Interview with Pat Shand - Charmed Season 10 #8 and #9 (SPOILERS)

Charmed #9 is out today!

Under the cut you can read my interview with Pat Shand talking about the events of both #8 and #9!

Please note that the interview contains spoilers.

Click "Read More" below to continue.

                                                                                                                  INTERVIEW

CHARMED COMIC FAN 10: Let’s start with #8. Cole and Prue being together never happened and you make it pretty clear with this issue. Even the small mention from Fritz in #1 started long debates between the fans. Plotting the season did you ever consider of “making the ship canon” at all?

PAT SHAND: While I did really dig Prue’s interactions with Cole, Fritz’ speculation was there for two reasons… one, to get you wondering about a rift between Prue and the sisters and, two, the more devious reason: I knew the speculation would be rampant, and I was excited to see that. The story I pitched, though, was basically unchanged from my initial outline that I wrote in 2012 to the story you saw published.


CCF: Tyler’s new power is pretty powerful and he is an Archai, a race that was considered extinct. Will we find out more about Tyler’s lineage, maybe who his biological parents are?

PAT: No, nothing like that. Archais are closely related to firestarters, so when Tyler emerges as an Archai, he’s the first of his kind since they were made extinct. His parentage doesn’t have anything to do with that.


CCF: The biggest mystery in the season so far; why the Charmed Ones are avoiding any interaction with Prue is revealed. While Prue isn’t a Charmed One anymore, is what’s happening to the sisters when they meet or even talk about her connected to Melinda Warren’s prophecy and the 4 sisters paradox we saw in Season 9?

PAT: Nah, I don’t want to repeat the storylines Paul already did so well. This is a far different thing.


CCF: The future of the Charmed Ones as we saw in “Forever Charmed” is now in danger. From the beginning of the comics everyone knew who couldn’t die and when they couldn’t die because of the finale flash forwards. Now no one is safe. Can you talk to us about your decision to change this and how important it is for the story the readers not to have something big like the main characters' safety set in stone?

PAT: “Forever Charmed,” even though the characters themselves didn’t know about what fans were privy to, was a safety net – and that undermines narrative tension. I wanted the story to be more anything goes, which is why we introduced the Ancient Athame in the first arc. I want to pull off something that a show with so many resurrections shouldn’t be able to do so late in the game – I want the threats to matter. The danger needs to be real. That’s also why I killed Cole in the first arc. It was intended as the ultimate Cole story, but it’s no secret that I – despite what a faction of the fandom thinks, for whatever reason – think Cole is the best character. His loss permeates the season. Which makes me smile at the complaints, because the people mad at me for killing Cole has no idea that this season, even in his absence, is the most Cole-centric season, maybe ever.


CCF: Coop and Henry start their mission to save Benjamin Turner. They, especially Coop, have been described as “boring” or “not interesting enough” and this is probably because of how fast they were introduced in the final season with not enough time to be developed. Is one of your goals this season to make them more intriguing and stand out more than just the husbands of the Charmed Ones?

PAT: Yeah, they have to justify their presences. The kids, I can’t justify each of them, so they’re taking a background role. But a big part of especially this second arc is me trying to figure out why two of the most powerful women in the world are in love with these two. They must be something special, right?


CCF: Entering issue #9. Kyra is back! Thank you so much that you made it so that Kyra was never actually vanquished. I still remember my reaction the first time I saw her being vanquished and it was not a good one! I couldn’t accept it. As a fan back then, was your reaction similar?

 

PAT: I assumed they’d bring her back eventually. It seemed like a weird choice to have such a strong character written off like that. And Charisma is fantastic, so I didn’t think they’d so easily get rid of the character. I mean, with Billie, fans fought against the idea of her being – essentially – the fourth main character… but a big part of me thinks that, had that be Kyra in that role, they would’ve more easily accepted a non-Charmed One getting all that screen time.

CCF: You are a fan of Charisma Carpenter. How fun is it writing for her and her character?

 

PAT: Her resurrection was totally selfish. I wanted to write for Charisma, so I brought back Kyra. Charisma is such a great actress because her voice is so specific, in the way that she is able to give characters a very unique rhythm to their dialogue. It makes Kyra a blast – and super easy – to write, whereas other characters can be trickier. Leo, Kyra, Prue, Cole, and Paige come easily. The rest take a lot of honing and revision.


CCF: Prue never met or had any interaction with Kyra but she chose to summon her for help. Did she consider her only because she is a Seer with valuable knowledge or is there something more going on?

 

PAT: Through her connection to both the ultimate purity and the ultimate dark, Prue was able to essentially ‘feel’ through all of the seers in all of history to see who could best tell her what’s the deal. She can essentially ‘see’ anything that happened to her sisters, or anyone magic, from the start of time to now.

CCF: About the tattoos we saw in previous issues. Based on this issue I think it is safe (correct me if I am off) to assume that the messages “She who sees will rise” means Kyra and “One will die and one will rise” means Cole and Kyra. That leaves the “Stay away from her” message. Is this also meant for Kyra or for someone else?

 

PAT: Yes and yes. You’ll understand after “The Reason.”


CCF: Can you give us some background on Belthazor’s statue and the fact that the other half of Benjamin’s soul was guarded there?

 

PAT: I would’ve liked to have more time to get into that, but I couldn’t give the boys THAT much screen time at the expense of the sisters, so I have to keep it moving and only give the essential information. Anyone could really infer what’s going on there as much as me, but here’s my take – Belthazor is a god among demons, worshipped by so many of the vanquished… so because vanquished demons don’t have shit else to do, they built a statue. Putting Ben Turner’s soul there is another big connection to the ‘demon’ they worship.

CCF: Tyler’s powers chose the worst timing not to work. Is this because of him overusing them or because of inexperience?


PAT: Both!


CCF: Not only Benjamin’s but a piece of my soul I think was also crushed when I saw the very last panel. Things are definitely not going well for the Turners this season. In the #10 cover Benjamin is featured. Will we see a what-if or alternative reality scenario play out?


PAT: No what-ifs at all, everything in #10 happens in the present, ‘true’ timeline. However, I will say that a certain aspect of the cover for that issue is metaphoric… and readers will know which part when they see, but we’ll cover that for that issue.


CCF: Thank you so much, Pat!


PAT: Thanks! One thing that I do want to mention, because it might be a disappointment. #9 is coming out early but, because of publishing schedule reasons that won’t really make sense without explaining a bunch of stuff no one cares about, #10 will come out a few weeks later than Previews initially said. So we’ve got #9 early and #10 late, which will kind of give us less of a gap between #10 and #11, at least!


*Previews have now changed the release date of Charmed Season 10 #10 to July 22, 2015.