This Week In Spandex – Artifacts #13
Do you remember that great universe spanning crossover that allowed a publisher to reboot all of its books? You know, the one that mattered. It wasn’t Infinite Crisis. That was partially undone by Final Crisis and the New 52. And let’s be honest, Flashpoint started strong, but its finish was less than spectacular. House of M was good, and then Marvel realized it had written itself into a corner and pretty much ignored the whole “No More Mutants” for several years. The mega crossover that is simply the best one to come across in years is Top Cow’s Artifacts. Which is why the book I had to review this week is…
Artifacts #13
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Dale Keown
Company: Top Cow Productions
Within the Top Cow Universe exist artifacts that contain great power. The two artifacts that readers are most familiar with are the Witchblade and The Darkness (The Witchblade had its own show and The Darkness has had two videogames). Alone, the eleven other artifacts grant users incredible power; when together, they have the power to rewrite reality. Artifacts, in short, is the story of The Survivor gathering the artifacts so that he can re-start reality and recreate his universe again.
While the main narrative thrust of this story was about saving the universe from destruction, only Ron Marz could still make the emotional bonds between Sara Pezzini (The Witchblade bearer), Jackie Estacado (The Darkness host), and their daughter Hope, the center piece of this story. It’s a reminder that Ron Marz is one of the few comic book writers that can place a universe in jeopardy, but still make you care about a fractured family.
Artifacts #13 is the conclusion to this storyline and it works on every level. Pezzini gets to be the hero by sacrificing her daughter for the good of the universe, Estacado – in the new reality – is able to have everything he ever wanted (including revenge against The Survivor), and all of the characters have little moments that hint as to how they were affected and how they are set up in the new status quo.
What I specifically like about Artifacts is that there is a clear emotional echo present in the current lives of all these characters. They may not remember what specifically happened, but there is sense that as Artifacts jumps from being a mini-series to an ongoing, we will see how they have been affected by this Universe reboot.
On top of Marz’s writing, Dale Keown nailed every panel on this page. The facial expression conveying Pezzini heartbreak and Estacado’s rage were fantastic. Specifically, the page in which Estacado goes full Darkness and kills the Curator/Survivor was amazing and needs to be turned into a statue. Also, the idea of restarting a universe has to be difficult to depicted because it is such an abstract idea. Yet, Keown approached with such effective simplicity that I want to see other writers throw weird ideas at him just to see how well he does.
(My only regret about this series is that it has finished up at a point on the calendar that prevented me from giving out the collected edition as a Christmas gift. In my opinion, a story of this quality should have finished up by August so that I could order the collected edition by November.)
Overall, Artifacts has been a perfect self-contained miniseries and it is one that I think everyone should purchase. Everything you need to know about characters is included as a backup in one of the issues and each chapter provides some of the best recaps in the business. Top Cow, through Image Comics, is lucky if it gets over 7% of the comic book market. Artifacts is another example of why Top Cow deserves a larger share of the pie.
Remember to follow me on twitter @NicholasYanes
And to follow Scifipulse on Twitter @SciFiPulse and on facebook.
