Witchblade #127

What can I say about Witchblade that I haven't already said a dozen times - the quality of both the writing and artwork mean that for me there's no better monthly read.

This issue is the third part (of six) of the War of the Witchblades story arc - and the war really kicks off this month. Early in the issue Dani visits Sara's apartment with the intention of convincing her to relinquish her half of the Witchblade - or failing that she'll forcefully take it back.

As we'd expect, Sara - who we see is not in the best of moods - makes it quite clear she's no intention of giving up the Witchblade and the discussion very quickly turns into a Witchblade-fuelled fight as - Skraash! - the two crash through a window onto the fire escape.

The battle continues on the roof of the building and, as blows are exchanged, Dani is knocked from the roof into an alleyway below. With Sara peering over the edge of the roof at Dani's lifeless body she suddenly lets out a cry of pain and we see that she's been speared by Sabine, who proclaims 'What she is ... is dead'.

Superb stuff - Witchblade has been building to this story-arc for a while now and it's certainly not disappointing. I'm already looking forward to the issue #128.

There's a choice of covers for this issue to choose from: cover A by Stjepan Sejic and cover B by Karl Waller - both beautiful so don't choose, get them both!

I always appreciate the 'previously in Witchblade' story recap page at the start of the issue - no matter how gripping a storyline is I have a bad memory and sometimes forget from one month to the next: I wish more titles included a quick reminder of where the story is at. We also get a preview of the cover from #128, a 'Sara Pezzini: Unbalanced' 1-page feature by Bryan Rountree and the usual World Moos page including this month comments from Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, writers of the forthcoming Fusion series. All this for a $2.99 cover price: how do Top Cow manage it?

The Top Cow 'reader' has the first half a dozen pages or so available to view - click here.

As always - highly recommended.

Witchblade #127, published by Top Cow, May 2009
written by Ron Marz, art by Stjepan Sejic, covers by (a) Stjepan Sejic and (b) Karl Waller

Also in my comic box this month was the Darkness/Witchblade/Angelus Trinity one-shot called Blood on the Sands: I've read it - needless to say I loved it - and will review it over the next few days.