Witchblade #110
Written by Ron Marz
Pencils by Steve Sadowski
Inks by Kevin Nowlan
Cover by Mike Mayhew
Colors by Nathan Fairbairn
Letters by Troy Peteri
Top Cow Productions
Cover price: $2.99; On-sale: Oct. 3, 2007

I wrote a review for another Top Cow book the other day, First Born #2, and I liked it for the most part. I’d imagine that it would be very enjoyable for longtime fans of the Top Cow universe, but may not be the best thing for people who are looking to get into it. Witchblade #110 ties into the final scene of First Born #2, so you’ll want to read that first, and also watch out for spoilers here, although the cover is kind of one big spoiler. Also, if you’re looking for an issue of Witchblade, that y’know, has the Witchblade in for more than two panels, pick up a different issue.

There’s not much to talk about in terms of the plot of this issue. The Magdalena shows up and fights a mummy in some desert until she gets a call from Sara Pezzini. Unfortunately, her transportation is shot, so she’s forced to walk through the desert. In the middle, she’s greeted by the essence of the Darkness, who tries to tempt her to join his side, but she ends up rebuking him in a very harsh manner.

The issue ends with a recreation of the last scene of First Born #2, which Marvel and DC may want to look at, because it’s the same dialog just from a different angle. It probably helps that both issues were written by the same person, but I’m so sick of the Big Two reusing scenes in other books but doing them completely different. It just bugs me.

The biggest problem with this issue is that it falls into the mold of a classic bad crossover issue. It very much reminds me of the recent Tales of the Sinestro Corp: Parallax issue in that they both contain a lot of fairly redundant information and any actual new info could have been done in a few pages. There’s just not enough here for a full story. I can see the good intention that Top Cow may have had with this issue, since it is a help to new readers who may not know who the Magdalena is (I certainly didn’t), and I’m assuming she’s important to the last issue of the First Born mini. Ron Marz did a good job of establishing who she is, what her goals are, and what her powers are. There’s just not enough going on and it feels like a bit of a rip off.

Steve Sadowski does a good job, and I’ve enjoyed his work since his time on JSA. He’s a good, solid penciler with good anatomy and a good sense of story flow. The only problem is that he doesn’t have that much to do here. There’s a brief fight at the beginning but that’s over pretty quickly, and then it’s mostly walking and talking. The design for the Darkness essence is pretty boring, how many times have we seen a devil analog show up in a tailored suit. It’s passable work, but as with the whole issue, there’s not much there.

This wouldn’t be a bad issue if there was a bit more action or a bit more plot to it, but it feels like they had six pages of story and 22 pages to fill. If First Born is Top Cow jumping onto the big event bandwagon, Witchblade #110 is their answer to Marvel’s “Frontline” books. Maybe I’m just too cynical when it comes to comics these days, but the whole storyline has a “me too” feel to it, like Top Cow is just trying to make a quick buck. The underlying story is decent enough, it just seems like a knock off of someone else’s story, which is kind of how I’ve felt about most Top Cow books, so maybe I’m just not the target audience for this kind of thing. On my scale, I’d give it a 2 out of 5.