series after I already bought the comic. And I was not dissapointed.
About the art. This is actually the first comic that I buy containing Adam’s art. I like his past stuff and I always tought that he was a good artist. But I was amazed with the art that he provided for this.
It’s funny how to people can look the same book in two different ways. Probably, it’s my humble opinion, you were not fond of it, because you already are a fan, know the story of this characeters and didn’t bring anything knew to the table. But for me that I am not an x-men fan, and know too little of it, loved it. I didn’t have to read old comics, or know something in advance to undestand it.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is not fan and has no interest in the character.
By the way, I liked your column because you gave a sincere opinion. I hate those comic book reviews that found everything amazing even when the book is not good.
Rodrigo.
Mexico City.