Woman Warrior Wednesdays #9 by Kate Krimson

Witchblade: Due Process-Top Cow/Image-$3.99

3 out of 5 stars


Summary: Sara Pezzini, the bearer of the Witchblade and police detective in NYC, is trying to right the wrongful imprisonment of William Hicks, who has been in prison for 10 years. Pezzini presents evidence at Hicks’ preliminary hearing that shows that Hicks is innocent. She says that the police officers who arrested Hicks did so in order to cover up their selling of illegal drugs and their murdering of their fellow officers. The board says they need 30 days to review these facts.


Hicks gets stabbed by his cellmate. Hicks is able to kill his cellmate without living a trace because he has received powers from a monstrous demon.


Three months later Hicks is released. Pezzini tries to help him, but he doesn’t want any help from the police. The demon shows itself to Sara and she tries to kill it with the Witchblade, but that doesn’t work. The demon says since it is only a voice, it can only be killed with words. The demon’s name is Agares.


William goes to see his “brothers,” others who are under the spell of the Agares. They tell him he has to pay for the protection Agares has given him and his family by collecting souls.


A lot of people think Hicks is a skinhead, because he has a shaved head and he has a cross tattoo on his neck that has swastikas around it (this is the mark of the “brothers”). Hicks goes to see his family but they don’t want to see him because of what he has become. A few black men see him and think he is a skinhead and make a remark about turning his daughter into a prostitute when she is older. William starts shooting at them. Sara tries to stop him. Hicks and his wife get killed by the thugs. Their daughter, Rebecca, is now an orphan. Both Agares and Sara give Rebecca an option for being with a new family, but it ends without revealing her choice.


Writer (Phil Smith): The storyline is pretty gripping. The reader hopes that Hicks will defeat both his actual demon and his personal demons, but he dies before being able to overcome either of them. Reminding us that time is too limited to keep on making the same mistakes. Rebecca’s choice also being left open-ended is interesting because she could take the same path as her father, Agares’ road, or the road that he denied when offered, Sara’s road. The reader gets to picture that she made the right choice, but also has to imagine that maybe the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

One thing that did bother me however was Phil’s spelling errors in the section “The Demon Agares,” where he discusses what helped him create the character.


Illustrator (Alina Urusov): Alina’s drawings are amazing, especially the cover art, her depiction of the horrifying demon Agares, and the way she captures the actual terror Rebecca has when she witnesses both her parents being killed.

Woman Warrior Wednesdays #6 by Kate Krimson

Artifacts #1-Image Comics-$3.99

4 out of 5 Stars


Summary:


Detective Sara Pezzini, the current bearer of the Witchblade, and her partner, Gleason, catch a monster killing a priest. Many priests have been killed lately. Pezzini thinks this monster may be the killer. The monster says he is looking for the one, but this priest is not the one. Gleason takes the priest away to safety. The monster is looking for someone who escaped Hell. Pezzini kills the monster with her blade, when he attacks her.


Julie Pezzini, Sara’s sister, calls to tell Sara that she and Sara’s daughter, Hope, will be staying at the park a little longer than she originally planned. Sara says that’s okay since she’s tied up with a case. Unfortunately, it appears that a strange woman is watching Julie and Hope.


Meanwhile, a new monster finds the damned escapee, Tom Judge, who is a former priest, but Tom kills the monster with power given to him by his cross necklace. Tom apparently woke up on train in the city. He’s not sure how he got out of Hell, but he had an address on his mind during the ride. The address was that of a man simply known as The Curator. The Curator tells Tom some very important information, like Tom’s double-stacked cross necklace, The Rapture, has something to do with his miraculous escape from Hell and that The Rapture is one of 13 artifacts that when all put together means doom for Earth. Each of these artifacts is assigned to a person and luckily #13 remains hidden and unknown. Unfortunately, The Curator thinks that Tom made it out of Hell because someone is trying to collect all the artifacts.


Back at the park, the strange woman poses as a balloon saleswoman. When Julie tries to purchase one for Hope, the woman shoots Julie in the head. Her name is Aphrodite IV. She is an android programmed to kill. Aphrodite kills a green monster with a strange light beam that comes from her chest. The monster was trying to save Hope because he works for Hope’s father. After her two kills, Aphrodite walks away with Hope into the night.


Writer (Ron Marz): Marz sucks the reader in automatically, when the monster says he looking for someone who escaped from Hell. A trick that I’m sure most people wish they had. The 13 artifacts for a 13 issue miniseries probably means each will issue will give a detailed tale on the artifact and its owner. #1 gave us two artifact holders: Sara Pezzini (The Witchblade) and Tom Judge (The Rapture). One is sure to want to read the upcoming issues to find out about all the artifacts, especially the mysterious #13.


Illustrator (Michael Broussard): His monsters are scary. His depiction of Aphrodite IV as a goth clown android interesting and yet still fits the character. He gives the reader a glance of the artifacts and their owners that definitely makes the reader want to pick up issue 2.