The Witchblade: Samhain Special #1 // Review
It’s the evening of Halloween. It's generally a time most people celebrate. However, there are those who aren't allowed to celebrate because they're on the job. And some of these people have one of the most difficult jobs on one of the most difficult nights of the year. They are the police. Detective Sara Pezzini isn't just on the police force, though. She's got other things going on. They come to haunt her on Halloween in The Witchblade: Samhain Special #1. Three creative teams tell three different connected stories which relates to three different stories from three different eras. Writer Matt Hawkins and Ryan Cady tell a story set in the dark ages with artist Pat Boutin. Ryan Cady tells a story set in the Renaissance with artist Laura Braga. Marc Silverstri and Ryan Cady round-out the anthology with a story set in WWII brought to page and panel by Pat Boutin. Color comes to the page courtesy of Gibran Ferdian.
Sara is being visited by a ghost. (Just one ghost. It's the wrong time of year for three.) The ghost in question had wielded the magical weapon of the Witchblade sometime ago. This is the time of year when the barriers is between this world and the afterlife are that much more permeable. So it makes sense that someone wheeling such a powerful magical artifact would get visited by a ghost telling stories.
Hawkins and Cady’s opening story establishes of kind of a fun atmosphere for the anthology. Sara seems quietly reverent towards the ghost that she's being visited by. And so the stories that ensue feel like they're being delivered to both the main character of the franchise and the readers at the same time, which is kind of a cool effect. Foreign away the most interesting one is the one set during World War II. It's just really cool to see someone wielding Witchblade against the Nazis. The fact that the story actually has some depth beyond that is just an added extra.
Boutin’s art in the final story is well worth the price of the whole Antiqology. In light of recent movements towards fascism in the US, it's just kind of cathartic to see a magical force just completely wiping out a whole bunch of fascist soldiers. The horror in that final story is also quite gruesome. And the overall atmosphere of a story set in Leningrad feels very immersive. The color is consistently good throughout the issue. Ferdian find a nice balance between the darkness of Halloween and the brighter colors of spectral magic that flow across the page.
It may just be a brief stop over before exploring further adventures in the current iteration of Witchblade, but it's a lot of fun to see stories set in alternate errors featuring the same artifact. The franchise is a perfect fit for Halloween. And special double sized issue featuring work by a few different people feels like an extra added celebration for those who have been following the latest exploits of the current incarnation of detective Sara Pezzini.
