What do you think?
Rate this book
Artifacts #2
Artifacts, Volume 2
Separately, thirteen mystical Artifacts will guide the fate of the Universe. Together, thirteen Artifacts will end the Universe! When a mysterious antagonist kidnaps Hope, the daughter of Sara Pezzini and Jackie Estacado, Armageddon is put into motion! Starring virtually every character in the Top Cow Universe, this is a series for diehard fans and new readers alike. The second chapter brings to a head the primal conflict of faith versus technology when characters from Cyberforce enter the stage! Written by Top Cow Universe architect Ron Marz (Witchblade, Magdalena) and featuring art by Whilce Portacio (Uncanny X-Men, The Darkness), this volume collects Artifacts #5-8 along with character profiles, a beautiful cover gallery, behind-the-scenes extras, and much more!
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 10, 2011
About the author
Ron Marz
1,590 books127 followersMarz is well known for his work on Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, as well as the Marvel vs DC crossover and Batman/Aliens. He also worked on the CrossGen Comics series Scion, Mystic, Sojourn, and The Path. At Dark Horse Comics he created Samurai: Heaven and Earth and various Star Wars comics. He has also done work for Devil’s Due Publishing’s Aftermath line, namely Blade of Kumori. In 1995, he had a brief run on XO-Manowar, for Valiant Comics.
Marz’s more recent works includes a number of Top Cow books including Witchblade and a Cyberforce relaunch. For DC Comics, he has written Ion, a 12 part comic book miniseries that followed the Kyle Rayner character after the One Year Later event, and Tales of the Sinistro Corps Presents: Parallax and Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents: Ion, two one-shot tie-ins to the Green Lantern crossover, The Sinestro Corps War.
His current creator owned projects include “Dragon Prince” (Top Cow) and “Samurai : Heaven and Earth” (Dark Horse).
Photo by Luigi Novi.
Marz’s more recent works includes a number of Top Cow books including Witchblade and a Cyberforce relaunch. For DC Comics, he has written Ion, a 12 part comic book miniseries that followed the Kyle Rayner character after the One Year Later event, and Tales of the Sinistro Corps Presents: Parallax and Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents: Ion, two one-shot tie-ins to the Green Lantern crossover, The Sinestro Corps War.
His current creator owned projects include “Dragon Prince” (Top Cow) and “Samurai : Heaven and Earth” (Dark Horse).
Photo by Luigi Novi.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 3, 2012
The book series continues on, but they changed artists and that really hurt the book in my opinion.
February 3, 2019
A big clusterfight that doesn’t always make much sense, like when Aphrodite lV can take on a slew of heroes single handed, but then an army of her duplicates are much more easily dealt with. Still, I enjoyed the banter of Cyberforce and lots of things go boom. I still get tired of the explanations, which again were printed twice, but I guess it makes sense. It’s hard to keep everyone straight.
Mildly entertaining mishmash.
I wish The Magdalena would get a chance to do something. Yeah, I don’t like her origin story (descendant of Christ super babe), but still, she actually cares about God. I don’t know, it’s nice to have a positive character with some form of faith in the book, so I wish she got to do something instead of constantly getting trounced.
Mildly entertaining mishmash.
I wish The Magdalena would get a chance to do something. Yeah, I don’t like her origin story (descendant of Christ super babe), but still, she actually cares about God. I don’t know, it’s nice to have a positive character with some form of faith in the book, so I wish she got to do something instead of constantly getting trounced.
July 7, 2020
I was disappointed with the change of artist on this one and it really just turned into a slugfest with a bunch of characters I'm not all that familiar with so I often couldn't tell what was going on. I did like the plot but not sure if I'll continue with this series.
May 1, 2020
Incomprehensible.
December 20, 2022
Please see my review for the first volume of this series.
December 24, 2022
Story was a bit manic but the bonus stories, thankfully cleared up some confusion.
September 21, 2012
You can find the full review over at The Founding Fields:
http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/10/...
“The end of the world nears and the heroes and villains are going all-out against each other as Ron Marz maintains top form from the first volume.”
