Many years ago I was explaining, well, trying to explain to a non-comic book friend of mine how comic book characters like Batman always live in the current time period, never grow old, and never die. I was eager to lay-out the paradoxes this sort of story telling results in, but my friend really wasn’t interested in where I was going; he wanted to examine the initial starting point. “Why can’t they die? Why can’t the stories for these characters come to an end?” I tried to explain why the companies would never let a cash cow like Batman, or Superman, or Spider-Man ever truly die. They might try to fool us with phony deaths, but in the end they would simply never die.  

“Again, why?” he asked.

“Because they just won’t,” I answered.

We were approaching this from very different standpoints. He looked at these characters and stories as a purely creative endeavor – and thus why shouldn’t you complete the stories, and then move onto other characters in different situations. I, on the other hand, was viewing this from years of understanding “the rules” of comic books, and basically a marketing/sales reality of milking as much profit you can from your product, and any story creativity had to fit within these rules.

Of course, in real life people do die, and they will not return, no matter how much Sales wants them to. It’s a hard, hard rule of this life, and these are the rules we have to be creative within.

On March 29, 2009, the actor Andy Hallett, who played the beloved character Lorne on the television show Angel, died from heart failure due in short to an infection and later various medical complications. Even though the show Angel had been off the air for many years, Andy’s death was a hard blow to any who hoped to see him play the role of Lorne at least one more time (however that might have come about).

The one shot comic Angel Special: Lorne, subtitled Music of the Spheres, is both a tribute to Andy Hallett and Lorne, the character he helped breathe life into. The issue is broken up into three pieces: an original Angel story featuring prominently the character of Lorne written and illustrated by John Byrne, a short “illustrated limerick” (I don’t know what else to call this) written by Brian Lynch and illustrated by John Byrne, and a remembrance of Andy written by his close friend and fellow actor, Mark Lutz, with many color and B&W photos of Andy and friends.

Both stories feature conclusions to the character of Lorne which I found touching. The first involves a threat which he is singularly capable of dealing with (and I mean SING-ualry capable), and the second involving a happy-go-lucky place anyone could call home.
But I don’t really want to say these stories feature the true end to the Lorne character (no spoilers, please, plus these still are comics), but they do feel like the retirement of a sport player’s number. The jersey is raise into the rafters, the number not to be used again, except when presented with a very special occasion. (I’m not a big sports fan, but I understand numbers can come out of retirement, usually with the permission of the original owner.)

In short, I enjoyed the issue immensely. Art, story, photos, and in memoriam were wonderful, sad, funny, fun, tear jerking, and deserving high honors. Knowledge of the Angel universe is not required, so you truly have no excuse, pick up a copy of this comic as soon as possible.

It should also be noted that John Byrne has stated on his web site “…I plan on donating my royalties to heart research, in Andy’s honor…” (see http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34672&PN=1&totPosts=20).

So your purchase will in part help fund heart research, besides just getting yourself a great comic.