Untitled Epoch #1

Page 15, Panel 5. "Except HE'S the latest victim of the murders I LIKED him for."
I believe the word should be linked, not liked.

Witchblade is a mystical item that bonds with a woman to give her power.

Untitled Witchblade #1

Kenneth Irons knows & has studied the history of the Witchblade and he says to it, "Your wielder will reveal himself."
Isn't every wielder of the Witchblade a woman? As an expert you'd think he'd know that.

Sara is wearing some high spiked heels and a tight dress while undercover and yet she does some amazing acrobatic leaps and doesn't break her neck, leg or the heels doing it.


Witch Hunt Part 1 Witchblade #80

Really lazy bit on the part of the artist. Page 1 has a full page shot of Sara & the Witchblade, Page 2 recycles close-ups of that picture.

Sara Pezzini is said to be 33 years old. This issue came out in 2004 which means she was born in 1971, which is interesting since in the first issue Sara said she was inspired to be a cop by the TV show Starsky & Hutch.
Guess she meant reruns of Starsky & Hutch rather than the original run.
Additionally the issue says she graduated the police academy in 1993 (making her 22) & became a detective in 1995 (at 24). Now while the quick jump to detective is lampshaded I have no idea what the average age of someone graduating the police academy is so I'm not sure if that's a nit or not.


Redemption "Just Like Starting Over" Witchblade #131

NANJAO. Ouch! The artwork is painful to look at. Looks like the artist decided to use a 3D program instead of drawing it.

The Darkness is an ancient power passed on through generations and now Jackie Estacado has it.

Coming Of Age The Darkness #1

Page 21, Panel 4. The guards describe Don Marchianni's' dogs as "Godzilla-lookin' attack dogs" which would be fine if the artist had not have drawn two normal dogs in panel 2. (Oddly enough the muzzles make them look like Great Danes, but they seem small for Great Danes.)


Untitled Darkness II: Confession

The backstory of Jackie's life, getting the Darkness and Jenny's death are different here then in the regular series. Then again I think this is a game tie-in so maybe it's just true to the game universe's backstory than the comics?

Blood Divine Part One Of Three The Magdalena #1

You'd think a woman working for the Vatican would dress more conservatively and not be wearing skin-tight pants & a top while exposing her midriff.

The Book of Demons and Other Preternatural Beings written in 1734 mentions about Vampiri and what they are and aren't affected by including bursting into flames in direct sunlight.
Now sunlight destroying a vampire really didn't enter vampire fiction until the movie Nosferatu made long after 1734 and some of the other things the book says may not have been around until later writers of vampire fiction started using them.

Untitled Broken Trinity Prelude

Gretch a reporter for the Twilight Alternative Weekly is writing an article, which, coincidentally, is how the writer is filling in new readers about the Witchblade Universe, and this story.
Problem is some of the things she's writing probably wouldn't be allowed. Admittedly she hasn't submitted this to the editor yet so some of these nits could be anti-nitted by saying this is just the rough draft.

"Beginning his criminal career as an assassin for hire, Estacado quickly climbed the mob ladder until he presided over one of New York's five families."
Unless he was actually convicted, or confessed, that sentence would most likely not see print.

Page 6. NNAN. Given the tonal differences between the Witchblade stories and the Cyberforce stories I wouldn't have felt that the two series were part of the same universe. I mean Cyberforce is rather open with it's superscience, superheroes & villains, aliens, mutants, etc. while Witchblade, The Darkness, Magdalena, etc. seem to exist in a more or less real world with supernatural elements mostly ignored by the general populace. Gretch's article, claiming that they're there if you look, just shows a world in complete denial if no one notices the heroes & villains in spandex.

Untitled Madame Mirage #1

Okayyyyy... at the dawn of the 21st century inventors created ways to turn themselves in to superheroes, of course, this lead to supervillains, so many that a global treaty was enacted and all mega-tech was impounded and further creation banned. The altruistic ones turned themselves in and most served prison time.
1. I can't see any government going along with such a ban. Private citizens might be banned from creating and using it, but with knowledge that such stuff can be created it only makes sense that armies would be equipped with it.
2. I'm not sure if the writer means the heroes or the inventors when he says altruistic ones, but why would they serve jail time if there was no law forbidding what they were doing at the time they invented it? As for heroes, if they were working as vigilantes then they were breaking the law in the first place, so turning themselves in makes no sense.

