Top Cow Productions/Image Comics 2017
Written by Tini Howard & Ryan Cady
Illustrated by Christian DiBari
Coloured by Mike Spicer
Lettered by Troy Peteri
The Magdalena has always defended the world from demonic evil, empowered by the blood of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene in her veins. But when a brush with death leaves her gravely wounded, Patience decides to seek out the next in the bloodline and train her replacement. The replacement, meanwhile, is having enough trouble with finding her purpose even without the whole holy-warrior gig.
If there’s one thing that folks can understand about the Magdalena is that she’s a lot like Buffy. One chosen, in this instance by bloodline, to fight against the hordes of hell and keep the world safe. So Patience faces more demons than vampires but it’s still pretty much the same and as we’ve seen over the years changing the lead character is never an easy feat so it will be interesting to see how Patience comes to terms with training her replacement and how fans react. Personally if it’s good for the story i’m all for it though let’s face it the Witchblade wasn’t the same series when they did that. Also a worldwide crisis of faith that makes her less powerful and more vulnerable to being beaten well that’s just a great story concept idea period.
I mean let’s face it what do the people believe anymore? It’s surely not God’s teachings I mean we see bigotry, hatred and prejudice touted from those who claim his greatness and last I checked he never taught those lessons. So does the hypocrisy in the world today lend itself to demons rising from below to reap what humans have sown? I don’t know and not entirely sure if that’s what the boys are planning but regardless what they’ve brought here will make the reader think and look harder at how this could be happening for Patience. Completely engrossing from all aspects of the storytelling and there’s no escaping that.
The work that Christian and Mike are doing on the interiors here is pretty solid. It has this very stylised look and feel to it that changes the way we see this world. It’s got a nice subtlety to it that can be appreciated and that still allows itself to have the attention to detail which we’ve come to expect when reading her adventures. The use of backgrounds could be stronger to really emphasize what’s going on around the characters instead of relying upon the colouring to do that.
If this is going to be a story about the transition of the title of Magdalena it’s going to be a process and I think that this is actually the smartest way to do it. We’ve still got our beloved lead and a new candidate to see grow into the role by her side. There’s always the possibility that she doesn’t succeed and dies too soon or that Patience isn’t able to finish her training but all in all the way things have been set-up here is extremely well done.
So the Church’s mightiest warrior is back and seeking to train the next in line but what’s really happening in the world and what’s at stake for the Magdalena’s future is anyone’s guess.