prowess. Otherwise he's a prosperous, sweet young man, due to his fake memories of a happy childhood. Jeffrey Bell wanted to highlight Connor's "well-adjusted" mentality for this season. Vincent calls him a "happy" person and liked playing this version more because he has been playing the "brooding" version for a year and a half year. The comic book Connor develops in the same direction as he starts emerging a hero still keeping his pleasant personality. Joss Whedon characterizes the comic book Connor as "the closest thing to a superhero hell has' because he has powers without any of the weaknesses of the vampire, and is well adjusted. Brain considers him "one of the coolest characters in any series or comics". Story progression As is characteristic for Joss Whedon's characters, Connor goes through drastic changes with the series progression. Introduced as an 'impossible birth' at the start of season three, as an infant the character still had little chance of his own development. So he became an agent for evolution of others; Darla through him, redeems herself of her villainous acts spanning two television series, and Wesley transform from a goofy sidekick to a brooding anti-hero. Once these developments came to fruition, the creators chose to upgrade Connor to a teen. Taking advantage of the fantasy genre, they were able to accelerate his growth within a few weeks of the show's normal timeline, thus not affecting the ages of the rest of the characters and setting up stage for the next act. The middle of season three sees the infant kidnapped by Angel's long-term adversary Holtz, who takes Connor to a hell dimension where "time moves differently," explains David Greenwalt. "We didn't want to raise a baby for 18 years." Connor returns near the end of the season as a feral teenage warrior who is vindictive towards Angel. Connor's age at his return is disputed: both the creators and episodes vary between putting him at 16 and 18. Regarding Connor's upbringing, Mere Smith elaborates that "Holtz has brought up Connor to hate his father, his father is the devil as far as Holtz is concerned and he tells Connor that" This development allowed the writers to explore a unique 'foil' to protagonists because Connor was established to be "deep down" much like Angel himself. Minear goes on to explain with Smith that immediately following Connor's return from hell, Angel had started