New story arc! This first volume begins with some daily life stories, then it's off on a new adventure.
The first issue gives me exactly what I asked for: an Irma story. Irma's father is a cop and she has to take him a folder at work. While there, she meets an old Native American man named Jewell who was taken hostage by a man doing illegal betting. Irma's dad is going to drop Jewell off at a homeless shelter before heading home with her. While Irma is in the backseat with him, he says odd things and she believes he's psychic. He tells her things about her friends, which she then tells them and gets in trouble for it. Granted, Irma's not the most gentle with words, but there's no nice way to tell Will not to get close to her father or Cornelia that ice-skating will help her get over Caleb.
Taranee confronts her mother about the case against Will's mom, leading Mrs. Cook to go talk to Mrs. Vandom. Probably not the best idea if she still plans on judging the case, which she does. Is this even realistic? They're friends. I don't think she could actually be the judge on this.
Jewell visits Irma and leaves her a book, which contains the legend of water shadows, elemental creatures made of water. She's concerned about him because the bad guy is out on bail and Jewell has disappeared. So she rallies the girls and they go to the rescue, but who they find is a man named Benjamin Crane, who looks exactly like Jewell. He tells them he's a fisherman who was caught in a storm and saved by a water creature which then took his form. He learned about water shadows and said they can only transform once, so he named the creature Jewell and in return for living with him, Jewell used his psychic abilities to tell Benjamin where to fish. But this caught the attention of the bad guy, who kidnapped Crane and forced Jewell to use his powers to aid the bad guy in his betting. The guardians find the bad guys and Jewell, but he falls off the side of the lighthouse with the head bad guy. Irma catches the bad man's wrist, but Jewell keeps falling, so she's able to use her powers to return him to water, which is what he wanted her to do all along.
Oh, and the two detectives from the first story arc make a reappearance, talking to another investigator that specializes in weird cases. He's interested in the guardians and he turns up at their school as the new computer science teacher. So he won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
This was a really good and much-needed issue for Irma. She shows how much she cares about people, even though her communication skills are a bit lacking.
The second issue is all Will drama and it's pretty big drama. Her father has a custody case against her mother and it turns out he's willing to accept a lot of money in exchange for dropping the case. The guardians decide they have to step in, because not only does this involve Will but there are pictures of Will's mom and Taranee's mom talking, so that brings Taranee into it as well. Taranee and Will pay a visit to Kadma, because she knows so much about Will's history. It doesn't go well because Kadma wants nothing to do with anything related to Kandrakar anymore. Cornelia, Irma and Hay try to get their hands on the originals of the photos in the office of the seedy PI guy Will's dad hired, but they fail. Then a call comes in and Will's dad has dropped the case. Turns out Kadma did care after all. She paid him off and he disappears again. Will, her mom and Will's pet dormouse head out in celebration, but the dormouse is hit by a car. They rush him to Matt's grandfather's veterinary clinic/pet shop, but the news is bad. He has to put dormouse to sleep. Will says goodbye and yep, I totally teared up. This is the thing that brings Will and Matt back together, but I really think they could have done it better than having her pet die. I mean, come on.
Things start to get heavy in the third issue. The school is offering an exchange program with Redstone, a school so far away that it's night there when it's day in Heatherfield. There was a test and Cornelia, Taranee and Hay are going, but Irma and Will are not. The issue has the girls prepping for their departure. While at Cornelia's younger sister Lilian's birthday party, Taranee realizes her former near-sightedness has turned into beyond perfect vision. The girls take a quick trip to Kandrakar to ask why and the Oracle tells them all guardians bear the gift of Xin Jing, the nymph who created the guardians. Constantly changing forms is taxing on the body, so it's basically an enhanced healing power, but it also corrects natural deficiencies in the body, such as Taranee's weak vision. Now I would be grateful for anything that fixed my terrible sight, but Taranee is pissed. She's mad there's yet another thing the Oracle neglected to tell them and what's worse is that this one physically changes the girls. Taranee declares herself on break from being a guardian while she processes things. Again, I feel she's being ungrateful. I do think they should have been told, but it's not an easy thing to have poor vision. Maybe hers wasn't really that awful but I'd love anything to fix mine. It just seems a strange gift to get super pissed about and I don't love her for doing this. I do like that she has enough balls to do it though.
