Post by Esmeralda on Aug 25, 2010 12:32:48 GMT -5
Here's my reviews of the two issues that are out. Charmed #2 is supposed to come out today, but I haven't heard from my local comic shop that they have it yet. I'm doing this as a separate thread so that people who haven't gotten the comics yet and don't want to be spoiled can ignore this until they're caught up. I hope others are just as considerate.
First, here's what I was hoping to see before the comics came out:
That's what I was hoping for going into the series. Here's my reaction towards Charmed #0, what could be called "The Book of Shadows" and what I call "Something Wicca This Way Came":
I did get Issue #1 and here's my review for that:
If I get to get #2 tonight, I'll read and review it tonight.
First, here's what I was hoping to see before the comics came out:
-I would like to see Piper stop whining and become more motherly, but still tough when she needs to be. Letting her get MAD when something goes wrong and DOING something about it rather than just feeling sorry for herself.
-Phoebe either growing up or going back to being my Phoebs.
-Paige stop trying to be a whitelighter when she's still alive and going back to being a social worker instead.
-The return of warlocks and non-magical enemies instead of just calling everything a demon. Hopefully they use the power of comic books properly and give us situations and villains that would be impossible to do on television while still staying faithful to the show. Particularly where all of the demons are supposed to have a truce for 20 years, it makes sense that any other badass they go after is NOT a demon.
-A Big Bad who is a badass and not simply annoying, and has an evil plot other than just killing The Charmed Ones or stealing Wyatt's powers.
-Piper convincing the Elders to give Leo back his wings so he stops being her useless errand boy and can teach at Magic School without the kids using their magic on him.
-Magic School changing. Either get rid of it or make it more of a regular school just for witches, that teaches normal subjects like Math, Soc. Studies, Science etc....
-No more corny creatures like Pirates, Fairies, Orges and the like. I don't mind if they make brief cameos.
-I've read that there will be more kids. Hopefully Piper only has her two boys since she never found her daughter important enough to mention in her Book of Shadows entry, but if she does have her that she named her what she was going to name Wyatt if he was a girl - Prudence Melinda Halliwell. I won't mind her being called Melinda if there are no other Prue's - Prue should definitely be Piper's, since she was closest to Piper.
-If there *are* kids, they don't have a lot of powers and aren't heavily featured - that the comic books star THE CHARMED ONES, not their men, not their kids, not just ONE Charmed One, but THE CHARMED ONES! Hopefully it's a huge success and they do a spin-off, CHARMED - THE NEXT GENERATION, later on, but for now, I hope the kids stay WAY on the back burner!
-We find out that there's a schism between The Charmed Ones and Billie and she never makes an appearance.
-Most important of all, use their first "season" to show that the TRUE Big Badasses are the sisters themselves and have something, ANYTHING, happen to put them back on the proper track of being The Charmed Ones, protector of innocents, not just The Charmed Ones, vanquishers of evil beings and protectors of the Halliwells, especially the protector of The Twice Blessed Brat, which seemed to be their destiny in S5-8.
That's what I was hoping for going into the series. Here's my reaction towards Charmed #0, what could be called "The Book of Shadows" and what I call "Something Wicca This Way Came":
I'm *very* happy.
I just got my copy of Charmed #0 - the people from The Source never called me or emailed me as they promised, but I went over and they had it. Unfortunately, they only featured one cover, the green one with full bodies and I prefer the other one. Typical.
Although some of it made me roll my eyes, all-and-all I'm happy with it and am planning on getting Charmed #1 when it comes out.
The main thing that irritated me is that it appears that Piper gets her whole family when Phoebe only gets her single daughter and Paige just her twins. Since Piper never even mentioned her daughter in her entry during "Forever Charmed", and Paige specifically mentioned a son she doesn't get to have, I don't feel like Prudence Melinda should exist in the comic book world. It just makes me feel like the comic book is going to be the continuation of "The Perils of Poor, Poor, Pitiful Piper" and if that's the case, I won't keep buying them for long.
But I thoroughly enjoyed all of the summaries, both of the sisters and the seasons, and was very curious by the spells that were chosen, wondering how many of them will pop up in future issues.
In the same way, I found it very interesting to see which storylines the authors chose to illustrate for each season - the spirit board for Season One; Phoebe burning for Season Two, Piper and Leo marrying for Season Three, the rebirth of The Power of Three for Season Four, Phoebe the mermaid for Season Five, Piper and Excalibur for Season Six, 40's Paige for Season Seven and The Ultimate Battle for Season Eight.
