When Angela Debuted on HBO's Spawn (For... No Real Reason)

This week at CBR, I look back at Angela's debut on the animated Spawn...which, I'm assuming, led to nothing thanks to Neil Gaiman's hobby of suing Todd McFarlane.

GLORY/ANGELA #1 - April 1996

Angels in Hell

Credits: Rob Liefeld (story), Jim Valentino (script, layouts), Andy Park & Pat Lee (pencils), Sean Parsons & Marlo Alquiza w/Alan Martinez & Kyle Roberts (inks), Christian Lichtner & Extreme Color (colors), Steve Dutro (letters)

Summary: Metatron informs Glory and Angela that Celestine has been possessed by Malebolgia since her resurrection. They travel to Hell to rescue the captive Celestine, discovering that Malebolgia has expanded his rule past the Eighth Circle. Glory and Angela are unable to defeat Malebolgia, but they receive help from an unexpected source -- Lucifer. Lucifer sends Malebolgia back to the Eighth Circle and returns Celestine’s soul. He takes the heroes to his posh lair and opens a doorway to the previously unknown Tenth Circle, the Elysium. Celestine is restored as an angel, while Glory and Angela are returned to Earth by Metatron.

Spawntinuity: Malebolgia declares himself second only to Lucifer, which is a more specific categorization of his place in Hell than Spawn has revealed so far. Lucifer is portrayed as a handsome, middle-aged man in a business suit. He tells Angela they’ll meet again soon.

The Big Names: Future "controversy" magnet Pat Lee is the co-artist. Randy Queen’s Darkchylde is previewed in a backup story.

Creative Differences: The title of this one-shot was originally solicited as “Hell’s Angels.”

Review: Hmm…this final chapter of an Extreme Studios crossover looks like a rushed mess. I just can’t believe it. Judging by the recap of the middle issues of the crossover, all we’ve missed is a fight scene between the Extreme heroes and an army of undead soldiers resurrected by Celestine with the angels’ satellite, and the “shocking” revelation that Malebolgia’s possessed her the entire time. The finale consists of more pointless fights, a few splash pages of Malebolgia (the only character the artists seem interested in drawing), and the introduction of Lucifer. I guess there’s some irony in having Lucifer play the Deus Ex Machina role, but it’s hard not to view this as a stereotypically bad Extreme comic.

As far as ‘90s crossovers go, this one was remarkably low-key. I don’t recall any promotion in Spawn whatsoever for it, and don’t remember any hype in Wizard for the event, either. Clearly, this was an attempt to cash in on the “Bad Girl” fad, but it’s also the first major storyline to bridge the Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld corners of Image (Spawn and Chapel have a history, and Badrock faced Violator, but they never triggered a crossover event). It seems like it should’ve been a bigger deal. In terms of Spawn continuity, it’s Angela’s first appearance since her miniseries, the introduction of Malebolgia’s boss Lucifer, and the final confirmation of an idea hinted at in Alan Moore’s first fill-in…the Tenth Circle of Hell is actually Heaven. McFarlane was even introducing a new angel, Tiffany, into the mythos at this time. Couldn’t he have coordinated it with this event? This storyline opened with a decent premise; unfortunately, no one seemed too interested in the execution.

ANGELA/GLORY #1 - March 1996

Rage of Angels

Credits: Rob Liefeld & Robert Napton (story), Robert Napton (script), Roger Cruz (pencils), Danny Miki w/Alan Martinez & Kyle Roberts (inks), Christian Lichtner & Extreme Color (colors), Kurt Hathaway (letters)

Summary: The angel Astra recovers Celestine’s heart and uses forbidden technology to revive her. Celestine returns to life insane, recruiting an army of rogue angels and destroying the Elysium. On Earth, she uses her powers to brainwash the Amazonians on the Isle of Paradise into joining her. Lady Demeter asks her daughter Glory for help. On the Isle, Glory encounters Angela, who’s hunting Celestine. They unite to defeat Celestine, but Glory is reluctant to harm her sisters. She summons a cleansing storm to counteract Celestine’s influence. Celestine flees, but reemerges on the angels’ orbital satellite and kills its crew.

Spawntinuity: Celestine first appeared in the Violator Vs. Badrock miniseries (written by Alan Moore, as a footnote in this issue reminds us), which ended with Violator ripping her heart out. Angela is hunting Celestine as a favor to Metatron, “ruler of all angels,” who has been willing to ignore Angela’s freelance work.

