Comic Review: Angel and Faith Season Ten #14

In the last season of Buffy comics, Angel & Faith was easily my favorite of the two series, but I did not see it coming that it continued into this season, seeing as that series ended with Angel and Faith going in very different directions with their lives. It has taken a lot of story maneuvering and a lot of disappointment so far in this season, but this issue ends in a place that makes me feel very good about where this series is going, and feeling that it will soon be a solid part of the Buffyverse again.

One note: I have very strong biases with this series. It currently has my two favorite Buffyverse characters (Faith and Fred), and I love the dynamic between Faith and Angel, so that makes it much easier for me to like it - if you don't have those biases, your opinion may vary a lot - should not need the disclaimer that this is opinion, but I have strong ones, so I feel it helps. 

This issue is the last one in the arc dealing with Fred's return and her fighting with Illyria. At this point, I should mention that this makes almost no logical sense, in how Fred is still alive and sharing her body with Illyria, but some of the rules in this universe have been left not very strongly defined for a reason - they put the drama and character moments above the universe having too well-defined rules. When it came to dealing with Fred and how she deals with a god sharing her body, it works for the drama. My only issue with the arc is that the story is only suspended - Illyria is not really defeated, just contained for a little bit, which is both obvious to the reader and said a few times by the characters, making it feel like the series is leaving a huge, obvious loose thread for future stories to pick up on later.

Where the story does move forward solidly is after all the action has stopped, something the Buffyverse has always done well with. The partnership between Angel and Faith has been restored, which is a dynamic that I love, especially since it carried a story forward for the entirety of last season. I find it difficult to describe without diving too deep into their backstory, but it's a great combination of trust, respect, and love, all without it being romantic, and you never want it to be. It's something that I find so hard to describe, but incredibly satisfying, and now that the story has maneuvered them back to that point, I am willing to forgive a lot of the points in the story that seemed not to work, especially since the little moments of it we saw here got their dynamic perfectly - though I do have my biases, so if you are not a fan of the characters or their dynamic, you might not share the same forgiveness.
I liked this issue overall, even though I wouldn't really call it great. What I see in it is getting closer to restoring what I loved so much last season, and while it took a while, the story has set up everything to keep that up going forward.