galathea | Rising Son Comic Series

Last year I regularly commented on the issues of the Supernatural comic Origins, mainly to express my disappointment with it. I didn’t pick up that habit with the new series Rising Son, because I didn’t really think it was worth the effort. Yesterday though I read the latest issue of the comic and I was so outraged, that I needed to comment on it. It’s not pretty, you’ve been warned!

I was really looking forward to the new comic series Rising Son, especially after I saw the first drafts. The drawings were so much more appealing than the clunky Origins art and the first panels looked awesome. I expected a glimpse into the first years of the Winchesters on the road, adapting to their new life, maybe facing a couple of urban legends, which the show didn’t deal with so far. I expected everything the first series failed to deliver, because it was buried under canon inconsistencies and a huge retcon at the end. I thought it couldn’t come worse, but they proved me wrong.

Even though the Rising Son series took a direction for their storyarc that directly contradicts the show’s mytharc itself - just like in the Origins series before - I actually thought the first two issues were decent. There were some details that didn't quite add up in terms of canon, but at least there were also some interesting insights into Sam and Dean’s childhood. Surely but slowly though, more severe canon problems started to creep in again and at some point I didn’t really get any enjoyment out of the comics anymore. It started with minor timeline problems: The comic takes place in 1990 and even if Sam didn’t grasp the whole scope of the events that centered around him, it seems very unlikely that one year later, in A Very Supernatural Christmas, he still believes John is a salesman. Also, Sam and Dean’s familiarity with Bobby in the show's flashbacks suggests that they knew him a lot longer than just a couple of months. While I can ignore these timeline question marks, it’s the characterisation that’s really problematic.

Just one example: In issue three John takes an eleven year old Dean on a deer hunt and teaches him how to handle a shotgun. Dean complains that the gun is too heavy and subsequently misses a stag that’s standing right in front of him. Huh? We know from Something Wicked that Dean at age 10/11 already knew how to handle a shotgun, and we also know from No Exit that he was an excellent shot, who bulls-eyed every target when he was only 6-7 years old and John took him for his first shooting. So that whole scene makes no real sense. And to top the ridiculousness of that scene off, seven year old Sam, whom John left alone at home, hikes a ride with a total stranger and follows Dean and John out into the woods and then single-handedly shoots the stag in question with Dean’s shotgun. Right!

I thought that was bad, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what came next. Issue 4 of the Rising Son series effectively killed the whole comic series for me. It eliminated every shred of sympathy for the comics I still hung onto, despite all canon inconsistencies, and officially sent it down the drain. It’s bad enough that the comics desperately try to tie in with the mytharc and by doing so violate canon every step of the way, but it’s inexcusable to basically turn the family Winchester into a group of cold-blooded mass murderers in the process. I don’t want to live with a series where Bela’s statement that the Winchesters are a stone-throw from being serial-killers holds any grain of truth.

Okay, so here's the thing: In the latest issue of the comic the writers try to insinuate that a seven year old Sam killed a psychic. Whether the hunter who supposedly witnessed the murder was lying or not isn’t the question, what bothers me is that John expresses doubts at Sam's innocence and Sam himself insists that John needs to kill him. Even if the next issues should reveal the circumstances behind the psychic’s death as unrelated to Sam, the damage is done. The comic panels even go as far as to show John actually almost carrying out the plan to kill Sam - by leading his son like a lamb to the slaughter - only to change his mind in the last minute. I may not be the biggest John fan ever, but even I find that notion ridiculous.

Furthermore, John brutally murders two hunters who might pose a threat to Sam in cold blood, and Dean, who is only eleven years old, kills a third hunter with a shot to the head. Just like that. And I ought to believe that the boy, who will grow into the man who beats himself up over killing a possessed girl, shrugs that kill off with the statement: 'It’s over now Dad!'? Yeah, that’s not going to happen any time soon! I won’t even go into all the problems with canon that are created by suggesting that John already knew about Sam and his destiny as the leader of a demonic army in 1990. Or that other hunters back then were already able to acquire that very intel as well and set out to hunt Sam down. Heck, after the events in this issue, I even doubt John would have left Sam and Dean alone ever again for days at a time, while he went out on a hunt.

Honestly, I am not sure what they want to tell us with this story or what the authors were thinking when cooking up this tale. I don’t think these writers care about the characters of the show at all. How can they depict an 11 year old child as cold-blooded enough to kill a man without remorse? It’s not even in self-defence! Also, how probable is it that adult Sam and Dean just happen to not remember the grave incidents depicted in this storyline? That Sam doesn’t remember he felt that something was wrong with him. Or that he told John that he needed to kill him. Or for Dean not to remember that someone accused Sam of being evil/not John’s son. Or that Sam was targetted/abducted several times within a short timespan. I find the whole storyline of this comic preposterous and disturbing and almost wish the date and timeline errors of the Origins series back!

The way the wonderful opportunity to explore the early Winchester years is wasted with these comics, saddens me to no end. I hope that Kripke has no hand in this series or I would be really disappointed in him.

Edit: My friend llywela13 pointed out to me that it is very likely that the scene where Sam tells John to kill him was meant to be a dream, even if it is not stated very clearly. In the end though that doesn't diminish my general aggrevation with this issue at all.