During this Brovember event, the Evil Geeks are examining bromances of all shapes and sizes. While the bromance between Angel and Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame, is certainly atypical in the fact that both dudes in question are undead, it proves that even with those strange circumstances in play, guys will be guys. Both of today’s bros are hundreds of years old, highly allergic to sunlight and wooden stakes, but they’re stronger, faster, and deadlier than most things on the planet. Even with all that to consider, these bros still fall out every now and then over the one thing that is kryptonite to many male friendships: a girl.

For years, Spike and Angellus (as Angel was known before he had a soul) , along with their respective ladies Darla and Drusilla, traveled the globe in a vampiric four-way of havoc, blood drinking, and general debauchery. Until that is Angel went ahead and killed a gypsy girl whose family then cursed Angel by restoring his soul with the caveat that he must constantly feel remorse for the carnage he’s created. If even for one second he isn’t constantly thinking about all that evil he’s done, he reverts back to his evil ways. Not a big deal you’d think, but since the ensouled Angel remembers all of the bad stuff he’s done, the last thing he wants is be evil again. While the foursome were united when they were all evil, with Angel being the leader of the group, the second Spike figured out what had happened to Angel, he didn’t waste one second before taking over and booting Angel from the group. Angel spends the next 80 or so years sulking in alleys and sewers, eating rats, all while Spike and Dru continue their reign of terror and Darla goes her own way.

Then…things got complicated. Angel eventually cleans himself up, heads to Sunnydale, and begins working with The Slayer – a girl named Buffy, chosen by fate to be humankind’s ultimate anti-vampire weapon. To make a long story short, Spike and Dru show up in Sunnydale one day to help bring about the end of the world, but they immediately clash with Buffy and Angel. The former bros are now mortal enemies, but not for long. In a moment of weakness, Angel and Buffy hook up (He’s like 250, she’s like 16. Not too creepy, right?), and after a moment of “perfect happiness” Angel reverts to his old evil self. What’s the first thing he does after reverting to the Darkside? He goes right back to his old pals Spike and Dru and immediately the old dynamic of Angel being the leader kicks in, leaving Spike (who’d recently been seriously wounded and incapacitated) on the outside as Dru grows closer to the newly restored Angellus. Needless to say, Spike is none too happy with this and yada, yada, yada Angel gets sucked into a hell dimension at the hands of Buffy, literally a second after he has his soul restored, while a newly restored Spike rides of into the moonrise with Dru in tow.

Eventually Angel would come to the realization that being around Buffy would be too much of a temptation and thus a liability, so he heads to LA to strike out on his own. A little while later, a now single Spike returns to Sunnydale and after spending some time hopelessly infatuated with Buffy, ends up hooking up with Angel’s ex. Spike is deeply in love with Buffy, but she’s pretty much just using him for some dirty side action, which leads him to decide that he needs to one up Angel in order to make Buffy fall for him. Spike runs off fights his way through some pretty nasty trials in order to have a demon restore his soul; VOLUNTARILY, unlike Angel who had a soul forced upon him. The plan never really pays off, but despite that, Spike still sacrifices himself in order to save Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies during the epic final battle in the last episode of Buffy.

A few months after Spike’s demise, Angel is in Los Angeles, running his evil, pan dimensional, law firm (I’ll have to hijack TV From the Crypts from Lilith one of these days and give you enough information for that sentence to actually make sense to you. Season 5 of Angel is pure badassery), when he receives a mysterious package containing an amulet. When he opens the package, Spike, who’d last been seen turning into a pile of ashes in the Hellmouth back in Sunnydale, rematerializes in a spectral form in the middle of the office. Ghost Spike is unable to leave the office for some reason and on top of that, he has no solid form, so Angel can’t hit him, so he decides to spend his days being as annoying as possible to Angel until he finds a way to restore Spike to a physical state. Eventually, Spike is made corporeal again, but instead of skipping town, he decides to stay and fight alongside his former friend, turned enemy. Still though, Spike manages to still be the Loki to Angel’s Thor, as the two even get into a battle over which one of them is the vampire with a soul, who is supposed to become human again according to an ancient prophecy. Through all the back and forth, through all the fighting and rivalry, even with all the times each of them have tried to kill each other, deep down inside they remained friends. In the final episode of Angel, again at the front line of an enormously epic battle, the two bros are side by side as the remaining survivors of Angel Investigations go down swinging. Bros…to the very end. That is why we salute you this Brovember!

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