Supernatural is a show on formerly the WB network now on the CW, that I’ve followed since the first season. The series follows the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester hunting monsters, demons, spirits, and other assorted creatures all over the United States. The comics have usually gone in the direction of telling stories of Sam and Dean in their younger days working with their Dad on hunts. Those series have had mixed results with fans and I’ve read them with mixed feelings in my own right. When I saw that Brian Wood was working on this new series, considering he’s one of my favorite writers, this was worth a look. Grant Bond is an unknown to me and this was my first experience with his artwork. Supernatural as always felt like it would be a perfect fit for a comic book series. This first issue is a mixed bag.
One thing to prepare Supernatural fans for, this is a Sam Winchester story. Dean is mentioned but only in passing. Not a big deal to me but there are some fans who if Sam and Dean aren’t together can be a deal breaker. If those fans out there can get past that, Brian Wood’s story has some promise. The main story takes place three years ago as Sam Winchester is going through Edinburgh, Scotland. The focus of the issue is Sam meeting up with another fellow hunter named Emma. I like their wanders through Edinburgh, though in a weird way this doesn’t feel as much like Supernatural and feels more like the show isn’t as organically a part of this story.
Does that mean it’s bad? Not exactly bad, this just makes for a different feel of storytelling than what you would see out of Supernatural. Instead of Sam and Dean Winchester fighting monsters you see Sam exploring Edinburgh, while getting to hang out with another hunter. At the end of the book this says it’s part one of two, so maybe it’s steering towards smaller stories in the Supernatural universe. This might not be such a bad idea, so we’ll see in future issues of this six issue mini series if Brian Wood’s play on the Supernatural series pays off. From the final page of this issue, I kind of wish this first issue would have been double sized just to expand the story out further.
Following Brian Wood for as long as I have, He’s a fantastic writer. Writers work to the style of whatever project they’re on and this time this feels like a quieter more focused Supernatural comic. Much more intimate and showing a different side to the series. Sadly Grant Bond’s artwork though not bad by any means, doesn’t fit the story entirely. Some out there might call this nitpicking but really, if you’re on a licensed property and you can’t tell that Sam Winchester is who he is until someone says his name, this doesn’t bode well for your comic. He doesn’t do a bad job on art, but I’m not entirely sure if he was the best fit for this series. Am I willing to give this another issue to grow on me? The parts I liked out of the issue fared well over the parts of the issue I didn’t quite get into. This steers towards a maybe. Supernatural fans if you’re looking for a fix in between episodes, take a look and see what you think. Your mileage could vary differently than my own.
