Artifacts #7 – Review
Written by: Ron Marz
Art by: Whilce Portacio (pencils) and Joe Weems (inks)
Colours by: Sunny Gho
Letters by: Troy Peteri
Published by: Top Cow
There have been six issues of Artifacts so far and six more will follow this one, so here we are slap bang in the middle of Top Cow’s epic event series. It is surely only fitting then that this issue felt like a mid-series lull.
The big fight between Cyberforce, the bearers and Aphrodite is over, leaving the characters with little else to do other than regroup. There is a lot of weird flirting and hit and miss humour as the bearers (the ones that are trying to stop the destruction of the universe) gather information from the defeated Aphrodite.
The story also checks in on the mysterious Survivor, revealing something which I presume was quite big, but being a relatively new reader to the Top Cow universe, it washed over me.
The highlight for me was The Darkness and his minions. They were the only stand out characters in this issue, managing to stay entertaining and funny in contrast to quite a drab chapter.
The art has quite a harsh line and ink style, which can work very well in some places, while also feeling out of place. I felt that The Darkness, Finn, the priest and Sara Pezzini all looked great; as did the small sequence featuring Ji. Other characters however, like Witchblade, didn’t look as good, the armour looked strange and quite different to the way Witchblade’s armour looks in her own title. But overall, the book is done to a very high standard.
Many big event series have low points, especially near the middle, so it was expected that this would happen with Artifacts as well. There is still a long way to go left in this series and at this point it is hard to know where it is heading; I just hope that there is enough worthwhile story to be told in the second half.
5/10
