Spellbinders
Encyclopedia
Spellbinders is a comic book
published by Marvel Comics
, as part of that company's Marvel Next
imprint
. It was a six-issue limited series
written by Mike Carey with art by Mike Perkins
. It is part of the Marvel Universe
, but the story takes no advantage of the fact.
Spellbinders is set around John Hawthorne High School, a fiction
al high school in Salem, Massachusetts
, where magic is accepted as a fact. There are rivalries between magical students ('wicks') and non-magical students ('blanks'), and between the various covens.
The story centres around Kim Vesco, a girl from Chicago who has strange dreams and an interest in sculpture.
, but is saved by two wicks, Mink and Liza Beth. Later at home, she is attacked by a wall.
s. One of the ghosts tells her that she has to wield the Salem covens into a single unit, a 'seven.' Another ghost warns her 'not to go to the pillar'.
At a science class, the bunsen burner
s explode and the lab catches fire. Kim saves herself by making a mora poultice which smothers the fire.
Chad asks her to go to a party. When he asks her about her parents, she mentions that she is adopted. The Salem witches reason that if Kim is adopted, she may be one of them. On the night of the party, they secretly guard her against all forms of magical attack.
. Renata, a shapeshifter, changes into another wolf creature, and the two fight. But when the thing sees the rest of the witches arriving, it turns into a flock of birds and flies away.
The Salem witches drag Kim away from the party before the police arrive, and explain the secret history of the witch families of Salem. The witch families are descended from refugees from 'somewhere else.' They came to Salem fleeing the Thief, an occult being and they brought an artifact called the Pillar of Smoke with them. Certain families can work certain kinds of magic. When they offer to take her to the Pillar, Kim declines on the grounds that the ghost told her not to. She goes home, to discover that something trashed her sculpture tools. The final page reveals Chad as the one from the party who tried to kill Kim.
, and continue on their way. They meet Apocaledon, the guardian of the pillar. Along the way, Kim realises that witches have been dying in unusual circumstances, where their powers backfired and killed them. Behind them, Chad undoes the booby trap with little or no effort. The group gets to the Pillar, and discovers that Kim is a witch (as she can see the smoke it gives off), but have no idea what her powers are. Suddenly, the wrecked body of Apocaledon falls into the clearing followed by Chad who reveals that he is a new version of the Thief, a witch who can copy the powers of other Salem witches. He explains that mutations within the humans of Salem built up over years of interbreeding with the witches eventually culminated in a new Thief. He then easily defeats the group and destroys the Pillar.
Kim and Foley, a seer, make contact with a ghost, who tells them to apologise to the Pillar. Kim does so and touches the Pillar. Magical energy shoots out of the remains of the Pillar and Kim and Foley find themselves in a white space where a line of corpses are guarded by flying skeletons.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group encounters the original Thief but escape by pooling their powers and teleporting back to Salem. There Chad has been busy. He has stolen the powers of every witch in town and is now using their powers to bring his girlfriend (the first witch he killed and the ghost who was helping Kim) back to life.
Back in Salem, Chad has resurrected his girlfriend and has Kim's friends trapped within one of their own spells. They break free just as Kim and Foley arrive. The whole group then has their final confrontation with Chad. Using her necromancy powers, Kim first frees Chad's girlfriend from a state of paralysis and then lets her die again (the girlfriend hates Chad and does not wish to be with him anymore). Because she is bound to him, Chad dies as well. In the afterlife, Chad is punished by the skeletons for raising the dead and the girlfriend is taken to the next life.
The group of witches leave the school. Before she leaves, Kim notices a small lizard (the leftover of one of the first witch casualties, a wick boy who died the night Kim was summoned to Salem). She tells it to hold on, as things are starting to work out.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
published by Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, as part of that company's Marvel Next
Marvel Next
Marvel Next was a short lived imprint that was launched by the American comics publisher Marvel Comics in early 2005. It was designed to spotlight several unrelated titles that featured young protagonists. Like the Tsunami imprint before it, it aimed to attract young readers...
imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
. It was a six-issue limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
written by Mike Carey with art by Mike Perkins
Mike Perkins
Mike Perkins is a British comic book artist known for both his inking work and full art duties on comic books such as Captain America, Ruse and Stephen King's The Stand.-Career:Mike Perkins began drawing at a very early age...
. It is part of the Marvel Universe
Marvel Universe
The Marvel Universe is the shared fictional universe where most comic book titles and other media published by Marvel Entertainment take place, including those featuring Marvel's most familiar characters, such as Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and the Avengers.The Marvel Universe is further...
, but the story takes no advantage of the fact.
Spellbinders is set around John Hawthorne High School, a fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
al high school in Salem, Massachusetts
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
, where magic is accepted as a fact. There are rivalries between magical students ('wicks') and non-magical students ('blanks'), and between the various covens.
