On May 19, 2004, the final episode of the popular Buffy The Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel aired.  The show was prematurely cancelled because creator Joss Whedon wanted a commitment to Season Six more than three seconds before filming would start.  He was trying to do several things in the show’s progression and wanted to know for sure they were coming back; the studio didn’t like this tactic and cancelled the show. Whedon wanted the audience to feel the pain he felt when the show was cancelled and ended the show on a huge cliffhanger of a battle with Angel and company against an army the size of that seen in Lord of The Rings. Just as the battle was about to start, the screen faded to black!

For the past few years IDW Publishing has been putting out Angel mini-series and one-shots after Dark Horse let the rights lapse. Some have been good, some bad. For the past year they’ve been publishing Angel: After The Fall; the story is written by Brian Lynch, with outlines/plots by Joss Whedon on what would have happened in Season Six. The series has been great, and Lynch is no stranger to the Angel-verse as he’s written two great Spike mini-series that captured the vampire perfectly.

In issue two of Angel: After The Fall, we learned what Spike’s been up to. After L.A. went to hell (literally) and a few months of surviving, Spike has set up shop in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, along with Illyria.  Since that series is about Angel and not Spike, we weren’t privy as to how Spike got to the mansion — until now.  Brian Lynch wasn’t sure he could take time away from writing Angel, to fill in some of Spike’s backstory, bu because of the success of Angel: After The Fall, combined with fan requests, Spike gets his own four issue mini-series entitled Spike: After The Fall.

Frank Urro was Lynch’s artist on both Spike mini-series and was the artist on Angel: After The Fall for the first five issues. He then was taken off the book so he could work on Spike: After The Fall. The new mini-series picks up a few months after Angel: After The Fall #1 but before the story arc called “First Night,” which showed what happened right after the television series ended.  Spike, along with Illyria, is trying to save the human citizens of the city.   Since the humans and demons are thrown together after the city has been sent to hell things, are in utter chaos, and Spike sees this as a chance to carve out his own niche.   Spike also has the problem of Illyria starting to revert to her human form of Winifred “Fred” Burkle, and it’s bothering Spike to see his friend's body after the Illyria entity burned her soul out of it.  Illyria can maintain her form if she’s made angry enough, and, lucky for Spike, there are plenty of demons to beat up on for her to do so.