Asshole Uriah decides to steal the plane tickets for the trip and there's a whole bit with the girls getting them back. Or rather, making him give them back.
Then the girls part ways.
We get our first glimpse of Redstone, which is seriously amazing, in the fourth issue. Then the girls are summoned and given their next mission. They must go to a world called Arkhanta, which has been taken over by a man named Ari. His wife died in childbirth and his son is a quiet loner, so he captures a banshee to try to help his son. Banshees here are more like djinn with the ability to grant wishes. When she can't do it, Ari uses a wish to bind her to him and she has to keep granting wishes. He uses her powers to change his world and take it over. He's angry with the Oracle for not helping his son, so he wants nothing to do with Kandrakar and the Oracle sees this as a threat. So he's sending the four guardians (Taranee refuses to help) and their new team member, the catlike warrior Orube, who was Luba's best pupil. The trip does not go well. Orube impulsively acts and Ari won't have anything to do with the girls then. Will questions why they're even doing this, as Ari's people seem to think he changed things for the better. They're forced to return to Kandrakar a failure. The Oracle gives them the key to Ms. Rudolph's house, where Orube will now live in the guise of college student Rebecca Rudolph. The goal is to bond her to the other girls so they'll be more successful. Orube has no idea what it's like to be human...or apparently even what food is...so they've got their work cut out for them.
Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay, Irma, Taranee/Will.
Definitely some order-changing here. Cornelia didn't get to do too much, but she's still my favorite. Though I didn't care for her questioning magical creatures in the Irma-based issue. It felt out of character, since they've seen so many magical things. But it's not enough points off to budge her from the top. Hay didn't do much either, but she's still Hay. Irma's great showing in that first issue pulled her ahead of Taranee and Will, and she did a great rescue in the last issue. And Taranee's lack of gratitude dropped her into a tie with Will for last place. Will did have a strong showing, especially in the last issue, but if I remember correctly, I do tend to go back and forth on liking her.
In the first issue here, Orube is not adjusting well to life on Earth, while Cornelia, Taranee and Hay deal with adjusting to Redstone. Cornelia has a popular boy as an admirer, but she's still thinking about Caleb, who we see in a short scene from Meridian where he's talking to Elyon. The guardians and Orube go back to Arkhanta and end up helping out at a festival, but Yua the banshee sends a tornado that destroys a lot of the small village. Orube is still refusing to do teamwork with the others and Irma blames her for their failure. Back in Kandrakar, the Oracle says her assistance wouldn't have changed anything, but also says that the guardians' strength lies in their mental and spiritual unity and that Orube has a long way to go. Back in Heatherfield, Orube is affected by her mistake, but it fuels her to stop hiding in her house and go out to experience Earth.
The second issue is similar. Will and Irma are helping Orube learn about Earth, while in Redstone, the others are trying to find out more about Sylla, who they know is watching them. Taranee struggles with Cornelia and Hay's astral drops, who clearly have minds of their own, while the others are in Arkhanta again. This time, Orube finds herself possessed by Yua. Taranee ends up using her powers on Sylla to help Hay's astral drop. After being freed from her possession, Orube and Will have some bonding time back on Earth and Orube gives some backstory that explains why she's the way she is.
The third issue is still dealing with the Sylla problem and Taranee returns to the fold, admitting she was wrong. The six of them go to Arkhanta, where they accidentally find Maqi, leading him to run away. He ends up stumbling into Yua's chambers and she captures him, but Irma gets him back. Yua twists things so Ari thinks the guardians tried to hurt Maqi and they flee back to Kandrakar.
In the fourth, the Redstone trip is over and everyone is home. We've got a lot more Sylla drama. Taranee also says Nigel told her that they can't see each other anymore but won't say why, and later it becomes clear that Taranee's mom has something to do with it. Sylla and his superiors, one of whom has mental abilities, are watching over the guardians. The guardians and Orube go to a party and there's a huge final confrontation with all the agents that have ever been after the guardians. The Oracle has to intervene, teleporting all the agents and Will's astral drop to Kandrakar, where he erases any memory all the agents have of the guardians. He sends Will's astral drop back, knowing there's going to be a problem there, too.
Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay, Irma, Taranee, Will.