My other problem is that the writing doesn't sound like any of the sisters, not even their own pages, and why draw pictures of themselves? If they're going to include photos of Prue, Cole, Grams, Patty, Wyatt, Chris and Billie, I feel like they should've included photos of Piper, Leo, Phoebe, Coop, Paige and Henry. Actually I would've preferred photos of the latter and drawings of the ones who are gone, but I suppose that would've led to speculation as to whether those characters would return. If the ones in the pictures never return to the comics, I won't complain, as much as I love Prue, Grams and Patty.
It also irritated me that the season recaps are supposed to be written by one of the Charmed Ones, but each sister is always referred to by her name, not but "I", as Phoebe is in the writeup of Cole (and that's the one that sounded the least like the person writing it).
Especially where they use different fonts for each sister's page and continue to do this for the "Forever Charmed" page, I feel like each sister should've written a quick summary of what had happened to them, perhaps set up to sound like it had just been written at the end of that season with no idea of what was to come, so that even Prue could've written about Seasons 1 & 2.
But those are just irritations, not true complaints. All and all, I'm pleased and plan on getting Issue #1.
I did get Issue #1 and here's my review for that:
First off, I'm very happy with the way the sisters (and Leo and Coop - no signs of Henry yet - not thrilled with the drawings of the kids, especially Phoebe's baby Prue - she looks like she is being played by the same fugly set of twins who played Baby Chris) were drawn. The sisters don't look *that* much like the actressses, but I'm glad - the ones on the cover *do* look like the actresses and I don't think they're pretty at all, while the ones in the comics are all very pretty, especially Paige as a redhead. The characters are all in line and so far they're the Paige, Phoebe and Piper (since that's the order they're introduced) who I love, not the Miss Whinealot, PhoeME and Ditzy who starred in the last three seasons of the show.
It's supposed to be 18 months since the Big Battle, but I still insist that no way Wyatt (who is not a blond, but whose hair is styled differently than Chris') is 3 1/2 and no way Chris is 2! At the very youngest, Wyatt is 5 and Chris is 4, making this closer to 3 years in the future, which works, coz that would make it 2010. So as far as I'm concerned...
I'm also not happy that although Piper's daughter is older, she's named Mel (which I assume is short for Melinda) while Phoebe's is named Prue. No way I can't see Piper naming *her* daughter Prue and no way I can see Phoebe naming "Ladybug" that - she just never seemed that close to Prue, not the way Piper was. Actually I'd be happier if Phoebe's daughter had been named something else, because then I could pretend that Piper's daughter is Prudence Melinda - the name they were going to give Wyatt if he was a girl - but are calling her Melinda, while Phoebe's was Patricia WHATEVER, but they're calling her WHATEVER. So I'm more than just a bit irritated about that, but can accept it because up to this point, it's the only thing about the series irritating me.
I'm not thrilled with the powers that were given the two kids (HATE it when kids are more powerful than their mothers who are supposed to be Charmed), but up to this point, the powers (and the way the powers are shown) are fun. Hopefully those powers don't take over the series...
I liked the two demons and their powers, especially Neena, and I've got a funny hunch that the BIG BAD is going to be Zankou, which would be absolutely fantastic, since then I can pretend that except for Paige meeting Henry and Phoebe meeting Coop - which I can pretend happened during S7 rather than Leslie and Brody and *oh, well* Drake - S8 never happened, because I definitely prefer this plot to the ones during that season.
I read somewhere that the first five issues make the first "episode" and that if it's successful, there will be a paperback with that entire episode put out in December. If that's the case, this would be the Teaser and it works fantastically as that. Kudos to Paul Ruditis, Raven Gregory, Dave Hoover, Millen Parvanov, Jim Campbell and Ralph Tedesco.
What truly irritated me is that of 34 pages, only 24 of them are truly Charmed #1. The other 10 pages are Zenoscope previews, none of which I was particularly interested in, especially at $3.50. I would've preferred paying the $1.99 I paid for Charmed #0 and only have the 24 pages or paying $3.50 for Charmed #0, get the previews and then for the same price, get more Charmed, including getting to see Henry, and his and Paige's twins.
But for now, I'm happy and looking forward to Issue #2.
If I get to get #2 tonight, I'll read and review it tonight.