WITCHBLADE VOLUME 7

(2010)

written by Ron Marz

art by Stjepan Šejić

published by Top Cow Productions

ISBN-10: 1607060582

ISBN-13: 978-1607060581

reviewed by Adam Armstrong

6.16.10

Airbrushing and police cover-up.

A murder in Crown Heights brings Sara away from motherhood back to crime scenes. There is a very fragile racial balance between the Jewish and black denizens of Crown Heights and the murder pushes them at each other's throats. Sara finds that something supernatural is going on and dons the darker Witchblade to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile Dani tries to help a friend with the light Witchblade she accidentally kills someone and needs Sara to help her cover it up. As the two cover up the crime they get into a heated argument that is foreshadowing of the showdown between the Witchblades.

The writing and story were much better than the usual Witchblade yarn. The dialogue gets a little silly during the battles but that is a staple any more in comic books. I didn't care for the art. It's not that it wasn't good, it was. It's just that it didn't lend itself very well to sequential storytelling. The fancy Cintiq (or whatever was used) airbrushing looks cool on the covers but inside I like inking. I want comic books to look like comic books. Pencils and Inks (or wire frames in this case) should be able to tell the story without color; here I felt color dominated the story. The lack of hard lines always adds an emotional element to the art and seems to slow it down, which works against this story line.

If you're a fan, this is a must. If you new to Witchblade the quality of the writing has improved tremendously over the years:

3.5 out of 5