Angelus (comics)

The Angelus is an American comic book character published by Top Cow Productions which first appeared in The Darkness comic in 1997. The Angelus has been featured in comics with her enemies the Darkness and the Witchblade.^[1][2]

Publication history

The Angelus played a prominent role in the First Born limited series and had a one-shot by Ian Edginton released in December 2007 as part of the Top Cow Pilot Season event.^[3]

Fictional character biography

The Angelus is an ageless power dating back beyond human history that represents the light of creation and is the divine embodiment of law and order. She is immortal and has been worshiped as a sun goddess by the Inca Empire and the Shinto.^[4] The Angelus replaces the soul of its host (which is a female) in order to carry out her life's mission on Earth. The Angelus has been in a war with her male counterpart, the Darkness, since the dawn of time. However, the Angelus and the Darkness created a sexual truce in order to avert mutual destruction and conceived a child, the Witchblade. The Angelus is known to have destroyed the Tower of Babel,^[5] torn down the Walls of Jerusalem,^[6] and ripped apart Krakatoa.^[7] She claims that both God and Jesus Christ are redundant in her presence.^[8]

Her main goal is to rid the world of the Darkness. This has put her at odds with the current Darkness host, Jackie Estacado. Eventually the Angelus was defeated by Jackie, and was hostless for some time until Sonatine summoned her and tried to convince the entity to join with Appolonia Franchetti. Because Appolonia desired the entity too much, the Angelus chose her catatonic mother, Lauren Franchetti, instead. Soon after, the newly reborn Angelus was fooled into thinking she had finally killed the Darkness after Jackie made a copy of himself. She soon fled with Appolonia to an ancient temple in the Amazon rainforest, where Lauren gave herself completely to the Angelus entity. The Angelus came in contact with the Magdalena, Sister Mariella. The Magdalena was seeking to reforge the Spear of Destiny which had been shattered during her first encounter with the Darkness. The fight ended with no clear winner but the Angelus ordered Appolonia to leave because she was touched too deeply by the Darkness and that should they meet again, she would kill her.

The Angelus would once again attempt to kill the Darkness and would also come into conflict with the new Magdalena, Patience. During the fight, Appolonia ran the Angelus through with the Spear of Destiny. The Angelus temporarily takes possession of Patience, but the spirit is forced out of Patience's body by her strong will and benevolence.

During the time the Angelus was without a host, her followers sensed that the balance between the light and the dark has been tipped in favor of Jackie Estacado, and had begun preparing for war while the Angelus searched for a new host. She first takes possession of Velocity but is forced out by members of Cyberforce. She then takes possession of convicted murderer Celestine Wright. Shortly after the birth of Hope Pezzini (daughter to Sara Pezzini and Jackie), the Angelus claims her only to have a mystical explosion occur. After the event, only the Angelus and her foes remain. Celestine and the Angelus co-exist as separate entities, with Celestine able to become the Angelus as needed but retaining her own free will. Celestine, however, knew that the Angelus does have the ability to submerge her will at any point, but the Angelus chose not to after her encounter with Hope.

Celestine later returned to fight Jackie Estacado. While caught in the middle of a fight between the hosts of the Glacier Stone and Ember Stone, Celestine was decapitated with the Blood Sword wielded by Jackie Estacado.

The Angelus was once again without a host until she came across Finch, friend of Danielle Baptiste, and possesses her. During a fight with Sara Pezzini (hosting the Darkness portion of the Witchblade and corrupted by it), she attempts to kill the bearer of the Angelus portion of the Witchblade, Dani. After emerging victorious, Sara absorbed the remaining half of the Witchblade into herself while still being corrupted. Sara was on the brink of killing Dani when an Angelus-possessed Finch swoops in to save Dani from death, and the Angelus transfers hosts from Finch to Dani. However, Dani is able to resist the Angelus' possessive personality, and instead of killing Sara, she is able to use the powers of the Angelus to purify Sara of the corrupting forces of the Darkness. The fact that the Angelus allowed Dani to retain her free will caused some unrest among her followers, particularly her lieutenant Sabine, who desired for the Angelus to choose her as its host.

Sabine later attempted a coup to overthrow Dani and become the new Angelus host. Sabine then acquired the Wheel of Shadows, one of the other thirteen Artifacts, and battled Dani, but was defeated. Later, Dani united with several other Artifact bearers to combat the Survivor to prevent him from gathering the thirteen Artifacts and ending the universe. They failed, but Jackie Estacado gained the ability to restart the universe and took the opportunity to make a few changes.

Following the recreation of the universe, Dani never becomes the Angelus. Instead, the Angelus possesses the various Angelus Warriors, creating a hive mind in the process, but soon reassembles itself and chooses Finch as its newest host, restarting the war between it and the Darkness. Like Danielle, the Angelus allows Finch to retain her free will and control over it.

Powers and abilities

The Angelus is a force of nature with the power of the sun flowing through her.^[9] The Angelus has been described as beautiful as the Morningstar and as ferocious as Kali. She grants her hosts superhuman strength, speed, stamina, invulnerability to all Earthly weapons or harmful creatures, healing abilities, flight, the ability to create objects and sentient beings of pure light (including a cadre of soldiers known as the Angelus Warriors), and the memories of all previous Angelus hosts.^[10][11]

She can also breathe fire, melt magical armor with her touch,^[12] channel blasts of light from either her weapons or hands, teleport both herself and others, withstand the full heat of a dying sun for 13 years without harm or nourishment by sustaining herself on the "will of the Almighty" alone,^[13] and fly through outer space at a speed "besting the hands of time".^[13]

However, the Angelus' powers are limited since functioning in complete darkness quickly drains her of her powers which can also cause her host to age away and die within moments if she is of old age,^[12] and anything she creates turns to dust in the dark.

Video games

The Angelus is mentioned several times throughout The Darkness II video game and appears in the post-credits scene. After Jackie rescues Jenny from Hell, they have a moment of peace together and declare their love for each other once more. Jenny states that she will always love Jackie no matter what, and that she is sorry for whatever happens. She is then ripped away from Jackie as the Angelus takes over her. The Angelus states that Jenny is still within her and that the world has gone too long without her light. The Angelus then states that Jackie is too powerful and that he and the Darkness are now where they belong. She then ascends back to Earth, leaving Jackie and the Darkness in Hell, with Jackie screaming in anger.

References

External links