It’s a shame Dark Horse never used them in future stories, but I guess that was out of respect for IDW, where the characters originated. Beck, Betta George, and Jeremy were fantastic characters, and I’m so glad we got this final story with them. I still get choked up reading the final scene between Spike and his friends. When it’s good, it’s great, but a lot of the time it’s just okay. It could have been fantastic if given the number of issues it needed to breathe and had a consistent artist (ideally Urru) - but whatever. It’s far from the worst thing established in Buffyverse canon, but it’s also not up to par with Lynch’s other Spike titles. That all said, this Spike title really is worth reading. Mooney’s art is decent at times, but feels rushed the third artist I really just didn’t like, and feels like they were only picked because they were the only one available at the time and there was no time to waste. Urru coincidentally worked on the best issues the rest of the art is. You can really feel that Lynch tried to cram all of his long term ideas into these eight issues, plus incorporate elements to lead into Buffy Season 8 (Willow guest starring and the bug ship plot). The first two issues and the final issue are pretty solid, but the middle five are pretty messy and hard to follow at times. It wasn’t anywhere near what it could have been, but it is what it is. Given these two huge obstacles, it’s a wonder Spike ended up being as good as it was.

Franco Urru was dealing with health problems, which limited his role in the artwork. The title went from ongoing to limited series because Dark Horse was taking over the Angel franchise from IDW and 2. not all that it could have been because of numerous circumstances. While still enjoyable, what this title ended up being was. I remember when this series was first announced I was SOOOO excited to get a Spike ongoing title written by Brian Lynch and drawn by Franco Urru.

Spike by Brian Lynch