Who Is Angel? (part 2 - post-curse)

Upon regaining his humanity, Angelus deserted his comrades and attempted to redefine himself.

Although Angelus' thirst for butchery had been extinguished, his love for Darla had not. In 1900, he tracked her down in China, where she was feeding on townspeople with Spike and Drusilla during the Boxer Rebellion. In an attempt to win her back, Angelus hid the fact that he could no longer kill the innocent and faked his bloodlust to appease his lover.

On the night that Spike killed a masterful Slayer in an abandoned temple, the reunited pack decided to leave China to seek victims in other parts of the world. It didn't take long for Darla to expose Angelus' facade.

She could tell that he had been killing vermin to satisfy his necessity for blood, and she realized that the few humans he killed in front of her were miscreants like murderers and rapists. Darla finally tested Angelus by bringing him a human baby, the personification of innocence and virtue. As Darla waited for her lover to feed on the infant, Angelus scooped up the child, jumped through the window, and left her for good.

During the 1910's, Angelus moved to America and changed his name to Angel in an attempt to further remove himself from his past. While repenting for the acts he had committed as a vampire, he developed an aversion towards other vampires and lived like a transient, feeding on rats for nourishment.

In the 1920's, Angel was living in Juarez when a barbaric demon named Boone took offense to the brooding outcast. The two warriors engaged in a brutal fight over a girl that lasted three and a half hours and ended without a victor. Boone was left with a bitter grudge against Angel that would not be settled until more than 75 years later.

By 1952, Angel had taken residence at the Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles. The human inhabitants were intimidated by his fierce demeanor and avoided him at all costs. During his stay, a Thesulac demon, which feeds on paranoia, turned the hotel residents into a bloodthirsty mob. The horde turned its wrath on Angel and was able to overpower the vampire and hang him from a rafter. Angel, still very much alive, waited for the mob to lose interest and wander off before he climbed down. He indignantly left the Hyperion and its inhabitants at the mercy of the Thesulac demon.

Angel later left Los Angeles and aimlessly roamed across America until, consumed by self-pity, he hit rock bottom and began living in an alleyway in New York. But in 1996 his life was changed when he met a street-wise demon named Whistler. The Powers That Be, a force for good and order in the universe, sent Whistler to guide Angel on a path to redemption. The slick-tongued demon convinced Angel to help a Vampire Slayer named Buffy fight the forces of evil in California.

Angel first laid eyes on Buffy in Los Angeles and followed her to Sunnydale when she and her mother moved. In 1997, he began to help the slayer by delivering cryptic advice about demonic activity. One night, when Buffy was attacked by vampires outside of the Bronze, the local hangout, Angel saved her and Buffy invited him over to sleep in her room. The two began to sense a mutual attraction and when Buffy returned home from school the next day they shared a passionate kiss.

But before they could revel in the afterglow, Angel's vampire face came out and he dejectedly ran away. As both Buffy and Angel began to consider the consequences of their ironic attraction, Darla showed up in Sunnydale with the goal of winning her "Darling Boy" back.

The cunning Darla made it look like Angel had attacked Buffy's mother, which quickly pit the slayer against her soulmate. Angel wasn't able to convince Buffy of the truth until he destroyed his past by slaying Darla at the Bronze.

Although Buffy could accept the fact that Angel was no longer evil, the two of them decided that their poetic relationship could never work. As they kissed one last time, the cross Buffy wore around her neck burned an imprint onto Angel's chest, leaving a permanent memento of their love. Although the forces of good and evil separated Buffy and Angel, fate brought them back together.

As they became deeply enamored with one another, they decided to consummate their love on Buffy's 17th birthday. What they didn't know was that the Romany curse was predicated on Angel remaining tortured. Upon experiencing a moment of true happiness, the curse was lifted and his soul removed once again.

Angel quickly became the scourge of Sunnydale and did everything in his power to torture Buffy. After killing one of Buffy's allies and nearly claiming her other friends, Willow was able to re-cast the Romany spell and return Angel's soul to him for the second time.

But fate again made a radical turn and, moments after he regained his soul, Buffy was forced to impale Angel to seal the gateway to hell he had opened. Angel was returned a few months later, but he had spent the equivalent of over 100 years being tortured in hell.

In time, he was able to recover his sanity, but his psyche would never fully heal. He knew that as long as he remained a vampire, his relationship with Buffy would never work, so he left Sunnydale to find a new life in Los Angeles.

Upon arrival in the "City of Angels," a half-human half-demon named Doyle approached Angel and convinced him to help people through his visions. Doyle, like Whistler, received images of people in peril from The Powers That Be and would then employ Angel to rescue them.

It didn't take long for Angel to run into Cordelia, who was struggling to make a living as an actress. Along with Doyle, Angel and Cordelia formed Angel Investigations in 1999 as an outlet for supernatural P.I. work and the rescue of the innocent. When Angel dusted a rich and powerful vampire named Russell Winters, Angel Investigations made its first contact with what would become its most powerful nemesis.

Russell Winters was a client of a law firm called Wolfram & Hart that catered to the demon community, and they immediately recognized Angel as a considerable threat to their depraved organization. Their long list of crimes against humanity included pimping vampires, organizing demon fight clubs and harvesting humans for body parts.

