Comic books
In 2007, Angel began appearing in two canonical continuations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel from Joss Whedon. The first of these was Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, published by Dark Horse Comics, which continued the story of the Buffy television series. Later that year, Whedon and IDW Publishing released the series Angel: After the Fall, which continued on from the series finale of Angel. The two series were published by different publishers due to Dark Horse initially giving up the rights to licensed Angel comic books several years ago when the series was still on air.
In Dark Horse's Buffy continuation, Angel initially appears to feature in Buffy's dream sequences (in the comic's third and twentieth issues, as well as in the Dark Horse Presents special Season Eight comic "Always Darkest"), but is later revealed to have been in the series from the beginning. He then features substantially in the remainder of the series. Angel features as the central character in IDW's After the Fall, however, which has no crossover with the events of Buffy. Whedon devised the storyline for After the Fall issues 1-17 with writer Brian Lynch, but did not write for the series himself as with Buffy. Beginning with the eighteenth issue of the series, IDW chose to continue telling Angel stories in an ongoing comic book with rotating writers and artists, although these stories "did not come from Whedon himself". In the continued series without Whedon's involvement, Angel engages in episodic adventures, while the series also takes breaks to focus on other characters. Subsequent writers included Bill Willingham. When rights to Angel settings and characters reverted to Dark Horse, IDW promised to end their ongoing Angel series with its forty-fourth issue in 2011, and began negotiating with Dark Horse so that it would bridge continuity with Season Eight and the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine. Its final Angel story is the hardcover send-off Angel Yearbook. During its tenure, IDW also published various miniseries depicting Angel and related characters, such as John Byrne's Angel: Blood and Trenches (2009), and several Illyria and Spike stories.
In After the Fall, set after the fifth season, Angel and his friends struggle as Los Angeles has been moved to a hell dimension by the Senior Partners who have also turned Angel human as a punishment. With the help of Wesley's ghost, magical spells to simulate his old abilities, and a friendly dragon (seen in "Not Fade Away") which he names after Cordelia, Angel continues helping the helpless. Angel eventually outsmarts and kills the Demon Lords of Los Angeles to win the city back for its people. Gunn, now a vampire out for revenge against Angel following the fight in the alley, confronts Angel, and brings him to the point of death. Cordelia's spirit comes to convince Angel to keep fighting, in spite of a vision of the "final battle" which sees Angel responsible for countless deaths. Wesley also confirms that Angel is still viable for the Shanshu prophecy, because his signed contract was never filed. Angel's body is subsequently taken by the Senior Partners and restored to health while Gunn successfully manages to restore the demon Illyria (introduced in season 5) to her true form, hoping she will restore time to before the Fall of Los Angeles only to embark on a destructive rampage instead. Gunn kills Connor, but rather than avenge the death Angel allows Gunn to kill him, forcing the Senior Partners to restore time back to before the Fall, as he is necessary to their plans. Restored to the fight in the alley with memories intact, Angel saves Gunn this time and later is happily reunited with Connor. Angel enjoys celebrity status from the citizens of Los Angeles, and gives Cordelia the dragon over to Groosalugg. As a mark of respect for his friends, he names a wing of the Los Angeles public library after Wesley and Fred; Wesley is no longer a ghost. Angel leaves the human, traumatised Gunn an Angel Investigations card and returns to his duties helping the hopeless.
