Review: Spike Shadow Puppets

   Spike is one of my favorite Vampires. I loved him when he was bad on Buffy, then slightly sweet :) I liked his development as a ghost on the show Angel so when I saw this graphic Novel I was really excited to see his next adventure: As A puppet!One of the fan favorite episodes of angel involved his adventures with  a demonic show called Smile Time a puppet show that was stealing viewers souls and a mysterious weapon that turned Angel into a puppet. At the start of this book we see Spike at his best fighting beasties and being a "hero " in his own unique way. He is immediately on the run from so lower level demons out for revenge. He escapes and seeking the solace of his apartment he finds Loren at his apartment. An envelope has been given to Loren for Spike. In it is a VCR tape showing the Smile Time crew has moved to Japan and now a whole new country of souls is ripe for the picking. So the Spike and Loren show heads to Japan to fight the baddies and team up with some unexpected allies and Puppet Wars begin. Despite the extremely cute factor of seeing Spike and Loren as puppets, the rest of this story really lagged for me. Franco Urru's art is stunning. He really captures the look of spike and Loren and his puppets are very chilling. I even enjoyed the additional allies but midway the narrative lost focus for me. The final battle was interesting especial the Angelus puppet but it wasn't as thrilling as I hoped.