Tweet
After all the back and forth with Peter Johnson after the last issue of ?Origins' I was kind of curious about the next one, curious if they learned from their mistakes and though I enjoyed the 4th issue a bit more than the rest of it, I am still far from being happy.
First off we have a very annoying timeline error, as John's hunt after ?Doc Benton', under the supervision of his still unnamed mentor, is dated in 1982, which obviously is before Mary died.
Also, again we have a change in John's characterisation. It's not clear how much time passed between the last issue and this one, but while he was paralysed by the skinwalker in the last comic, he now turns into a chainsaw massacre kind of guy! While I appreciate the nod to pop culture it still feels shaky at best when it comes to characterisation. Even fuelled by his need to see Mary, the whole scene was far too over the top for me.
Then we have the whole Mary situation:
In John's meeting with spirit!Mary, procured by Pastor Jim, her ?angelic' appearance suggests her to be at peace and her ?Goodbye, John' a definite farewell, which seems odd, given that her spirit is still bound to the house in Lawrence. Also, Jim's words about Mary being on a ?spirit plane' directly contradicts ?Home'. The reaper in ?In My Time of Dying' explains that spirits, that are not able to move on, are trapped at the place they haunt, so it's not as if Mary would be able to jump in between planes.
The other issue is still that if we believe the YED's words to Sam in AHBL Pt1, Mary's death was an unfortunate accident (which is kind of supported by the fact that only 4 kids had a nursery fire), her simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time and there were definitely no hellhounds around. The comic still follows the suggestion that Mary's death wasn't a coincidence and that her time of death is of significance.
Talking of time: The clock in Sam's nursery shows it to be 8:10 pm when the time stops and the lights begin to flicker, so what the heck happened between 8:10 pm and 11:27 pm, when Mary is supposed to have been died according to the comic? That's nearly 3 hours between the signs of the demon showing up and Mary being at the ceiling! That's a hell of a lot of time just to drip some drops of blood into the infants mouth.
Also, in ?Salvation' John mentions that in 22 years he never got any lead on the demon that killed Mary, that it went into hibernation or hiding, not re-appearing up and until the time John vanishes, 3 weeks before the Pilot takes place, so the whole story about following leads on the thing that killed Mary right after her death still doesn't make any sense at all and would only add up if it turns out to be something different entirely, not connected to Mary's death! So after all the discussions with the writers there's still lots of inconsistencies with the show and I am very disappointed in that.
On a sidenote: In ?Salvation' John also mentions that he followed a trail of burned down houses throughout the country, as he picked up on the demon, thus being able to track down the weather signs just before the demon strikes again. In Sam's generation only 4 nursery fires happened and with the demon stating it only to be accidents it does make sense, so how comes that in the generation after Sam there were so many more nursery fires, that John was able to track down a pattern from it? Inconsistency, bad luck or did the demon lie after all?
But there were some good things: I did enjoy the opening scene, with John chasing Mary through the woods. Kind of reminiscent of the opening scene of CSPWDT, but then turning into a romantic scenery. Very neat, I loved that! I also liked the background story on Pastor Jim. His character is vague enough on the show to provide him with a rich background in the comics and I am curious where they take him in the comics.
First off we have a very annoying timeline error, as John's hunt after ?Doc Benton', under the supervision of his still unnamed mentor, is dated in 1982, which obviously is before Mary died.
Also, again we have a change in John's characterisation. It's not clear how much time passed between the last issue and this one, but while he was paralysed by the skinwalker in the last comic, he now turns into a chainsaw massacre kind of guy! While I appreciate the nod to pop culture it still feels shaky at best when it comes to characterisation. Even fuelled by his need to see Mary, the whole scene was far too over the top for me. Then we have the whole Mary situation:
In John's meeting with spirit!Mary, procured by Pastor Jim, her ?angelic' appearance suggests her to be at peace and her ?Goodbye, John' a definite farewell, which seems odd, given that her spirit is still bound to the house in Lawrence. Also, Jim's words about Mary being on a ?spirit plane' directly contradicts ?Home'. The reaper in ?In My Time of Dying' explains that spirits, that are not able to move on, are trapped at the place they haunt, so it's not as if Mary would be able to jump in between planes.
The other issue is still that if we believe the YED's words to Sam in AHBL Pt1, Mary's death was an unfortunate accident (which is kind of supported by the fact that only 4 kids had a nursery fire), her simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time and there were definitely no hellhounds around. The comic still follows the suggestion that Mary's death wasn't a coincidence and that her time of death is of significance.
Talking of time: The clock in Sam's nursery shows it to be 8:10 pm when the time stops and the lights begin to flicker, so what the heck happened between 8:10 pm and 11:27 pm, when Mary is supposed to have been died according to the comic? That's nearly 3 hours between the signs of the demon showing up and Mary being at the ceiling! That's a hell of a lot of time just to drip some drops of blood into the infants mouth.
Also, in ?Salvation' John mentions that in 22 years he never got any lead on the demon that killed Mary, that it went into hibernation or hiding, not re-appearing up and until the time John vanishes, 3 weeks before the Pilot takes place, so the whole story about following leads on the thing that killed Mary right after her death still doesn't make any sense at all and would only add up if it turns out to be something different entirely, not connected to Mary's death! So after all the discussions with the writers there's still lots of inconsistencies with the show and I am very disappointed in that.
On a sidenote: In ?Salvation' John also mentions that he followed a trail of burned down houses throughout the country, as he picked up on the demon, thus being able to track down the weather signs just before the demon strikes again. In Sam's generation only 4 nursery fires happened and with the demon stating it only to be accidents it does make sense, so how comes that in the generation after Sam there were so many more nursery fires, that John was able to track down a pattern from it? Inconsistency, bad luck or did the demon lie after all?
But there were some good things: I did enjoy the opening scene, with John chasing Mary through the woods. Kind of reminiscent of the opening scene of CSPWDT, but then turning into a romantic scenery. Very neat, I loved that! I also liked the background story on Pastor Jim. His character is vague enough on the show to provide him with a rich background in the comics and I am curious where they take him in the comics.
It really is a disappointment that there is so little canon consistency in them. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to keep the details accurate? Even bearing in mind the desire to tell appealing stories. I mean, if fans can keep track of important - and not so important - details, then professionals who are paid to do a job like this should also be able to, surely! 
Comment