Description
Witchcraft is broken - and the Scarlet Witch is on a journey across the globe to fix it. From the back alleys of Manhattan to the serene Greek Isles to the Irish countryside, the former Avenger will face myths and legends from ancient lore, cure curses, and discover there's is even more to her complex family history than she knew. In Spain she will visit a church where witches like her were once burned at the stake - and be haunted by the ghosts of the Spanish Inquisition! But will the powerful mage known as the Emerald Warlock be friend or foe to Wanda - or the Uncanny Avengers? And as she solves magical crimes and pieces witchcraft back together, one vital question remains: Who shattered it in the first place?
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016-07-06
Publication
Marvel (2016), 112 pages
Pages
112
ISBN
9781302489311
Library's review
The book's an OK series of loosely connected stories of the Scarlet Witch investigating and lifting various curses made by bad witchcraft. However, in its attempt at being approachably standalone, it to me read as blandly oblique. I'm too casual a comic book reader to keep track of whether Scarlet
A perhaps better example is the ghost of some witch that follows her around. It claims she killed her, which Wanda denies. And yet it is helpful to her throughout, sharing in relatively benign banter in every scene they share. Am I supposed to know who this is and why they behave like this towards each other? Is it a completely new character? The latter seems unlikely, but there's absolutely no way for me to know without using an online search engine after putting the book down.
In any case, these lacking framework details aside, the stories are decent enough. They feel a bit too fragmentedly standalone, and I don't think the villain that's being introduced has a lot of personality (though his backstory is interesting enough), but I enjoyed them well enough. Particularly the very last one in the collection, which could easily have been a Hellboy comic if you replaced the scarlet lady with big red. The artwork is pretty (even with several wildly different styles being used throughout), albeit in several issues burdened by not making it properly clear if you're to read one page at a time, or two-page spreads from left to right. This is a pet peeve of mine (and my wife's), and I can't fathom why they can't put tiny arrows in or shape the panels in such a way as to make it clear. Especially when you switch back and forth several times an issue.
All in all, if you've been following Wanda in the comics avidly in recent years, I suspect you get much more out of this (which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for something called a "volume 1"), but for a casual fan like me, this was a bland read. Not at all bad, just not very memorable. If I could have read it before I decided to whim-purchase this, I'd have decided to spend my money and time on something else.
Show More
Witch in current continuity is a mutant, an Inhuman or neither, whether Magneto is or isn't her dad, whether she's with Vision, and a hundred other such questions. The comic could have made such rather important character aspects clear to make her fleshed out and interesting. Instead, they just play her as a generic, powerful witch with some oblique hints to regretting a couple of misdeeds in her past and being an international celebrity of some kind. Which, honestly, I've seen done better a hundred times before -- what makes characters in a shared half-century long universe interesting is the uncopyable amounts of backstory that brings the characters to life. A line or two of exposition or introspection here and there would have done the trick -- I don't need decades of continuity to be plot relevant, but I need to know who I'm reading about, or she's just another bland and undeveloped yet overpowered protagonist. A perhaps better example is the ghost of some witch that follows her around. It claims she killed her, which Wanda denies. And yet it is helpful to her throughout, sharing in relatively benign banter in every scene they share. Am I supposed to know who this is and why they behave like this towards each other? Is it a completely new character? The latter seems unlikely, but there's absolutely no way for me to know without using an online search engine after putting the book down.
In any case, these lacking framework details aside, the stories are decent enough. They feel a bit too fragmentedly standalone, and I don't think the villain that's being introduced has a lot of personality (though his backstory is interesting enough), but I enjoyed them well enough. Particularly the very last one in the collection, which could easily have been a Hellboy comic if you replaced the scarlet lady with big red. The artwork is pretty (even with several wildly different styles being used throughout), albeit in several issues burdened by not making it properly clear if you're to read one page at a time, or two-page spreads from left to right. This is a pet peeve of mine (and my wife's), and I can't fathom why they can't put tiny arrows in or shape the panels in such a way as to make it clear. Especially when you switch back and forth several times an issue.
All in all, if you've been following Wanda in the comics avidly in recent years, I suspect you get much more out of this (which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for something called a "volume 1"), but for a casual fan like me, this was a bland read. Not at all bad, just not very memorable. If I could have read it before I decided to whim-purchase this, I'd have decided to spend my money and time on something else.
Show Less
Similar in this library
User reviews
LibraryThing member ecataldi
I didn't know what to expect with this comic so in that regard it's not much of a let down. It was very underwhelming. I guess I was still expecting more of a superhero vibe since it's Marvel but that assumption was very wrong. It's very... witchy, I mean she is a witch and all so I don't know why
Show More
I was surprised by that. Instead of fighting monsters, and evil villains, the Scarlet Witch is fighting demons, trapped souls, and fellow witches. I may have read it a little too fast, but I wasn't 100% following the whole plot of this first installment. The illustrations were great, but other than that I wasn't in love with this. Oh well! Show Less