Gimmicks: Rob Liefeld provided an alternate cover for the book.

Review: Oh, yeah…Todd McFarlane did loan Angela out to Rob Liefeld, didn’t he? Only in the days of early Image would you have Rob Liefeld plotting a story that incorporates the works of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Grant Morrison, starring a heroine flagrantly lifted from Wonder Woman’s origin story. If I’m not mistaken, this was Angela’s first appearance not written by Neil Gaiman. Luckily, the comic happened to be published during Roger Cruz’s short association with Extreme Studios, so there isn’t a hideous Liefeld clone in sight. Cruz is still working in the style you might remember from X-Men Alpha, which is short on originality but is at least tolerable.

Cruz’s main fault here is his insane reliance on awkwardly inserted cheesecake. Not only are dramatic statements declared while the “camera” focuses on the speaker’s butt cheeks, not only does every female character proudly wear a thong, but the army of murdered angels have a bad habit of lying prone, smugly displaying those thongs to any reader interested in checking out dead chicks. Cruz is still oddly appropriate for the book, given that his look at this time is an amalgam of Jim Lee, Joe Mad, and J. Scott Campbell. All of those guys have Arthur Adams in common, who was one of McFarlane’s dominant influences for years. Although the Spawn series doesn’t have this particular “cartoon” style at this point, Cruz’s look fits the McFarlane-designed characters. I wonder now how the Spawn series would’ve turned out if McFarlane had hired Cruz away from Marvel in the mid-‘90s.

I’ve never read a Glory comic before, but it seems as if the story brings together her mini-universe with Angela’s in a plausible way. As much as there is continuity in the Image Universe, it’s used well. (I’m not sure if McFarlane ever even read this storyline; it’s kind of ridiculous that the destruction of “Heaven” was never mentioned in Spawn.) Angela doesn’t care that much if her former angel friends are getting massacred, but she feels she owes a favor to Metatron. This would also allow her to test her strength against Celestine, which matches Gaiman’s original characterization. Glory doesn’t want to kill her Amazonian sisters, which Angela finds laughable, but of course she finds a better way in the end. The cliffhanger is a nice surprise, as the angelic satellite from Morrison’s Spawn run has been criminally underused since its debut. Unfortunately, this one-shot is merely a prelude to a “Rage of Angels” crossover. Check out Youngblood #6, Team Youngblood #21, Glory #10, and something called Maximage #4 for the rest of the story, before returning for the second Angela/Glory team-up special. Or don’t. I think I’ll risk missing them.

ANGELA #3 - February 1995

Angela Part Three

Credits: Neil Gaiman (story), Greg Capullo (pencils), Mark Pennington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Todd Broeker & Fierce Colorgraphics (colors)

Summary: The demon Smut discovers Spawn and Angela in the darkness, which is revealed to be a section of Hell. Spawn and Angela fight their way through a demon war to reach a dimensional gate. Spawn visualizes Earth after reaching the gate, and is transported to the American suburbs. Angela rematerializes in Elysium, where she’s reunited with her friends. She visits Gabrielle, who confesses to framing Angela, unaware she’s being taped. Later, an older angel arrives to replace Gabrielle, as Angela decides to live as a freelance ex-angel.

Spawntinuity: Gabrielle reveals that Angela’s lance disappeared after Spawn touched it, along with any record of her mission on Earth (which gave Gabrielle the opportunity to frame her). Gabrielle speculates that Spawn somehow reshaped reality to escape the other plane the lance sent him to. I’m assuming this ties in to the hints McFarlane used to drop that Spawn was “special’ in some way.

Review: After an indeterminate amount of time alone in the dark together, Spawn and Angela are now bickering like an old married couple. In-between their fight with a horde of demons, they do the classic sitcom shtick of refusing to speak directly to one another, so another character has to be their emissary. In this case, it’s Smut, the cutesy demon who looks like a housecat (and later the star of a Gaiman/Capullo story for a CBLDF benefit comic). This is pretty funny, and Capullo, whose art has been stellar throughout the miniseries, is given a lot of ogres and monsters to draw. Gaiman isn’t treating the Spawn universe as fancifully as Alan Moore did, but he does realize that this material can’t be taken too seriously and he knows when to introduce humor into the story.