The story centres around Kim Vesco, a girl from Chicago who has strange dreams and an interest in sculpture.
Issue one
In the fist issue Kim and her family move to Salem. On her first day she meets Chad Barrow, her neighbour, who tells her she'll be fine in school, provided she isn't a nerd or a 'wick'. Her first day at school is rough, she is attacked by an air elementalElemental
An elemental is a mythological being first appearing in the alchemical works of Paracelsus in the 16th century. Traditionally, there are four types:*gnomes, earth elementals*undines , water elementals*sylphs, air elementals...
, but is saved by two wicks, Mink and Liza Beth. Later at home, she is attacked by a wall.
Issue two
After the wall attacks her Kim discovers that she can talk to ghosts when she 'spirit walks' and accidentally summons a horde of ghostGhost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
s. One of the ghosts tells her that she has to wield the Salem covens into a single unit, a 'seven.' Another ghost warns her 'not to go to the pillar'.
At a science class, the bunsen burner
Bunsen burner
A Bunsen burner, named after Robert Bunsen, is a common piece of laboratory equipment that produces a single open gas flame, which is used for heating, sterilization, and combustion.- Operation:...
s explode and the lab catches fire. Kim saves herself by making a mora poultice which smothers the fire.
Chad asks her to go to a party. When he asks her about her parents, she mentions that she is adopted. The Salem witches reason that if Kim is adopted, she may be one of them. On the night of the party, they secretly guard her against all forms of magical attack.
Issue three
At the party, the lights go out and someone attacks Kim with a knife. Realising they have not protected Kim against physical attack, the Salem witches rush to the party just in time to see Kim running from a wolf-monsterWerewolf
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...
. Renata, a shapeshifter, changes into another wolf creature, and the two fight. But when the thing sees the rest of the witches arriving, it turns into a flock of birds and flies away.
The Salem witches drag Kim away from the party before the police arrive, and explain the secret history of the witch families of Salem. The witch families are descended from refugees from 'somewhere else.' They came to Salem fleeing the Thief, an occult being and they brought an artifact called the Pillar of Smoke with them. Certain families can work certain kinds of magic. When they offer to take her to the Pillar, Kim declines on the grounds that the ghost told her not to. She goes home, to discover that something trashed her sculpture tools. The final page reveals Chad as the one from the party who tried to kill Kim.
Issue four
Kim finally agrees to go to the Pillar of Smoke and the witches take her to the woods near Salem. There, they lay a magical booby trapBooby trap
A booby trap is a device designed to harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is...
, and continue on their way. They meet Apocaledon, the guardian of the pillar. Along the way, Kim realises that witches have been dying in unusual circumstances, where their powers backfired and killed them. Behind them, Chad undoes the booby trap with little or no effort. The group gets to the Pillar, and discovers that Kim is a witch (as she can see the smoke it gives off), but have no idea what her powers are. Suddenly, the wrecked body of Apocaledon falls into the clearing followed by Chad who reveals that he is a new version of the Thief, a witch who can copy the powers of other Salem witches. He explains that mutations within the humans of Salem built up over years of interbreeding with the witches eventually culminated in a new Thief. He then easily defeats the group and destroys the Pillar.
Issue five
When the group wakes up, they find themselves in a washed-out world, where their magics won't work fully. They realise that this must be the 'somewhere else' the Salem witches came from.Kim and Foley, a seer, make contact with a ghost, who tells them to apologise to the Pillar. Kim does so and touches the Pillar. Magical energy shoots out of the remains of the Pillar and Kim and Foley find themselves in a white space where a line of corpses are guarded by flying skeletons.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group encounters the original Thief but escape by pooling their powers and teleporting back to Salem. There Chad has been busy. He has stolen the powers of every witch in town and is now using their powers to bring his girlfriend (the first witch he killed and the ghost who was helping Kim) back to life.
Issue six
In the land of the dead Kim and Foley are confronted by the flying skeletons. They tell Kim that she is the Gatekeeper, chosen by the Pillar to guard the way between the lands of the living and dead and mend breaches made by magic. The skeletons attempt to keep Foley with them but Kim convinces them to allow him to leave with her.Back in Salem, Chad has resurrected his girlfriend and has Kim's friends trapped within one of their own spells. They break free just as Kim and Foley arrive. The whole group then has their final confrontation with Chad. Using her necromancy powers, Kim first frees Chad's girlfriend from a state of paralysis and then lets her die again (the girlfriend hates Chad and does not wish to be with him anymore). Because she is bound to him, Chad dies as well. In the afterlife, Chad is punished by the skeletons for raising the dead and the girlfriend is taken to the next life.
The group of witches leave the school. Before she leaves, Kim notices a small lizard (the leftover of one of the first witch casualties, a wick boy who died the night Kim was summoned to Salem). She tells it to hold on, as things are starting to work out.