Although Wolfram & Hart kept Angel busy, his past love still haunted him. Angel would never fully recover from losing Buffy, but he did eventually find himself smitten by another heroic blonde. While hunting a Talamere demon, Angel crossed paths with a skilled and beautiful LAPD detective named Kate Lockley.

Although Angel tried to pursue her romantically, the strong-willed detective was not able to give in to her feelings and fully accept Angel being a vampire. Shortly after Kate entered Angel's life, another person was taken from it. During a daring rescue, Doyle heroically sacrificed himself to save Angel, Cordelia and a whole clan of half-demons.

Before leaping to his death, Doyle kissed Cordelia and thereby passed on his connection to The Powers That Be. As Cordelia began to adapt to her new role as the Seer, an old ally from Sunnydale named Wesley showed up on their doorstep.

Wesley was Faith's ex-Watcher and had since become a rogue demon-hunter in search of a team. With his extensive knowledge of demon lore and a bold ambition for battle, Wesley became a key addition to Angel Investigations.

As Angel entered his fourth century, Angel Investigations had developed into a well-oiled demon-slaying machine. To further broaden their scope, they found a new accomplice when Angel saved the sister of a young independent demon-hunter named Charles Gunn.

Although his methods were unorthodox, Gunn was a battle-hardened veteran and became an essential ally to Angel Investigations. It turned out Angel would need all the help he could get when Wolfram & Hart summoned a demon named Vocah, who stole the Scroll of Aberjian and performed a ritual that resurrected Darla.

Angel's sire and first true love was returned as a mortal rather than a vampire, and with her return dormant feelings within Angel were awakened. Rather than attempting to kill Darla once again, Angel tried to return her to good and help her find salvation for her deviant past.

He turned out to be unsuccessful, and she was re-sired by Drusilla when Wolfram & Hart reunited the two ex-cronies. But as these dark forces were stacking up against Angel, he found yet another ally in the form of a flashy karaoke bar owner. Lorne is the anagogic green-skinned demon who runs Caritas, which is a safe haven for demons. His ability to tell the future has helped Angel out of more than a few jams, and he soon became an integral part of the crew.

Cordelia's visions and Lorne's karaoke-inspired messages had the Angel Investigations crew raking in business. However, with Darla and Dru back in the picture, Angel's workaholism kicked in. He spent every second turning himself into a 21st-century Rambo type. Angel had a meltdown and dismantled Angel Investigations so he could go at it alone.

Despair and a lack of hope at ever putting an end to his guilt and suffering gnawed at Angel's remaining grip on reality until, in a moment of weakness, he fell into the arms of Darla. A night of passion (and unprotected sex) ensued. Consequently, the couple's centuries-old co-dependency kicked in big time.

To deal, Angel wound up at the karaoke bar again. This ultimately led him to a big-bang moment of clarity, and Angel reunited with his crew. Finally back together, the gang had to go on a mission to save Cordelia in Pylea, Lorne's home-world in another dimension.

Perhaps their most harrowing adventure to date, they not only rescued Cordelia and saved a kingdom, but also located a student physicist named Winifred who had been trapped there for five years.

Angel and "Fred" connected instantly and she returned to Los Angeles with him to try to rebuild her life. All hell broke loose when Angel and friends caught wind of the imminent arrival of a being rumored to have a profound impact on the world.

To make matters worse, Darla turned up at the hotel pregnant, and Angel was now faced with the biggest job he'd dealt with in the hundreds of years he'd been roaming the planet: fatherhood.

Of course, this put a major crimp in his style as well as his relationship with Cordelia, but in essence, this was the purpose Angel has been lacking for all those years. Angel set out to do everything in his power to protect his unborn child from those nasty guys at Wolfram & Hart as well as blast-from-the-past-vamp-hunter-extraordinaire Holtz.

Angel's "day job" got more and more complicated after Angel's son Connor was born. Business simultaneously took off, causing the crew to split up and take jobs on their own. In a moment of what-the-heck impulsiveness, Cordelia and Angel found themselves consumed with passion, which was just fine until Cordelia's ex Groo turned up.

Meanwhile, Angel was not acting at all sensibly, and Wesley took it upon himself to kidnap Connor to keep him safe. Of course, Angel went totally mental and took massive risks in order to get his son back. Unfortunately neither Angel nor Wesley could protect Connor when Holtz swooped in and nabbed the child.

Wesley was gripped with guilt and Angel was made to pay for all the dark magic he'd used to try to bring his son back. Things went from desperate to horrific when Angel's son returned as a feral teenage warrior bent on killing his father.

Connor's terrible teen moments took their toll until father and son found themselves fighting side by side. Determined to set things right, Angel did everything he could to bond with Connor. Not that it matters. Their love-hate relationship is clearly not temporary, a fact Angel must now admit.

This was made clear when, in a fit of revenge, Connor captured Angel and, with the help of Holtz's former sidekick, Justine, locked him in a box and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean. Although Angel has suffered unspeakably in his past and lost lovers that most would never find in a lifetime, he can look to the future with optimism. The vampire with a soul must now grapple with the demands of fatherhood.

Still, he has friends who have become family, and he has learned that The Powers That Be have prophesized his full return to mortality once he has saved enough innocent life. The Gates of Hell are in constant danger of being opened, but humanity at least has a fighting chance with Angel as its guardian.

(adapted from the Warner Brothers site)