Written by Tim Seeley
Illustrated by Diego BernardForever altered by the events of ARTIFACTS, Sara finds herself in a completely foreign situation and surroundings. The mystery of how and why will compel readers for the coming year and beyond!
Last month, comics scribe Ron Marz ended his seventy plus issue run on Top Cow’s supernatural heroine Witchblade. His departure meant the end of what many considered to be the definitive take on the character, leaving fans of Sara Pezzini, the tormented bearer of the arcane Witchblade, to wonder “What now?” In response, Top Cow has handed the reins off to a guy who’s more than just a little familiar with the exploits of a dynamic, if sometimes scantily-clad supernatural heroine, and now, with issue #151, Hack/Slash creator Tim Seeley makes his debut as the writer of one of comics most misunderstood female superwomen.
How’s it turn out for him? Catch up with us after the jump and we’ll tell you.
Full disclosure: I’ve never read an issue of Witchblade prior to this one. As a longtime comics reader and a former retailer, I’ve done my fair share of flipping through, bagging up, cleaning off, selling action figures, and ordering issues and collections of Ms. Blade’s adventures, but I’ve never actually read one. And thanks to every issue of Wizard magazine from 1995 until I graduated college, I was pretty sure that I knew everything I needed to know about the character, even without reading the first line. Since then, I’ve never really had a reason to pick up the book. Despite my being a fan of Ron Marz’s runs on both Green Lantern and Silver Surfer (yeah, you remember that too?), I was never willing to follow the man over to “the Cow”. Hell, not even my future wife, or a former roommate, or any number of highly-respected co-workers could convince me to give it a try.
But Tim Seeley did.
There was just something about him taking over the book that clicked with me. So I did something I haven’t done in a very long time: I picked up a comic book featuring a character 150 issues into their run that I had absolutely no background or nostalgia for… and I pretty much enjoyed the hell out of it, guys.
Seeley does a good job of making this first issue feel like a crime comic instead of a supernatural thriller. This is a Sara Pezzini that owes more to Elmore Leonard than she does H.P. Lovecraft. Of course, there’s plenty for the horror show set here — an inexplicably emaciated dead man, a weird fetish club, a scar-tissue (maybe?) wielding lady villain who’s scarier than words — but that’s not what drives the story. Within a few pages, Seeley paints Sara as a deeply layered woman with some baggage and more than a few flaws. There’s one moment in particular that really stands out, where Sara, after being blown off by a guy at the bar for what she perceives as a younger woman, retreats into the ladies room and begins to reflect on her own mortality, and the relationship between age and Sara’s own beauty. And even though it later turns out to be something of a set up for the greater plot, it’s a scene that really struck me as something you’d never see Wonder Woman thinking about.
Artist Diego Bernard brings some great visuals to the book, and while I’m not usually a fan of the Top Cow style, I’ll admit to being taken with the guy’s art. There’s some definite boobage on display, but it’s used for effect and is only mildly distracting, and when the action breaks out, it’s kind of a perfect mixture of the kinetic and the grotesque.
If you’re a Witchblade newbie like me, there’s some nice supplemental material after the main story that gives you a good bit of the character’s history, and brings you up to speed on how she’s made it to where she is today. While more or less a sales tool for Witchblade trades, the timeline in the back came in handy, I thought, and appeals to the continuity nerd in me, and it’ll probably do the same in you too.
It sounds worse than I mean it to, but I really never expected to enjoy this issue as much as I did. But enjoying a comic unexpectedly is never bad, and I’m extremely excited to see where things go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take my lumps — my wife’s been waiting since Wednesday to say “I told you so.”
Final Verdict: 8.25 — Great read, and well worth picking up.
