Read a take on the new series from someone who knows almost nothing about the original.
Witchblade #1 (2024)
Writer | Marguerite Bennett |
Illustrator & Inker | Giuseppe Cafaro |
Colorist | Arif Prianto |
Publisher | Image/Top Cow | 07.17.24 |
Spoilers Ahead
I've never read an issue of Witchblade. I say this so that you can set your expectations accordingly as I review this relaunch. I don't know anything about the character, not even really much about her powers or the eponymous Witchblade itself. My knowledge of the series and character is limited to what I would see of her in Wizard back in the day. That's the thing though: Witchblade was a very big deal once upon a time. And given the character hasn't been in a series since 2020, I figured, why not give this relaunch a shot and see what all the fuss is about? So if you want to get a sense of this revamp through the eyes of someone with no real nostalgia for the character and her world, and no expectations (well, almost) read on.
This iteration of hero Sara Pezzini is starting from square one. We see the Witchblade is being sought after by someone named Kenneth Irons and his troops. Or rather, the true wielder of the Witchblade is who they're after, so they send in a woman as sacrifice to dig it up, be possessed by it, and then allow it to go running off in search of the "true avatar." This leads them eventually to the airport, then New York, and finally Sara. Sara, meanwhile, recounts how her father was a good cop who got killed when he tried to incarcerate the bad cops. Sara went into the military, didn't like what she saw, and decided to return home and become a cop so she could arrest the guys who killed her dad.
Sara is close to getting a human trafficker to hand over the names of other cops he's paid off in the past, but she's interrupted by the arrival of the Witchblade. It latches onto Sara and wraps her body in armor. From there, Sara goes to town taking out the bad guys, a whirlwind of tentacles and blades. The issue ends with EMTs and cops coming in to mop up after Sara, who wants to go home and try to digest what has happened to her. Overhead, Ian Nottingham tells Irons he knows who has the Witchblade and the issue ends.
I'm as unfamiliar with Bennett as much as I am Witchblade's backstory. I know Bennett has done work in the mainstream, but this is my first exposure to her writing. It's an inoffensive start, but I'm going to be frank—there isn't a lot here to be excited about. Sara's description of her father is as plain as the summary I wrote above. It's incredibly generic stuff. "My dad was a good guy and fought bad guys. I wanted to be like my dad. Bad guys killed him. Now I want revenge." As a motivation it gets the job done, but it felt so uninspired.
This is supposed to be a big launching pad for the series and the main hero's motivations are just paper thin. You could replace Sara with virtually anyone in this issue and the result would be the same. So what about her am I supposed to be drawn to? What makes Sara someone I want to root for other than her sad story? Lots of people have sad stories, that doesn't mean I want to read about them every month.
There's some internal monologuing about bodies as Sara is asked to execute a human trafficker. I got the sense that this was supposed to be a really tense, pivotal moment in the issue, but it felt as cliche as Sara's motivations. And honestly, I don't know if Sara killed people in the original series, but this version of the woman was a soldier. I get she's undercover and a cop, but I think this moment would have been a thousand times more interesting if she just blew the human trafficker away. He's an awful person and deserves it, and it would add some edge and gray to Sara as a character. Instead, it was the safe, prototypical route that 99% of most superheroes go down.
Another gripe I had was that when Sara finally does bond with the Witchblade, it's never explained what Sara can do. What powers does she have? Is she slicing up the bad guys or is she creating tentacles to whip and smack them around? I guess the second issue will start to delve into this, as Sara herself is grappling with her newfound abilities, but it was a bit confusing for me as a total newbie to the series.
I was also perplexed by the ending. Does everyone else know she has powers now? She either slaughtered all of the bad guys, hacked them to pieces and left a mess all over the warehouse they fought in, or she knocked all of them out and eventually they'll wake up claiming to have seen Sara turn into an armored monster with superpowers. Either way, someone is going to have questions. Instead, the issue ends with Sara ready to head home as though it was a normal night at the office.
While I think the writing is mostly to blame for my confusion, some of it comes from the art. Giuseppe Cafaro is the illustrator here and it's a mixed bag of results. There are some really great pages, particularly an early double-page splash with Sara taking out some baddies. Overall, I think Cafaro strikes a nice balance evoking some of the feel of Marc Silvestri and other greats who have penciled Witchblade before him while also asserting his own style. In some cases, however, I thought his art didn't clearly convey what was happening in the story. Particularly when the Witchblade is jumping from one host to another at the airport, and when it finally finds Sara in the safe house. In both cases I had to do a double-take to figure out what was occurring, especially in the safe house where it took me a moment to realize the Witchblade was what was slicing through the head of the human trafficker.
The color art is very well done. While Cafaro can stand to tighten up his storytelling a smidge, colorist Arif Prianto is nearly flawless. I think there's room for a bit more variety in his color palette, as there's not a lot of variation between golden yellows and oranges or cool blues, but otherwise Prianto keeps things lively and interesting. There are several panels where there isn't a whole lot going on in the background that Prianto saves with his color art. I also love the mix of white and gold that this version of the Witchblade armor is comprised of. Sara almost looks like a piece of jewelry once she's suited up.
Speaking of her armor, I mentioned that I only had a single expectation as I came into Witchblade #1, and I guess the one aspect of this that is leaving me confounded is the toned down sex appeal. Now, it's an issue in, so who knows what awaits, but when I was a kid seeing Sara in her barely-there armor, it left an impression. She was hot. That was part of the draw of the character, something I grasped at like 12 when I wasn't even reading the book. Granted, we live in one of the most pious ages outside of Victorian times, but did I miss something? Did Witchblade suddenly become a beacon of virtue read by children the world over? Because I'm pretty sure that her audience tuned in for the cheesecake and wasn't offended by it. Yet here we are with this new take and Sara's covered neck to toes in this redesigned costume.
In the afterword, Marc Silvestri states how "the world has gone through some seismic changes" since the original Witchblade comic debuted, suggesting that this is a "modern audience" take on the character. And hey, it's his character to do with as he pleases. Yet, the implication is that there was something wrong with Sara Pezzini as she was, that Silvestri and the creators who turned Witchblade into a fixture of the industry did something wrong all those years ago that needs to be corrected and atoned for. To which I say, that's nonsense. Stop apologizing for imagined wrongdoing. If this new Witchblade is nothing more than a mea culpa to pacify Internet pundits who are offended that Sara was a sexy character who showed off some cleavage, then you might as well stop the series right now. You will never make those people happy and you shouldn't be trying to in the first place. Make the book for everyone and you'll make a book for no one. Let Sara be what she always was from the outside looking in: unapologetically sexy, strong, and formidable.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Sara is dressed like a nun here or that she's ugly. I'm also not saying female superheroes need to be near-naked to carry a comic. I'm saying that this series is, to my knowledge, a book that reveled in its sexiness. To spurn that part of the character would be like getting rid of Spider-Man's webs or having Batman do all of his crimefighting at high noon. Embrace what Witchblade was, because that's what she still is. And if she's not, then, well, she isn't really Witchblade. That aside, as a first issue, Witchblade #1 does just enough to get readers curious about what comes next, but make no mistake, it barely crosses the finish line. Longtime readers will likely get the most mileage from this book as it's setting up returning characters with new looks, backstories, etc. However, with a toned down version of Sara as the lead, we'll see if the storytelling can step up and make fans forget the bombshell that won them over almost 30 years ago.