Here is is, folks, Artifacts #1, the first issue of the big cross-over event of the Top Cow universe, just now out at your local comic shop. And is it ever off to a bang. In several of the Top Cow series, we’ve been hearing about the 13 artifacts and how dangerous it would be to bring them all together. (Potentially, you know, the end of the world.) Some of the artifact holders are actively working toward that. Others are, of course, working against it, not wanting to be a party to Armageddon. But when Tom Judge is released from Hell bearing the Rapture, one of the 13, it begins to look like fate (or some power like it) is at work, bringing them together.

We open in New York with Sara Pezzini, the bearer of the Witchblade, fighting a minion of hell who is killing priests, looking for one in specific, the aforementioned Tom Judge.

With Norse history and mythology as a base, BERSERKER explores the idea of seemingly normal, modern day human beings transforming into merciless killing machines, unable to stop themselves from destroying anyone in their vicinity. They have no knowledge of what’s happening as it occurs, but they are left to deal with the aftermath. Milo Ventimiglia of HEROES is attached to the project.

This was a very short preview (13 pages) but it’s also a good starting point for the series. In BERSERKER’s first panels we’re introduced to Farris, a soldier that was stationed in Afghanistan and is suffering from PTSD.

The Event FIVE Years in the Making!

Thirteen mystical Artifacts, including the Witchblade, the Darkness and others, guide the fate of the Top Cow Universe. For centuries, it’s been whispered that bringing together all 13 Artifacts would herald mankind’s destruction. But a mysterious figure has been manipulating events, laying plans to put Armageddon into motion. The final phase begins here, with the abduction of Hope, the daughter of Sara Pezzini and Jackie Estacado. What ensues will remake the entirety of the Top Cow Universe, from the Witchblade and the Darkness, to the Angelus, Magdalena, and countless others. Artifacts #1 is the perfect place for faithful readers to see their loyalty pay off, and for new readers to experience the Top Cow Universe.

Flames Rising is pleased to present several preview pages from this new series by Top Cow Productions.

The Return of Randy Queen’s Darkchylde!

A new armor for Jackie Estacado, the bearer of The Darkness, and a new beginning for Ariel Chylde, the girl who can become creatures from her nightmares! Jackie intercepts a physic plea for help, and frees Ariel from a self imposed, seven-year exile. But what happens when these fan favorite monster makers encounter a new threat that can create anything? Guest starring Witchblade!

Also includes a bonus 8 page never-before-seen preview of Starfall, the highly anticipated sci-fi horror title from Randy and Sarah Queen!

It’s hard to tell, at first, where Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box starts. The cover says it’s #1 in the series. But it looks like it has back story, or is just jumping right into the middle of the action. In the opening, we learn that Gloriana has the Ember Stone, which can allow her to turn into a creature of fire, and possibly a dragon. Finn has the Glacier Stone, which can turn him into an ice giant. Gloriana wants to unite the 13 artifacts; Finn’s duty as the Glacier Stone keeper is to stop her. But what are the thirteen artifacts? One of them appears to be Pandora’s Box, which is being sought after by a cult known as the Disciples of Adam.

With a little web research, it’s revealed that three of those other 13 artifacts are the Trinity: the Witchblade, the Angelus, and the Darkness.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an interview with Filip Sablik, publisher from Top Cow Productions, Inc. In this round of questions, we offer you an inside look into this unique comic book company by discussing WANTED, their upcoming ARTIFACTS series and more!

How has the movie WANTED changed your visibility as a comic book company?

Top Cow has several series that expand the Witchblade universe, and over the summer, they sent me a preview of a one-shot: Trinity: Blood on Sands. It depicts a 14th century tale of the battle between the Darkness and the Angelus, balanced, of course, by the bearer of the Witchblade. Written by Philip W. Smith II and featuring art by Sheldon Mitchell, Admira Wijaya, and Tom Grindberg (some of whom team with other artists for inks and colors), Trinity deepens the Witchblade mythology a little bit in twenty-five pages and three short-story like episodes. As a stand alone, however, it would do little to draw an audience into the series. Using the current mythology in which the Witchblade can be broken into two, the one-shot features a pair of siblings who share the Witchblade, one cruel and dark and the other good and loving, a trope which, when pitted against the Witchblade storyline during the time it came out, seems too simplistic.

