Broken Frontier

Ever since Joss Whedon’s Angel TV series came to an end, fans have wanted more. We’ve gotten stacks of postcards pleading for the return of Spike. And now, IDW Publishing is poised to give the fans what they want in the form of Spike: Old Times, a one-shot focusing on an untold tale from the character’s past.

On a dark night in the 1880s, an elegant woman, named Cecily humiliates William, a young poet who flees into the night… not realizing it would turn out to be the first night of the rest of his unlife. Now, over a century later, the elegant Cecily is a vengeance demon known as Halfrek is aiming to destroy yet another young poet. But this time, William the Vampire—the renowned Spike—is at hand to even the odds.

Bringing the popular character back to comic books is fan-favorite writer Peter David (Fallen Angel), joined on this project by artist Fernando Goni.

“I always figured the business of having Spike and Halfrek ‘recognize’ each other in the episode Older and Far Away was nothing but an in-joke shout-out to actress Kali Rocha's having played both Halfrek and, in the previous season's episode Fool for Love, Spike's lost love, Cecily,” speculates writer Peter David.  “But in the Whedon-verse, there's no such thing as an in-joke that can't be milked for all it's worth. And I figured there was plenty worth milking here. Quite simply, it was an episode that I wanted to see, and since it can't ever be done by Mutant Enemy, writing the story myself is the next best thing.”

The full-color 48-page one-shot, Spike: Old Times, will be available in August.