Betta George

Betta George is a giant telepathic fish who appears solely in Angel comics. Created by Brian Lynch, he first appears in Spike: Asylum and later Spike: Shadow Puppets. Joss Whedon liked Betta George and decided that the character should appear in Angel: After the Fall, thus becoming part of the Angel canon.

Biography
George is seen reluctantly working for Kr'ph, the demon lord of Westwood in the hellbound Los Angeles. Kr'ph is killed by the vampire Charles Gunn, who then kidnaps Betta George. Gunn uses George's skills to allow himself to train against captive Slayers. When George, freed, is reunited with Spike and introduced to Angel, he is the one to inform the team of an enraged Illyria's motives and plan for destruction. Angel instructs George to fill Illyria's mind with Wesley and Spike's memories of Fred, and a stunned Illyria is defeated by the Senior Partners.

Behind the scenes
The canonicity of George's appearances in Asylum and Shadow Puppets are deliberately ambiguous; in After the Fall, he states, "I've hung out with vampires", which Brian Lynch claims can be interpreted as a vague reference to his previous encounters with Spike. Later issues see George contact the Mosaic Wellness Center, and other Asylum characters. Lynch says that he writes George as an audience surrogate, "He's supposed to be the most normal character. Because I know that if you have a talking fish hanging out with everyone's favourite characters, people are going to not like him immediately. Because he could be Jar Jar very easily. So I try to make him the nicest, most normal character, and the one who would react like the audience would react." He also denies that Betta George speaks in any particular accent, but advises readers to hear him in their own accent, to help them identify with him.

Appearances

 * Spike: Asylum
 * Spike: Shadow Puppets
 * Angel: After the Fall