We are back from C2E2, held in Chicago’s gorgeous McCormick Center, and we have quite a bit we’d like to share with you. In this post, we’ll highlight a few dark fantasy, science fiction and horror comics and relay news about publishers.

Several publishers, including Zenoscope Entertainment, were offering a title or two set in their version of Wonderland. Zenoscope, who will also be producing the CHARMED comic, specializes in dark fantasy comics as seen through their GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES line. So if you like Alice, you may want to check out their series of different WONDERLAND comics.

I have to say that teaser comics are just unfair. When I got a hold of Tracker: First Look (from the publisher, in pdf format) I saw that it was a convention exclusive, and that it didn’t have its own number on it, but it didn’t occur to me that this meant I’d be getting a sneak peak into something I might not be seeing more of. And man oh man, does Tracker look like it’s going to be a series to follow.

In the preview, Alex O’Roarke is discovered as the single survivor of a massacre on a bus. Found by his FBI agent partner Jezebel Kendall, Alex should be dead — he’s been shredded and has suffered far too many wounds to still be breathing.

A new three-part arc is launching on Witchblade, featuring the assassin who (apparently) attacked Sara Pezzini earlier in the series: Aphrodite IV. The green-haired, probably mechanical assassin is hunting a fleeing scientist for a shadowy organization, and after a witness sees her get shot by a space ship that then disappears, Special Cases is called in to investigate. Sara and Gleason hit a lot of dead ends with their attempts to figure out either the weaponry or where their quarry may have gone until Sara recalls a mysterious contact: Argent. After a chatty phone call in which much is revealed (except for Argent’s real identity), Sara decides to go solo and investigate on some leads without calling to let Gleason know where she’s headed.

I have to say that of the tie-ins to the Witchblade universe, the title I was least excited about was The Darkness. I’m not really a fan of following around the bad guy, and it seems like Jackie Estacado’s whole job, being the Darkness incarnate and the head of a mob family, is all about being the bad guy. So I acknowledge that I wasn’t enthusiastic about picking up The Darkness/Pitt #3 when it was sent by the publisher as a pdf download.

I’m happy to say, however, that the series really deserves a chance, in large part due to the balancing act between The Darkness and Pitt, two series that have come together for this continuing crossover.

Back with another overdue review of Witchblade (provided for review by the publisher in pdf format). Usually I don’t comment on the alternate covers (many of them have way too much cleavage for me to appreciate), but I have to say that Chris Bachalo’s Cover B is brilliant for this issue — it’s an almost Disnified version of Sara wearing very little Witchblade armor, but she’s just so cute that her scantily clad bod seems secondary to the hair and earrings being featured. None of the covers are particularly relevant to the content inside in this issue, so the cute factor goes a long way.

Sejic and Marz continue their excellent work in issue #131, which is really a wrap-up to the “War of the Witchblades” story line. Poor Julie’s been left out in the cold, not knowing about Sara’s secret, paranormal life.

It makes a lot of sense for a small press like Top Cow, which has a lot of great titles on the market, to put everything together into an art book and showcase some of their best pieces. In The Art of Top Cow preview that I received from the publisher, I got to see thirty images of the more than 300 pages that will appear in the final book. Two of them, unfortunately, were nearly naked images of Sara Pezzini of Witchblade that look more like pinups than gallery images; another is a Top Cow poster that features three of the Top Cow women in all their busty glory. Hopefully those three images are not representative of a large portion of the included art (though certainly part of Top Cow’s target audience will surely appreciate them — just not my part of the market share!). In the preview, some of the pieces are really quite excellent, and I’ll highlight some of them quickly here.

As you could tell from my reviews of the first half of the “War of the Witchblades” arc, back in May, I was loving them. Matt would send me a new PDF from the publisher, and I’d eagerly open it to see the next installment.

