Witchblade #3 // Review
Sea Pezzini is cleaning up her apartment. It’s kind of a superficial gesture given how messed-up everything seems to be for her personally and professionally. On top of it all, she’s in way over her head with this strangely dangerous thing that has attached itself to her wrist in Witchblade #3. Writer Margueritte Bennett continues a meticulous re-imagining of an enduring indie comics hero in an issue that is brought to page and panel by artist Giuseppe Caffaro and colorist Arif Prianto. Bennett weighs the issue pretty heavily on the edge of a police procedural as the magic and horror rest around the edges.
Sara has been undercover for a long time. She knows how to navigate some pretty big lid-or-death secrets, but she really has no idea at all what it is that might have attached itself to her wrist. It’s come kind of a weapon and there’s no telling what it’s capable of. So she’s going to have to be really cautious about what she’s telling other people. She shows the thing to a couple of friends who are experts. At least the thing isn’t throwing-out any dangerous radiation. Things could get pretty horrifying for everyone in Sara’s periphery as her investigation brings her into contact with those responsible for her father’s death.
Bennett nestles the third issue very deeply into the machinery of a very complicated and intricate extended ensemble of characters Sara Isn’t spending nearly enough time with any one of them for Bennett to have much of a chance to explore them in any great detail. Bennett is really setting the stage for something massive. It’s difficult to imagine her spending quite enough time with any one member of the ensemble. It IS cool to get some feel for the complexity of Sara’s life as the mysterious magical artifact is lowered into her life.
Caffaro has quite a few different characters to introduce in this particular issue. It’s an interesting opportunity for an artist to simply define a whole bunch of different characters visually. In an amidst at all,Sara maintains the gracefully, haggard look of an officer, who seems to be running into many different problems from all sides of her life. And she manages to seem heroic without seeming grandiose. This is quite an accomplishment given the fact that she’s carrying a weapon that could be pretty devastating against just about any enemy. There’s a little bit of action here, but for the most part Caffaro is given the opportunity to deliver a hell of a lot of mood to the page.
It’s nice to see Bennett slowly moving-in to the series. The time that she’s taking in setting up the full ensemble in this particular issue suggests a desire to really hang out with. Pezzini for the long-haul. It’s always nice to see a writer of these caliber to say that she really just wants to hang out with one character for a long time. Other two seem to work well together. It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