When I reviewed Artifacts Volume 1 in my last roundup, I was all praise for him. The Top Cow universe has a very different feel and aesthetic than the major universes of DC and Marvel, both of which Ron captured extremely well in his standout Civil War-style series. Or Infinite Crisis, to a degree. In this second collection of the series (issues #5-8), Ron delves more into why things are happening as they are and we get a lot more backstory this time around as well. The mysterious player who is pulling Aphrodite’s strings and has had Sara Pezzini’s daughter kidnapped is revealed for the first time as he ups the ante by having his “champion” bring in another team of heroes into the mix, the Cyber Force. This changes the playing field a great deal as Aphrodite tells the members of Cyber Force that Sara and her allies are intent on bringing about the end of the world. The volume is therefore largely concerned with the Cyber Force going head-to-head against the Witchblade, The Darkness, Magdalena and other good guys. More than the previous issue, this volume is just no-holds-barred action, up close and personal. The only thing I didn’t like about the collection was that Aphrodite wasn’t that convincing for me in the final tally of things. What I saw as the promise from Volume 1 didn’t carry forward all that much in Volume 2.
The artwork is top-notch once again and Artifacts Volume 2 is just as beautiful a collection as Volume 1. The artwork lends Ron’s script the feel of an epic saga rather than being just a comic book(s). I’ve read several more comics series in various IPs since I read Volume 2 and compared against them, the art here still stands out easily. As with the script, its the action scenes that are lavished the most attention which is fitting, since they are the focus of the entire book! Plus the covers. Dynamic, thoughtful, secretive.
Rating: 9/10
http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/10/...
“The end of the world nears and the heroes and villains are going all-out against each other as Ron Marz maintains top form from the first volume.”
When I reviewed Artifacts Volume 1 in my last roundup, I was all praise for him. The Top Cow universe has a very different feel and aesthetic than the major universes of DC and Marvel, both of which Ron captured extremely well in his standout Civil War-style series. Or Infinite Crisis, to a degree. In this second collection of the series (issues #5-8), Ron delves more into why things are happening as they are and we get a lot more backstory this time around as well. The mysterious player who is pulling Aphrodite’s strings and has had Sara Pezzini’s daughter kidnapped is revealed for the first time as he ups the ante by having his “champion” bring in another team of heroes into the mix, the Cyber Force. This changes the playing field a great deal as Aphrodite tells the members of Cyber Force that Sara and her allies are intent on bringing about the end of the world. The volume is therefore largely concerned with the Cyber Force going head-to-head against the Witchblade, The Darkness, Magdalena and other good guys. More than the previous issue, this volume is just no-holds-barred action, up close and personal. The only thing I didn’t like about the collection was that Aphrodite wasn’t that convincing for me in the final tally of things. What I saw as the promise from Volume 1 didn’t carry forward all that much in Volume 2.
The artwork is top-notch once again and Artifacts Volume 2 is just as beautiful a collection as Volume 1. The artwork lends Ron’s script the feel of an epic saga rather than being just a comic book(s). I’ve read several more comics series in various IPs since I read Volume 2 and compared against them, the art here still stands out easily. As with the script, its the action scenes that are lavished the most attention which is fitting, since they are the focus of the entire book! Plus the covers. Dynamic, thoughtful, secretive.
Rating: 9/10
February 21, 2012
Top Cow, to me, has always been a universe divided. On one side there are the more lore-and-legend based titled such as Witchblade, The Darkness and their spin-off characters Magdalena and Angelus. On the other side are the more mecha-oriented titles such as Cyberforce, Aphrodite IX ( or IV, as it is now) and, I am assuming, Hunter-Killer.
My reading preference has always leaned towards the former. I’ve been a reader of the Darkness since issue 1 and have followed Witchblade for at least 75% of its run, and read most of the series containing The Angelus, the Magdalena, Universe, and etc. The mecha titles, on the other hand, are very much not my thing, which is a large part of the reason I found this arc such a stark disappointment from its predecessor.
Let me also say, I fully get what Top Cow is doing with Artifacts. To do a company-wide crossover event one must, of course, include titles and characters from the entire company. But the contrast between the mecha and non-mecha factions is, to me, a little too stark. I don’t think these universes were meant to co-exist and intermingle with one another.
Though we do get some excellent action sequences out of the new arrivals, the story, for me, would have been better served by keeping the characters from the first four issues front and center. I am hoping that Jackie, Sara, Dani and Tom return to prominence in the final arc, and that the storyshifts back in that direction. I am hoping this volume was the obligatory “action-packed interlude.”
The story in these issues takes a backseat to all that action, and all the action does yield some truly extraordinary artwork. Some of the best comes in issue 8 when a draconic Glori faces off with the Magdalena on a balcony. The coloring is superb, and I found myself wishing the scene was a 2-page spread. And the final page of the arc, featuring Jackie and Sara, is both an unexpected turn in this storyline and something I’ve been wanting to happen for years.
I look forward to seeing how the final five issues of the series will wrap everything up.
