Angel gets his own Buffy the Vampire Slayer alt-reality in new title

page from Angel #1 — (Image credit: Boom! Studios)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off star Angel is going Hollywood in a new comic book from Boom! Studios, written by Christopher Cantwell with art from Daniel Bayliss. Colorist Patricio Delpeche and letterer Becca Carey round out the creative team.

The eight-issue limited series, simply titled Angel, sends the titular antihero to Los Angeles to become a TV star - but even farther than a move to Los Angeles, the story actually takes place in a totally alternate reality where Angel is the star of a show called Detective Angel alongside who else but Cordelia.

But Angel and Cordelia aren't just TV stars in this new reality, which also brings in other Buffy-verse characters in new 'Variant'-esque versions of themselves. They spend their free time as actual monster hunters, setting out on the trail of an "unexpected and mysterious world," and a supernatural threat unlike anything he's ever faced.

"I love writing character ensemble stories, stories about seemingly random individuals who suddenly find themselves trapped in the orbits of others. Angel has one of the best ensembles to ever grace the TV screen, and theirs is a story about a family of choice," Cantwell states in the announcement.

"When Boom! approached me, I leaped at the chance to honor and celebrate the original series in a fresh way, pulling on some loose threads and weaving new ones," he continues. "It takes all the characters and plays 52 card pick-up with them, reshuffling their roles and identities into a literal alternate universe that looks and feels like Angel, but is also something else entirely."

Cantwell is uniquely poised to take on a meta-TV-comic book mash-up story, as the current writer of Marvel's Iron Man, as well as the former TV showrunner of the AMC period drama Halt and Catch Fire, and current showrunner of Amazon Prime's adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang's Image Comics title Paper Girls.

Angel #1 is due out in January. In the meantime, here's a gallery of covers and interior pages:

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Angel's monster hunting adventure doesn't start till next year. But if you're in a Halloween mood, check out the best horror comics of all time.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011, and now I'm the Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)