In Season Eight, Twilight appears in the premiere issue, written by Whedon; his shoes are seen floating in the air as he surveys Buffy. At the end of the arc, the military general who coordinated a large-scale attack on Buffy is revealed to be a follower of "Twilight"; later issues show that many of the anti-Slayer forces serve under the leadership of a masked person known as Twilight. Buffy herself finally confronts Twilight in "A Beautiful Sunset", along with the Slayer Satsu, but Twilight's superior strength and ability to fly ensures his easy victory. In Jane Espenson's story arc "Retreat", Twilight locates Buffy's allies through their use of magic, forcing them to converge and retreat. In Tibet, Slayers and witches suppress their magic, which ultimately leads to a mutually destructive military conflict between the Slayers and Twilight's forces. In its aftermath, however, Buffy mysteriously acquires abilities conspicuously similar to Twilight's. In the penultimate arc, written by Brad Meltzer, the newly empowered Buffy faces up to her masked enemy again. Twilight reveals himself to be Angel, and claims to have been distracting the various groups that would seek to destroy Buffy while pushing her towards some other end. Buffy and Angel — destiny's agents in discarding the old reality and ushering in a new one — are overcome with desire for one another. They kiss, have sex and fly through space, eventually ascending to a dimension called Twilight. Meanwhile, Giles exposits a prophecy pertaining to the creation of a new universe, brought about by a Slayer falling in love with a vampire. The two come to their senses and return to Earth to fight off the hordes of demons unleashed by their ascension. Espenson's Riley one-shot flashes back to an uneasy Angel, early in his Twilight masquerade, convinced by Whistler (Angel's mentor in flashbacks from Buffy season 2) that this course of actions leads to the only possible future in which Buffy survives. The final arc, "Last Gleaming", depicts Angel's first encounter with the higher power which bestowed Twilight's superheroic abilities on him. Spike explains the next step in the prophecy, which concerns the new universe springing from the mystical Seed of Wonder, a source for all the magic in the universe, buried beneath Sunnydale. Although he tries to stop more of the damage caused by the Twilight dimension's coming, the Twilight dimension (the aforementioned higher power) possesses Angel. To protect the seed, a possessed Angel then tries to kill Buffy and Spike, and goes so far as to snap Giles' neck. This prompts Buffy to destroy the Seed. This stops the Twilight dimension from destroying the existing world, and Angel is dispossessed, but the universe is also stripped of all magic.
Following on from this, Angel headlines the series Angel and Faith, primarily set in London. Its stories aim to be respectful to the storylines featured in IDW's forty-four issue Angel run, and maintains a very tight continuity with Buffy Season Nine and other related comics. In his series, Angel faces the looming threat of his now unstable former mentor Whistler, who helped bring about his transformation into Twilight, as well as his two dangerous former acolytes, half-demons Pearl and Nash, in addition a group of British Slayers who cannot forgive his actions as Twilight. Along with Faith, he lives in Giles' London apartment where they are joined by Giles' ageless aunts, witches Lavinia and Sophronia. Angel intends to honor Giles' memory, and seeks to collect fragments of Giles' soul from magical items as part of a plan to resurrect him. In the series' conclusion, Giles is successfully resurrected, albeit as a young teenage boy, and the gang pursue Whistler, Pearl and Nash to a rooftop, where they plan to unleash a horrific magical plague on the world as an inelegant means to restore magic to the universe. Nash is killed, and Angel is able to persuade Whistler to see the error of his ways, successfully limiting to the extent of the plague to an area of Hackney in London. In the season's denouement, Faith returns to America alongside Giles, while Angel remains behind to guard over the plagued neighborhood, now called Magic Town, where residents—magically mutated into all manner of creature—are already causing problems.
A second volume of the series launched alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten in 2014. Angel defends Magic Town against threats such as Amy Madison during Faith's absence, and acquires several new allies: Eldre Koh, an ancient Nitobe demon freed from his prison by the end of magic; Detective Brandt; Rory, a magically-mutated bartender; and the mutant Tricia and her boyfriend Parker. Angel is also aided by Sophronia and Lavinia, as well as Nadira, a Slayer who hated him for his actions as Twilight but found inner peace after being mutated, and has a deep connection with the magic of Magic Town, which has become sentient. Following Illyria's death in Buffy Season Nine, Angel finds Fred alive again, having been restored by the reset of the laws of magic; she is forced to share her body with Illyria but is able to keep the ancient demon mostly under control. Faith also returns, now working for Zane Pharmaceuticals. A crossover with Buffy Season Ten reveals a new demon villain: Archaeus, who sired the Master and is able to control all the vampires from that bloodline, including Angel, Spike and Drusilla. Angel travels to San Francisco to help Buffy combat the demon lord, discovering that Buffy and Spike are now in a relationship, which Angel believes will not last. Meanwhile, Faith and Fred discover Drusilla in Magic Town, building a vampire army for Archaeus, who follows Angel back to London. The season ends with a conflict between Archaeus and his vampire army (including Drusilla and Detective Brandt), and Angel and his makeshift 'family' (Faith, Fred/Illyria, Koh, Nadira, Sophronia and Lavinia, and the Magic Town populace). Observing the battle, the sentient magic is almost convinced to join Archaeus, but ultimately defends Nadira from him and traps Archaeus inside a statue.