Things remain pretty much the same in this volume. Cornelia is still awesome. Irma's gotten stronger and is holding her place in front of Taranee, but only just barely. I do really like everyone though, so don't think because Will's last it means I don't like her. She's shown a lot more improvement since she stopped being so angsty all the time. And Orube, who I won't ever count in this list, is improving with every issue. I really love her. She's my favorite secondary character, ahead of Elyon by quite a bit now.
The first issue finally wraps up the Arkhanta storyline with teases for two other storylines: troubles with Nigel and the revolt of the astral drops. The guardians fight Ari and defeat him, then free Yua the captive banshee, who kidnaps Ari's son Maqi. The guardians then team up with him to rescue Maqi, who falls from very high and is injured. The guardians band together and give him their healing gift, which honestly seems like a really stupid thing to give up. (*cough*Taranee, you fool*cough*) Why not try only one of them giving it up first? But this healing gift also makes Maqi verbal and happy again. Not the greatest message there, that it takes magic to heal a mental illness. This is by far the weakest of the early storylines, though I do love the introduction of Orube.
In the second issue, we get into the astral drop crisis. The drops are beginning to creep forward and affect the girls when they're combined. Will spends a good chunk of the issue blowing off the problem only for it to be revealed that that's Will's astral drop, not her. The real Will had to go on an emergency trip with her mom. When Will returns, the crisis is at a head and the girls are in trouble with the school and various parents and friends. It's all so petty. Yes, the girls abused the astral drops and didn't treat them like they were real people, but the drops didn't try very hard to communicate their issues, instead resorting to petty tricks and stealing. They don't care who they hurt, even Orube, who never did anything to them, so it's hard to find them remotely sympathetic. Meanwhile, Nigel's older brother is back in town and that's why he's been acting like a little asshole. At the end of the chapter, the astral drops have stolen money from Matt's grandfather's store (via a naive Orube) and boarded a train.
Third issue finds Orube tracking the drops because her senses can detect them. They're in another city, spending the last of their money on a breakfast of hot dogs after spending the night in a park shed. Cornelia's drop aims for the mall, where she's recruited as an emergency fill-in for a short fashion show. The director of the show just wants her to have shorter hair, so we get to see how cute Corny looks with much shorter hair. Unfortunately, Cornelia has been recognized by a former security guard from the bank where her dad works, and that guard got fired for possibly being the inside man in a robbery. There was no proof, but he was the guy after all. So of course, he goes after Cornelia. She and Taranee are kidnapped, but Orube shows up shortly after. She finds the other three drops, while the kidnapper calls Cornelia's house to say he's got her...and tells the real Cornelia, who answered the phone. Using Will's ability to talk to electronics, the W.I.T.C.H. team learn the location of the kidnapped drops and teleport to the rescue. So they've got Taranee and Cornelia's drops, but Orube lets the other three go, moved by their story of wanting to be their own people.
The final issue of this third part of W.I.T.C.H. opens with a conflicting scene. Cornelia and Taranee's drops are with Orube but suddenly she's mad at them and trying to get them to say where the other three are...but she's the one who let them go at the end of the last issue. The other drops have returned to Heatherfield (with what money?) and are trying to make a plan. So their plan, of course, is to cause more nasty chaos. Will's drop tells Matt that Orube/Rebecca stole money from the shop and he calls the real Will about it later, making her think there's something between them. Irma and Hay's drops just want to rescue the other two, but Will's drop is out for blood, causing problems with Will's coach and her mom. Irma and Hay's drops get themselves caught by Orube, while Will's drop goes to Will's house, where she's now grounded. They fight and the rest of W.I.T.C.H. answers Will's telepathic call. They take the problem to Kandrakar, where the girls agree to free the drops from their bond. The oracle sends them somewhere else, giving them new appearances and new lives, but he does mark them with each girl's elemental symbol, saying that one day he'll call them back to Kandrakar to make a final decision. The issue closes with Nigel going to Taranee's to apologize to her and her family, saying he'll pay for any damages from the vandalism he and his brother committed. Taranee forgives him.
So this third arc was definitely not my favorite. There were some strong moments, mostly the growth of Orube and Irma, but overall, it wasn't great. Taranee's rebellion was stupid and the astral drops' rebellion, while it made more sense, was filled with petty garbage. I'm glad it's over.
Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay, Irma, Taranee, Will.
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