Witchblade #1 Review

"I ain't afraida no ghost"

Written by: Caitlin Kittredge

Art by: Roberta Ingranata and Bryan Valenza

Publisher: Image Comics

Release Date: 6 December 2017

Reviewed by: Andrew McAvoy

 

The spirit world that exists alongside the physical one is the theme to be explored in this book. Alex Underwood is the central character, who gets a second chance at life but it comes at a high cost. Okay, so Halloween is over, but this book has lots of nice New York snowy scenes in it. So it'll get you in the Christmas Spirits...get it? Christmas...Spirits...Ghosts....nobody? Oh well, enough of the bad jokes and let's see what this spook...I mean book...has in store for us.

Let's start off by praising the wonderful art in this book. It really is fine work. It helps with a book that is to feature the paranormal that it really has an authentic representation of real life. There is a sublime hue of greens, greys and blues, that contrast dramatically with the blood red when it appears, as well as Alex's blond hair and ice blue eyes which give her a striking appearance.

The book, despite its supernatural theme is very urban, very city-orientated. It has a tangible atmosphere of city life. The start of the book gives us a mysterious scene of nightmares experienced by Alex, but after that it rolls out like the lawyer bits of an episode of Law and Order. As we hear that Alex (a lawyer) is about to accompany a domestic abuse victim to her car, we are suddenly whisked away to scenes of Alex lying in her bloodstained apartment. 

Next we get a series of flashbacks from Alex's life, before she wakes up again. She tells herself the blood and the nightmare images were just that, a nightmare. It soon transpires however that this is a living nightmare, as Alex starts to bleed from the eyes and hear voices. The story gets much stranger from that point and it is clear we are accompanying Alex on the first steps of a very interesting journey.

Bits and Pieces:

This book has a good story, although I have to confess that the concept was lost on me on first read and it was only second time round that I was able to work out what had happened. Some of the time-jumps aren't fully explained so there is a bit of flicking back and forth to see if you have followed the story points correctly. So a little bit of neatening up could have helped the story flow. Aside from that, by the end of the book I was intrigued, and bedazzled by some amazing artwork.

7/10