Origins Issue #4

[galathea]

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 although 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, again, as John’s hunt for 'Doc Benton' - under the supervision of his still unnamed mentor - is placed in 1982, which is obviously before Mary even died. The story could hardly take place in 1983 either, since the hunt for the Doc takes place in November, which is the very month that Mary died. So, it's unclear when exactly the events of the current issue are supposed to take place. Also, we have yet another 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 fear when he confronted the skinwalker in the last comic, he now suddenly turned 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 the characterisation. Even if we take into account that John was 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 that Mary is at peace and her 'Goodbye, John' definitely appears to be a final farewell. Canon, however, tells us that in 2006 Mary's spirit is still bound to the Winchesters' old house in Lawrence, so it's impossible that Mary finds peace here. Furthermore, Jim’s words about Mary being on a 'spirit plane' directly contradicts the fact that Mary's spirit is bound to her former home. After all, the reaper in In My Time of Dying explains that spirits, who are not able to move on, are trapped at the very place they haunt. So unless the writers want to suggest that Mary 'jumps' between the spirit plane and her haunting ground in Lawrence, that whole plot point makes no sense whatsoever.

The other problem is that according to the YED's words to Sam in All Hell Breaks Loose I, Mary’s death was an unfortunate accident. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it is of course possible that the YED lied, his claim is supported by the fact that overall only four of the 'special kids' had a nursery fire. The comic, however, still suggests that Mary’s death wasn’t a coincidence and that her time of death is of significance. And talking of time: The clock in Sam’s nursery in the Pilot clearly shows that it is 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 supposedly died, at least according to the comic? That’s nearly three hours between the first demonic signs and Mary's death. That’s a hell of a lot of time just to drip some blood into an infant's mouth.

Also, in Salvation John mentions that in the 22 years that passed since Mary's death, he never got a lead on the demon that killed her. He assumes that it went into hibernation or hiding for two decades. Canon suggests that the YED makes his first reappearance right around the time John vanishes - three weeks before the Pilot takes place - so it still doesn't make any sense to me that John would be able to follow leads on the demon right after Mary's death. The whole story would only add up, if it would be revealed in the end that John's chase here is about something else entirely, about something that's not connected to Mary's death at all! In any case, it seems that after all the discussions between fandom and the comic writers, there are still a lot of inconsistencies between the comic and the show, and I am very disappointed about that.

On a side note: In Salvation John also mentions that when he got a first lead on the YED, he followed a trail of burned down houses and unusual weather signs throughout the country. I think that's odd. After all, we know that in Sam’s generation only four nursery fires happened, and that makes sense, given that the YED told Sam that the fire was an accident. So, how is it possible that in the later generations of psychic kids, there were so many nursery fires that John was able to read a consistent pattern from the incidents? Inconsistency, bad luck or did the demon lie after all?

Anyway, there were some good things: I did especially enjoy the opening scene, where John chases Mary through the woods. It's reminiscent of the opening scene in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, where Gordon chases a vampire and decapitates her. Obviously the scene with John and Mary has a more romantic spin though. *g* Nice! :)