Witchblade #23 // Review
She’s called Aphrodite IX for a reason. There’s a whole lot of others of her. And they’re all programmed to attack. Detective Sara Pezzini and her friends might have a bit of difficulty. After all...they’ve only got just the one Aphrodite unit. Thankfully they’ve also got something a lot more powerful in Witchblade #23. Writer Marguerite Bennett continues an appealing run with Sara and her powerful magical artifact. If they can Aphrodite’s cohorts, there are going to be other challenges. The story comes to the page courtesy of artist Giuseppe Cafaro. Arif Prianto leads a coloring team on th issue that includes Felix Hidayat and Sakti Yuwono.
There’s a bigger threat. She identifies herself as “The person who employs the person who funds the person who found the person” who created Aphrodite IX. So she’s the money. That alone wouldn’t be a serious issue in a combat situation, but the woman in question happens to be ensconced in a menacing-looking mecha-inspired battle exoskeleton. So maybe they’re going to have to have a little chat with her afterall. The woman in question suggests tea of coffee for the detectives. What’s the worst that could happen?
Bennett brilliantly frames a very powerful conflict between very powerful entities. It’s the type of thing that superhero fiction is always trying to do and so often failing at so misreably. More than that...Bennett is delivering a look at the nature of truth, reality and determinism from within the confines of a very, very engaging sci-fi cyberpunk action stroy. It’s like...Philip K. Dick by way of George Lucas. Very inspiring stuff that reads through with a very deft hand. There’s no good. There’s no evil. There’s only passion, aggresssion and a whole lot of lives in the ballance.
And more than all of that, it’s beautiful. Sara’s beautiful, Aphrodite’s beautiful. The action slices across the page with its own kind of grace and beauty and yet...it still manages to feel like an incredibly ugly kind of aggression that’s lashing-out back and forth across the page. Cafaro has an explosively dynamic style that keeps the pages turning...asintense with the action as it is with the deeper emotional work that’s going into the story. All of the different elements on the page seem to be well-rendered with powerful moments that continue to deliver one of the more appealing bits of sci-fi action on the current comics rack.
Once again...it would be really, really cool if Bennet and Cafaro could also branch-out at the end of this story arc and provide Aphtodite IX with her own ongoing title. There’s no question that she hasd a great deal of appeal that could be captivating given the right momentum in the current Witchblade world. Bennett and Cafaro make a strong case for expanding the world of the series whether they’re intending to do so or not. There’s a strong connection between Sara and Aphrodite, but it would be cool of Aphrodite could get her own ongoing spotlight.