The Darkness

untitled The Darkness #18 Reprinted in The Magdalena #1 (trade paperback)

Okay, in issue 16 the guy was called Cardinal Jasper, but in 18 he was Father Jasper.
On the one hand, the Cardinal/ Father relationship does fit the father/son vibe the writer was trying to invoke. On the other hand, Jasper is way too naive. Maybe if he'd been an initiate or something, but then an initiate wouldn't have had the authority to send the Magdalena on a mission, which is why Cardinal Innocent (nice, subtle name there) set him up.

The Inquisitors say they are not Cardinals.
IIRC The last pope had held the position of Inquisitor and was a Cardinal.

For a group intended to root out people who've gone wrong these Inquisitors don't actually do much in the way of investigation.*
I mean they ask Jasper if he sent the Magdalena to face The Darkness and he seems very surprised at this, but answers yes because Cardinal Innocent is standing there nodding his head, and then rather than ask any follow-up questions just lecture him on what he did wrong and sentence him to his punishment while he calls for help from Cardinal Innocent, whom the Inquistors assume is perfectly innocent. *rolls eyes*

* Then again, it seems like one of the requirements for writing The Darkness was being anti-religious with an axe to grind against the Catholic Church.

The Magdalena is the name given to a disposable lot of women who are descendants of Mary Magdalene and have super-abilities and are used by the Catholic church.

There have been several different Magdalenas through the various appearances, not all of them have been given names (as far as I know)

Mariella - appeared in The Darkness #15-18 and The Magdalena/Angelus one-shot (where she was named)

Rosalia - Mariella's mother, appeared in The Magdalena volume 1 #1-3.

Patience - introduced in The Magdalena volume 2 #1-4 and may actually still be around.

The first Magdalena seen was a flashback to the one who recovered the Spear of Longinus from Hitler in WWII, but I don't know if she was ever given a name.

Blood Divine The Magdelena Reprinted in The Magdalena #1 (trade paperback)

One confusing thing about this three-issue miniseries, is that it's a prequel to The Darkness storyline where the Magdalena concept is introduced, but they don't actually say that, you just have to figure it out. It only becomes obvious when Father Jasper shows up and meets Cardinal Innocent for the first time.
Frankly I wondered why the collection just didn't run this story first, since it's set earlier.

Issue #3

Okayyyy... in issue 1 The Magdalena is sent to investigate a possible vampire killing. In this issue the head of the vampire coven tells her that vampirism is caused by a retrovirus and that vampires don't need to kill and that the killings were accidental and then Giselle starts screaming about people like The Magdelena who hunt down vampires are the real monsters.
If vampirism is caused by an identifiable virus then why hasn't this fact been reported to medical journals around the world? If they had just let the world know the truth instead of hiding then people hunting them down when an "accident" happens would go down since they would be seen as people with a medical condition rather than mythical monsters.

This issue also reveals the truth of the Magdalena line. Jesus wasn't divine, he was a descendant of David and like various kingly lines had powers greater than mere mortals inherited by the firstborn daughters of his line. Also the religion he created was corrupted by the evil church yadda yadda *yawn*
So I guess the message is
1. Royalty really is special and the rest of us are useless peasants.
2. If you took a shot every time you encountered a "church is evil" moment in a Top Cow book you'd probably die of alcohol poisoning fairly quickly. ;-)

The Magdalena volume 2

Man, was this a breath of fresh air. We actually encounter church officials who are both intelligent and NOT evil. A stunning combination in a Top Cow book.

#1

The issue starts with the previous Magdalena (Mariella) dead.
Whether this is the first mention of it, or if it occurred in another book is not said. (And if it had happened in another book you'd think they might, at least, had a reference to where.)

This issue features a change in the established history of Magdalenas. Previously it was passed from mother to oldest daughter, but Mariella didn't have a daughter, so now it passes to another descendent of Mary Magdalene & Jesus's family line.
So now The Magdalena is like Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.

#2

The Spear of Heaven is shattered.
That is interesting since in The Magdalena/The Angelus one-shot Appalonia Franchetti used the Spear to become the Dark Queen and she had it at the end of the issue, not Mariella. So between the one shot and the second miniseries Mariella had to recover the Spear, then die.