Except when I didn’t. That’s right, I completely neglected to download Witchblade #128. Rather than miss the fourth issue in the saga after the download period expired, I did what any self-respecting comics reader (and reviewer) would do — I waited for it to arrive at my friendly local comic shop (FLCS) and bought that sucker. This was a good choice, because without issue #128, the rest of the story wouldn’t have come together so well. Since they’ve been on the shelves for awhile now, I thought I’d review the rest of the “War of the Witchblades” arc, and recommend that you all keep an eye out at your local FLCS for a trade collecting these six issues.

A Tale of The Darkness!

Go back to the turn of the 20th Century and read a tale of lost love, the depravity of man and powers beyond our understanding in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft!

Salvador Gomes is a broken man. He has lost his beautiful wife and young daughter in a fire and now spends restless days and sleepless nights looking for solace. In desperation, he makes a bargain with “The Shadow God,” but every bargain has its price…

Flames Rising is pleased to offer our readers a five page preview of The Darkness: Shadows & Flame one-shot, which will arrive in stores this Wednesday, January 20.

When I said that the “War of the Witchblades” arc might be a good place to start reading Witchblade, I was wrong.

It’s a great place to start reading Witchblade.

Now that we’re in the third issue of the arc, things are really starting to come together. The Angelus Force still hasn’t picked a host, but we see that one of the Angelus is really jonesing to be the one who will become the Angelus incarnate. But while this Angelus is the leader of the Angelus warriors — winged creatures that are similar to humans but with supernatural gifts — she’s not what you’d call a role model for the forces of good. She shows no pity, no mercy, and no patience — instead, she seems so arrogant and certain that she is destined to be the host to the Angelus that it’s certain to pass her by for someone more humble.

Top Cow Productions, Inc. proudly announced today the crossover of Cyberforce and Hunter-Killer. Slated for a July 2009 release, Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #1 is the first in a six issue limited series that pits each team against the other in a conflict. The event follows hot on the heels of the recent events of Fusion, which crossed Cyberforce and Hunter-Killer against Marvel Comics’ Avengers and Thunderbolts.

Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #1 is written by Mark Waid, who co-created Hunter-Killer with Top Cow CEO and founder Marc Silvestri in 2005. Artistic duties will be performed by Kenneth Rocafort, (Madame Mirage, Pilot Season: The Core) who drew the final four issues of the initial Hunter-Killer season.

WARNING: This review contains spoilers. If you’re going to read the story arc, read my review of Witchblade 125 and go pick up the series yourself! If you don’t mind being spoiled, continue on ahead.

Witchblade 126 starts to explain a bunch of the questions that began in Witchblade 125. Why does the Angelus force want to kill Sara? Who is the mysterious guy who seems to be connected to the Darkness, and to Sara? As it turns out, when the Witchblade spit, it had to split along the same axis it was created to balance: darkness and light. Sara in issue 126 reveals just how far toward the Darkness she has fallen, while Dani realizes she has to take the Witchblade away from Sara for balance to be restored (and so that Sara doesn’t destroy herself and everyone she cares about).

Coming into the middle of a story is always tough, even in comics. The intro at the beginning of most ongoing series catches readers up – but only if they already have a basic idea of the mythology. The delightful thing about Witchblade #125 is that, even with only half of an idea about what’s going on in the series (I’ve read an earlier volume and caught a Free Comic Book Day promo last year), the art work was so hyper-realistic and intriguing that I was drawn into the characters regardless of the plot.

Since I tend to read novels and comics predominantly for story and character, the art pulling me in so dramatically is a big deal for me. I haven’t seen this style before, and Stjepan Sejic (if he is also the colorist) is doing tremendous work with lighting, making some of his images look almost Final Fantasy realistic.

Top Cow Productions, Inc. proudly announced today that the company’s flagship title, Witchblade, will reach issue #125 in March 2009, and the publisher will celebrate this landmark event with an oversized issue including a bonus story.

Witchblade #125 brings the series’ critically acclaimed team of writer Ron Marz and artist Stjepan Sejic together to begin the six-part story arc “War of the Witchblades” which the publishers note is the biggest and most ambitious plot they’ve attempted with their flagship character. Following the events of 2007’s First Born, the Witchblade was split into two halves and the responsibilities split between long time bearer Sara Pezzini and newcomer Danielle Baptiste. Up to this point, Sara and Dani have worked together and developed a sisterly relationship, but that will all change beginning in issue #125.