Angel Face, played by Jared Leto in the Fight Club film adaptation, makes a surprise return in Chuck Palahniuk’s comic book sequel to his original Fight Club novel – coming back with both revenge, and, oddly enough, love on his mind, following the vicious beating he received from the Narrator a decade earlier.
Fight Club 2 – by Chuck Palahniuk, Cameron Stewart, Dave Stewart, and Nate Piekos of Blambot – features the son of the Narrator and Marla Singer being kidnapped, with a returning Tyler Durden being the prime suspect, compelling the Narrator to reintegrate himself into Fight Club. In the closing pages of the series’ fourth issue, the permanently-scarred Angel Face reappears.
A Battered Angel Face Returns To Repay The Narrator
In a brutal display that directly mirrors the original, Angel Face administers a brutal beating to the Narrator. He ends up knocking the Narrator into unconsciousness, which triggers Tyler Durden to awaken in his place at the start of Issue #5. Angel Face knows what’s happened immediately, and subsequently is horrified as Tyler mercilessly returns the meeting. It is not until a few issues later, in Fight Club 2 #9, that it is revealed Tyler has been having an affair with Angel Face for quite some time. The Narrator discovers this only when he’s awake, rather than Tyler, at a moment Angel Face kisses him.
Fight Club Is A Love Story For Angel Face And Tyler Durden
As the Narrator’s therapist says, on the same page as the reveal, ““a sociopath will sleep with anyone to gain her allegiance … or his.” The re-emergence of Angel Face gives readers a glimpse of exactly how being a Fight Club member for so many years has worn on Angel Face’s body. Aside from the distorted face the Narrator gave him ten years prior, he is littered with scabs, scars, and bruises from decades of sparring. It’s clear that Angel Face has clung on completely to the ideas that Tyler put in his head years prior, whether it is because he’s a true devotee, or he has nothing else.
Angel Face is depicted as not only unflinchingly loyal to Tyler Durden’s ideals, but to the man himself. It remains ambiguous in the text whether Tyler returns Angel Face’s feelings, or the extent to which he can feel at all. Angel Face is in love with Tyler – for Tyler, a physical relationship may just be a way to retain Angel Face’s loyalty, to continue holding power over him. In this way, it is reminiscent of how the Narrator describes Tyler’s relationship with Marla in the opening pages of the original book. “This is about property as in ownership. Without Marla, Tyler would have nothing.”
Tyler’s connection to Angel Face may not run as deep as with Marla in Fight Club, but Angel Face is still a useful vessel for him, one that someone as possessive as Tyler isn’t willing to give up so easily. On the chance that Angel Face may have harbored these feelings in the original Fight Club, it also re-contextualizes their previous dynamic. It certainly offers a new explanation as to why Angel Face stays a follower of Project Mayhem/Fight Club for a decade after the Narrator beat him up. Most certainly, it further complicates Fight Club’s iconic twisted love triangle of Marla, Tyler, and the Narrator.