Also this issue establishes that the Spear of Heaven is the official weapon of all The Magdalenas.
Interesting since The Darkness #16 showed a WWII Magdalena taking the Spear from Adolf Hitler with no mention of it having been the traditional weapon of the Magdalenas.

The Magdalena trade paperback

The credits for Volume 2 Issue 2 list Tom Bar-Or as both an inker and an assistant inker.

I really have to wonder why the book needed so many inkers, colorists, letterers & sometimes pencillers.

The Darkness #15
Inks: Joe Weems V; Victor Llamas; Mario Alquiza; Marco Galli
Colors: Matt Nelson; Richard Isanove; Tyson Wengler

#16
Inks: Joe Weems V; Victor Llamas; Mario Alquiza; Jonathan Sibal; Marco Galli
Colors: Matt Nelson; Richard Isanove; Tyson Wengler; Haberlin Studios

#17
Pencils: Joe Benitez; Dave Finch; Clarence Lansang; Cedric Nocon
Inks: Joe Weems V; Victor Llamas; Jonathan Livesay; Joe Benitez; Marco Galli; Whitney McFarland; Dave Wagner
Colors: Tyson Wengler; Matt Nelson; Liquid Quantum Color FX; Richard Horie; Tanya Horie

#18
Pencils: Joe Benitez; Brian Ching; Keu Cha
Inks: Joe Weems V; Jonathan Livesay; Mario Alquiza; Marco Galli
Colors: Matt Nelson; Richard Isanove; Tyson Wengler; Richard Horie; Tanya Horie

The Magdalena v1 #1
Inks: Joe Weems V; Victor Llamas; Matt Banning; Marco Galli; Chris Lui
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler

v1 #2
Pencils: Joe Benitez; Mun Kao
Inks: Joe Weems V; Billy Tan; Kevin Conrad; Marco Galli
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler

v1 #3
Pencils: Joe Benitez; Mun Kao; Brian Ching
Inks: Joe Weems V; Victor Llamas; Matt Banning; Marco Galli; Jason Metcalf; Jason Leisten; Steve Liang; Annie Skiles
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler

The Magdalena/The Angelus #1/2
Inks: Marco Alquiza; Jason Gorder; Richard Bonk; Danny Miki
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler

The Magdalena v2 #1
Inks: Matt Banning; Sal Regla; Rick Basaldua; Joe Weems V; Tom Bar-Or
Colors: Beth Sotelo; John Starr; Guy Major
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler; Martin Barnes

v2 #2
Inks: Matt Banning; Rick Basaldua; Sal Regla; Joe Weems V; Billy Tan; Tom Bar-Or
Colors: Beth Sotelo; Matt Milia
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler; Martin Barnes

v2 #3
Pencils: Eric Basaldua; Michael Choi; David Nakayama
Inks: Matt Banning; Rick Basaldua; Sal Regla; Jeff de los Santos; Mario Alquiza; Tom Bar-Or
Colors: Beth Sotelo; John Starr; Guy Major
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler; Mark Roslan

v2 #4
Inks: Matt Banning; Eric Basaldua; Jay Leisten; Jeff de los Santos; Joe Weems V; Tom Bar-Or
Colors: Beth Sotelo; John Starr; Guy Major
Letters: Robin Spehar; Dennis Heisler; Mark Roslan

Why so many people doing work that one or two people should be able to do with no problem?

Witchblade

All stories reprinted in First Born (graphic novel)

NANJAO. When Sara Pezzini discovered that she was pregnant she passed on the Witchblade to Danielle Baptiste.


Untitled First Born #2

When Danielle switches from the Witchblade to street clothes her shirt is tied underneath her breasts, but in Witchblade #110 (which preceded this) and Witchblade #111 (which follows) she wears a full shirt, not tied off at all.


Temptation Witchblade #111

Patience, the current Magdalena, says that the Spear of Destiny is passed from one generation of the Magdalena to the next.
Sounds a bit like a retcon. We saw the WWII Magdalena take the Spear from Hitler, in the Magdalena/Angelus one-shot Appolonia Frachetti used it to become the Dark Queen, and Patience's first story we were shown it was also known as the Spear of Lugh and was used by pagan males.