Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Angel
Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel character
David Boreanaz as Angel in 1999.
First appearance	"Welcome to the Hellmouth" (1997)
Last appearance	"The Reckoning, Part IV: Finale" (2018)
Created by	Joss Whedon
Portrayed by	David Boreanaz
In-universe information
Affiliation	Scooby Gang Angel Investigations The Powers That Be Wolfram & Hart The Whirlwind
Nationality	Irish
Classification	Vampire
Notable powers	Supernatural strength, speed, stamina, agility, and reflexes Acute sensory perception, rapid healing, and immortality

Angel is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for the American television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel. The character is portrayed by actor David Boreanaz. As introduced in Buffy in 1997, Angel is a love interest for heroine Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a young woman whose destiny as "the Slayer" is to fight the forces of evil, such as vampires and demons. However, their relationship is complicated by the fact that Angel is himself a vampire cursed with remorse and a human soul, which motivates him to assist Buffy in her duties as Slayer. The character's popularity led to the production of the spin-off Angel, which follows the character's struggle towards redemption after moving to Los Angeles. In addition to the two television series, the character appears in the comic book continuations of both series, as well as much other expanded universe literature.

In the character's backstory, he was born Liam in 18th-century Ireland and, after being sired, assumed the name Angelus, achieving infamy as the most sadistic vampire in European history. After angering a Romani clan, he was cursed with his human soul, leading to great personal torment and the decision to resist the evil impulses that come with being a vampire. He later assumes the shortened name Angel, and over the course of Buffy and Angel, he matures into an altruistic champion of mankind, and learns he is a central figure of several prophecies concerning an approaching apocalypse. In later editions of the comic series, Angel adopted the identity of the masked Twilight and gathered a cabal of humans and demons who had become wary of the rise of multiple Slayers.

Angel ended its five-year run in 2004. However, the canonical comic books Angel: After the Fall (2007–2009), Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (2007–2011) and Angel & Faith (2011–2013) depict the character's continued story, in which he is caught up in events of cosmic proportion and must deal with the fallout from enormous mistakes he has made.

Season two of Buffy and season four of Angel feature storylines in which, deprived of his soul, he resumes his Angelus persona and torments and kills some of his allies. He has attracted significant interest due to his dichotomous personality in the presence or absence of his soul, and the ways in which his relationship with Buffy conforms to and subverts the tropes of romantic drama and horror fiction.