Top Cow’s answer to events like House of M, Civil War or Identity Crisis manages to keep up the pace. If I’m honest I don’t know a whole lot about the Top Cow universe bar Sarah Pezzini and Jackie Estacado. However the other characters are pretty interesting and all seem to have a certain hard ass coolness about them.
The main focus of this issue is the bad guys getting their team together and the good guys trying to make sense of things. There’s an interesting interplay and connectedness between all the characters. For example the demons that attack the hero’s are not unlike Jackie’s own. Que a nice quip from the Darkness. As I’ve said I’m not very aware of the Top Cow universe but Jackie Estacado is definitely the most entertaining in the series so far. His piece at the start of issue two was extremely awesome.
The issue reads rather like a montage scene from a film. We can see the forces of power gearing up to face one another in brief exchanges with each other. There’s plenty of nice action scenes along the way and all in all it’s a pretty enjoyable read from cover to cover. There’s also a good cliff hanger at the end. To be fair that’s what this series has been giving consistently since the start. Well constructed storylines that keep the reader interested. If you’ve enjoyed reading issue’s 1 and 2 then there’s no question that you’ll enjoy issue 3.
The writing is till tight and the art is still very impressive. Even the covers are delivering consistently.
I’ve read the first four issues of Artifacts so far. The only problem I had with the book was that I didn’t know the characters well enough which is, of course, my fault and not Top Cow’s. If you’ve enjoyed what’s come so far you should give this a shot, it’s shaping up to be a massive event…
8/10
Check out the preview http://comicbuzz.com/artifacts-3-preview
