The Halliwell Sisters suffer a huge loss (Charmed Season 10 Issue 5)

There have been quite a few comic series lately that have expanded on or continued TV series. Smallville, Arrow, Flash, Young Justice, Buffy, Angel, X-Files, and Charmed come to mind. Most of these series have been very good. In fact, I was never even much of a fan of Smallville, but the comic series was excellent. I actually like this trend, and hope we see it more for TV series, especially those that ended far too soon.

One thing people might not know about me is that I am a "closeted" Charmed fan. It's not like I've ever really hidden that fact, it's just that I don't know a lot of fans of the show, so I don't get to talk about it all that much. After the show went off the air, I didn't give it much thought, but I've been reading the Zenescope follow-up series since the first trade went on sale on Comixology a few years back. It definitely holds up against the series very well, bringing back a lot of my favorite characters and building new stories on top of the great lore the TV series had built up during it's eight seasons.

Charmed Season 10 #5

Written by: Pat Shand
Art by: Elisa Feliz
Cover by: David Seidman
Colored by: Valentina Cuomo
Lettered by: Christy Sawyer

Published by: Zenescope
Cover Price: $3.99

Note: This is a review of the digital version which can be found on Comixology.

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

At the end of the last issue, Cole had been stabbed by a demon wielding a sword that was designed to end a soul for good. This issue was about Cole's internal struggle with his demonic half, Belthazor. Belthazor seems to suggest that Cole can live on again if he just embraces his demonic side. But Cole decides that he's ready to move on for good. Cole was always my favorite character in Charmed, and part of me wants to feel bad that he's dead, but this is far from the first time he's seemed to be gone for good. And the end of this issue teased that he would probably be coming back again.

I actually enjoyed this issue a lot, though I did think that the Charmed Ones battle with Valen was a little anti-climatic. So much of the issue deals with Cole's internal struggle, that the Charmed Ones seemed to defeat Valen with a fairly quick spell. Valen still feels he won a huge victory because he took out one of their allies, and Cole's death should have a pretty big impact on the series...though like I said, the end does seem to give the creators an easy out if they need to bring Cole back. It just seems like it took us five issues to get here, only for the villain to be taken out in a page or two.

I know it shouldn't matter, but I thought it was pretty awesome that this book was written, drawn, colored and lettered by women. I had said in an Open Mike Night a few weeks ago that it really bugged me was how many female characters were written by male creative teams. I'm not saying that Charmed can only be written by a woman, but I do think Pat Shand and company have been able to give Charmed Season 10 a very fresh perspective. The characters really do feel true to the show. It might sound like the exact opposite end of the spectrum, but Karen Traviss has done a great job re-igniting GI Joe for IDW as well. I can't possibly say this enough - Diversity in comics NEEDS to include diversity in comic creators.

One thing that has really been driving me crazy about this book (in a good way) is the mysteries about Pru's return. Throughout this issue, we are given a lot of hints that there is a lot more going on here than we think we know. These teases have been a strong part of the appeal of this book to me. And I definitely have faith that Shand is going to give us some satisfying answers to all this.

Elisa Feliz did a great job with the art here. The characters all really looked like the TV counterparts. I thought that some of the art on Season 9 was a little hit or miss at times, but there was a huge step up in the current volume.

Unfortunately, I do think this series is probably a little too insiderish and wouldn't appeal much to readers who aren't already into Charmed, but it's still a very good comic and definitely a great sequel to the show.