In November, 2000, Angel won Darla a second chance at life, one that would potentially carnate into a bizzare demon pregnancy, protected by the magic of an unknown Power. One year later, on a stormy November night, “Connor Angel” was born in Los Angeles, California, 2001; his mother died to bring him to term. The miracle child of two vampires, Connor was prophesied to defeat Sahjahn, a dimension-hopping demon. When Sahjahn got wind of this phrophesy centuries ago, he recruited a vampire hunter, Daniel Holtz, who had taken up a campaigne of vengence against Darla and Angelus when they murdered his wife and children. His fate and their fate were entwined. But when Angel and Connor survived Darla, and Holtz became privvey to Angel’s tortured soul, his plans of retribution changed.

Rather than kill Angel and his child, as Sahjahn wished, Holtz stole Connor away to make Angel share in his own painful loss. Naturally, that didn’t sit too well with Sahjahn, who puched through the fabric of reality to the hell dimension Quortoth and threatened let it swallow the world if Connor wasn’t killed. Holtz changed his plan and leapt blindly with the infant Connor into the dimensional rip.

Unbeknownst to the Angel Investigations staff, the subjective month they spent without Connor saw him through over sixteen years in Quortoth, the “darkest of the dark worlds,” a place where demons rule and humans are little more than appetizers. Holtz was like a father to Connor, and taught him things that only a father can: hunting, killing, and hatred (I ain’t bein’ sarcastic). It was hatred that kept them alive and carved Connor into Steven Franklin Thomas, a hardened warrior, known to the indigionous demons of Quortoth as “The Destroyer.” The bringer of torment. Agony. Death. In our world, Angel had tried and failed in the use of dark magics to bring Connor back, creating dimensional cracks to Quortoth. Eventually, Steven found those cracks by terrorizing the sluk demons into the next world. Holtz “prepared” him for Angel by telling him stories about Angelus and Darla, and what they did to people like Holtz, giving Steven the gift of rightful prejudice against his father. But those stories also gave Steven a deep self-loathing — a feeling that he could never be loved completely by his surrogate father, being, as Holtz must’ve often reminded him, the “bastard son” of the two demons that murdered the Holtz family.

Cordelia used her demon powers to purge Quortoth’s toxins from Steven’s system, leaving him sans his sense of home and belonging. And to fill that viod, there would always be a torturous hysteria of pain in Steven that he was ignorant to the nature of, and therefore helpless to quell. Like a frantic drowning victim, thrashing in vain, this pain filled Steven with a violent need to end his torment, violence that Holtz had directed towards killing Angel, and that violence escalated when Holtz had his minion Justine kill Holtz and frame Angel for the murder, which was easy to do when Steven found out Angel had gone behind his back to deal with Holtz.

Finally embracing his own self-hatred, Steven resumed the identity of Connor, son of Angelus, and acted out Holtz’s revenge senario to punish Angel with eternal suffering, rather than death. He sunk Angel to the bottom of the ocean and did what he could to follow it up and see that Angel stayed that way, joining the consortium of creatures that felt Angel deserved to suffer for his crimes. It didn’t last longer than summer vacation, though, and soon Angel had forgotten his words to Connor about not “hating himself.” He decided Connor should hit the bricks and feel sorry for the wrong he’d done, a punishment that, ironically, didn’t work for Angel, or for any of the people Angel suggested should do the same. In Angel’s case, it was the demon Whistler telling him to get off the pot and stop feeling sorry for himself that helped Angel do good, and it was Cordelia’s insistance that Angel be tied to the world by loved ones that often pulled him back from his loner bullcrap escapades. People cared about what happened to Angel, and he was given an anchor — whenever he started to question the fight and the calling, he always had a home to live for and protect. Connor, on the other hand, had no such riches. He was allowed to sink too far into his psycosis to come back, to sink alone, seeing as how his temp-roommate, Cordelia con Hypomnesia, (a.k.a. Amnesiac Cordy) was left to his care when, sometime after regaining her memory, the two ex-roomies decided to get down one apocalyptic night.

And so it came to pass that Cordy went evil and started figuratively sucking Connor’s brain out through his lips, promising love, happiness, and family. Promising him a home, and it’s no surprise Connor bought into her lies. As if his life couldn’t get anymore soap opera-y, Evil Cordy’s control on him tightened when she revealed she was pregnant with his child. At the same time. Cordelia’s minion, The Beast, had everyone suspecting Connor was a part of the Tro-clan, the confluence of events that brings about the purification of mankind, as prophesied by the Nyazian Scrolls. And he pretty much is part of it, being father to a reincarnated Power That Was, one that was given the name Jasmine.

Jasmine set about ridding the world of misery in a horrid “be careful what you wish for” example to Angel of why the Powers should act through champions rather than fight evil on their own. The only way humans could have widespread paradise was to cast some sort of “lie of happiness” spell on them and take away their free-will to hurt each other, which apparently required Jasmine to wolf-down a roomful of people every so often. Angel and his friends ended up breaking her spell over themselves, but desperate to hold onto his chance for belonging, Connor — who was never under Jasmine’s spell, being her blood relative — sold out the A.I. gang and sided with his daughter. But it was getting to Connor, being surrounded by a widespread happy vibe he couldn’t be a part of, and he eventually distroyed Jasmine and went completely nihilistic, terrorizing the faux-happy, faux-loving people at the mall. (P.S. If you want to find people that are truly happy and loving, don’t go to a mall in Los Angeles.)

So it seemed Connor lost his last hope for the universe and was gonna dynomite himself and everybody in sporting goods. That’s when Angel decided that selling-out your friends and siding with a great evil for a “lie of happiness” spell was suddenly A.O.K. He traded his entire cirlce of friends to the enemey, in exchange for getting a warlock named Cyvus Vail to fabricate Angel’s false dream of a happy son and mercifully wipe all traces of the real Connor off the face of the earth. All that remained of Angel’s child was the contented stranger who wore his face, and the bloody memory of a boy slayer that few possessed.

“Connor” had been living happily ever after with the unsuspecting Reilly family until Vail needed him to finally accept his destiny and defeat the apparently undefeated Sahjahn. Vail threatened Angel with taking Connor’s memories away if he didn’t make the confrontation happen. But, Wesley and Illyria got involved, and mish-smash-smoosh, Connor got his memory back anyway and so defeated Sahjahn. Connor now knew who he really was now, but with the foundation of his false memories, he had an inner-strength that just eluded him before. He appreciated what Angel tried to do for him, but that was the extent of his fuzzy feelings for Daddy. Being much the bigger person about it, Connor kindly and peacefully chose to stay with his happy-lie family instead. Later, as the potential apocalypse and series finale neared, Angel made the mistake of wanting to “just hang-out” with Connor, tipping our boy off to the end of the world. He fought with his father in battle one last time before the series ended, giving us all our last Connor-fix. Wonder how far that hit’s gonna take us before we start jonsin’ again….