At the conclusion, Angela abandons her career as an angel and, with the subtlety of a punch to the throat, declares that “you don’t have to work for the big two…there are alternatives.” I can’t imagine to what she’s referring. I hope this was just a cute in-joke, because if we’re supposed to retroactively view the entire story as a statement on the comic book industry, that means we have dangerous spitfire Todd McFarlane escaping from the treacherous ranks of Marvel-Heaven. Surely, Angel Todd wouldn’t engage in any of the business practices used by mean ol’ Marvel-Heaven.

ANGELA #2 - January 1995

Angela Part Two

Credits: Neil Gaiman (story), Greg Capullo (pencils), Mark Pennington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary: Kuan Yin and Anahita take Spawn to Elysium to testify on Angela’s behalf. After Spawn drops his disguise and is revealed in court, he’s immediately attacked by the angels. Feeling that she has nothing to lose, Angela joins Spawn in the fight. After crashing out of a window, Angela orders Spawn to use his cloak to teleport them away. As the cloak envelopes them, Surielle blasts it. Spawn and Angela emerge in darkness. They have a conversation, as Angela moves closer to Spawn for warmth.

Spawntinuity: Spawn’s costume has a violent reaction to being in Elysium. However, when he was previously summoned to Heaven, his costume didn’t react. Elysium is described as “heaven-ish,” so perhaps that’s enough for an Image No-Prize. After getting blasted by Surielle, Spawn’s cape, now near-death, is left in Elysium. Angela tells Spawn that she knows why Malebolgia selected him, but doesn’t give any details. During the trial, Spawn changes into the only human form he can take, the blonde white guy he transformed into in the early issues of his series. It’s my understanding that after many, many years, McFarlane has finally begun to address who the blonde guy is in the current issues of Spawn.

Review: I think Gaiman once said that there was a lot of “running around” in the early Image comics he saw, so I’m not shocked he’s worked in a chase/escape sequence. Teaming Angela with Spawn works out well, as the characters do share some chemistry together. Spawn’s utterly clueless about any of the supernatural elements of his new life, which sets him up for numerous arrogant, dismissive putdowns from Angela. The ending is a little vague about what exactly Spawn and Angela are doing in the dark, but later stories clarify that the two really did do what every teenage boy assumed they did (plus, they’re surrounded by a heart on the cover, which is a pretty big clue). Angela’s really the aggressor in this, and I guess it fits the character Gaiman’s created to give her a stereotypically male libido. However, if we’re supposed to believe Spawn’s so deeply in love with his wife, having him hook up with another female doesn’t cast him in the best light. Maybe McFarlane realized this, because even though future stories could’ve played off the demon/angel romance angle, the idea’s dropped very quickly. Gaiman’s also introduced the idea that Spawn can channel previous Hellspawns in his dreams, which is another vehicle for new stories I don’t think McFarlane ever explored.

ANGELA #1 - December 1994

Angela Part One

Credits: Neil Gaiman (story), Greg Capullo (art), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Todd Broeker & Fierce Colorgraphics (colors)

Summary: While hunting a dragon, Angela is arrested by a host of angels. The angel Surielle removes Angela’s trophy earrings as she places her in prison. Angela’s friends, Kuan Yin and Anahita, refuse to believe the charges against her. They discover Gabrielle’s testimony, which falsely claims Angela hunted Spawn on Earth without a permit. Kuan Yin and Anahita travel to Earth and confront Spawn.

Spawntinuity: Angela claims that this is her hundred thousandth birthday, and that she’s killed over thirty Hellspawn. The angels are currently searching for her missing lance, which was left on Earth after her encounter with Spawn in issue #9.

Spawn vs. Lawyers: I know there was a trade reprint of this miniseries, but I imagine the Gaiman lawsuit has kept it out of print.

Review: Look at that cover. It certainly fits the criteria for a Boob War comic, doesn’t it? This, of course, isn’t mindless T&A and violence, although Gaiman isn’t shying away from those elements. Gaiman always said he did this work to impress his teenage son, but the story doesn’t read as if he’s only pandering to a juvenile audience. There’s a lot of action and scantily clad angels, but Angela is given a distinct personality (she’s arrogant, reckless, and quick to make enemies), a few literary references are thrown in, and most of the dialogue is pretty clever. Spawn’s introduced with a two-page sequence that has him reviewing how pathetic his life is and declaring that he has to stop obsessing over his wife. Yeah, like that’ll happen any decade soon.