My reading preference has always leaned towards the former. I’ve been a reader of the Darkness since issue 1 and have followed Witchblade for at least 75% of its run, and read most of the series containing The Angelus, the Magdalena, Universe, and etc. The mecha titles, on the other hand, are very much not my thing, which is a large part of the reason I found this arc such a stark disappointment from its predecessor.
Let me also say, I fully get what Top Cow is doing with Artifacts. To do a company-wide crossover event one must, of course, include titles and characters from the entire company. But the contrast between the mecha and non-mecha factions is, to me, a little too stark. I don’t think these universes were meant to co-exist and intermingle with one another.
Though we do get some excellent action sequences out of the new arrivals, the story, for me, would have been better served by keeping the characters from the first four issues front and center. I am hoping that Jackie, Sara, Dani and Tom return to prominence in the final arc, and that the storyshifts back in that direction. I am hoping this volume was the obligatory “action-packed interlude.”
The story in these issues takes a backseat to all that action, and all the action does yield some truly extraordinary artwork. Some of the best comes in issue 8 when a draconic Glori faces off with the Magdalena on a balcony. The coloring is superb, and I found myself wishing the scene was a 2-page spread. And the final page of the arc, featuring Jackie and Sara, is both an unexpected turn in this storyline and something I’ve been wanting to happen for years.
I look forward to seeing how the final five issues of the series will wrap everything up.
November 13, 2015
This is the second volume of Top Cow's big crossover. This time, they get everyone involved. Like all big cross-over events, they wind up with heros fighting heros for a little bit due to evil trickery. Honestly, the whole thing felt quite cliched. And because they had to squeeze everybody in, it's not like there was any neat use of powers or anything. It was impossible to keep up with what was going on in any fight. And now that there were even more female characters it became even more obvious that the artist is either only able or (the perhaps more frightening option) only willing to draw one exact female body which all women must have. That part feels creepy, to be frank. On the whole, it wasn't terrible, but it just felt juvenile.
October 20, 2011
I've just about always had a soft spot for company wide crossovers. Wth the second installment of this trilogy writer Ron Marz brings in both the Cyberforce and Hunter-Killer characters. I like Ellis and Samantha from Hunter-Killer, and Marz handles them well enough. The bigger picture is developing, but I'm wondering how they will fir the conclusion into the one remaining volume. An added plus is the inclusion of a guide to all of the characters.
Read
October 17, 2012Marz does think big, if this volume is any implication. While not a whole lot necessarily happens, what does is pretty wild. Magic factions vs tech factions and pretty much every Top Cow character comes on stage. Some even get killed!
I'd love to read the 3rd volume and the ongoing, but the library hasn't ordered them yet. The Holiday Special at the end was unusually original, in that it shows just how Tilly, the math seer, maneuvers events to work out in a certain way.
I'd love to read the 3rd volume and the ongoing, but the library hasn't ordered them yet. The Holiday Special at the end was unusually original, in that it shows just how Tilly, the math seer, maneuvers events to work out in a certain way.
July 24, 2014
The second book in the Artifacts series carried the story along and gave insight into some other plot points, but over all I found the story hard to keep up with. And the art was too dark for my tastes.
March 12, 2012
Great action scenes, clues and plot elements are revealed in perfect timing. The characters are growing as a team turning this in a very dramatic way.
December 21, 2013
The twist starts here,,, sometimes a bit complicated, but ok.
March 25, 2017
I'm going to briefly review this whole miniseries, which is volumes 1-3.
I really liked volume 1--it pulls together lots of different plotlines, has some ballsy moments early on, and really seems promising.
Volume 2 is a complete waste of time. I'm assuming there was some obligation to include other Top Cow characters in this big event, but they're all boring and don't contribute anything to the plot. I don't think anything really happens in this volume. You could almost skip it completely.
Volume 3 wraps everything up. It's moderately satisfying, although there are some out-of-character moments floating throughout. As a soft reboot, it works fine, although a lot hinges on how they handle the following volumes, I think.
I really liked volume 1--it pulls together lots of different plotlines, has some ballsy moments early on, and really seems promising.
Volume 2 is a complete waste of time. I'm assuming there was some obligation to include other Top Cow characters in this big event, but they're all boring and don't contribute anything to the plot. I don't think anything really happens in this volume. You could almost skip it completely.
Volume 3 wraps everything up. It's moderately satisfying, although there are some out-of-character moments floating throughout. As a soft reboot, it works fine, although a lot hinges on how they handle the following volumes, I think.
April 5, 2017
We get more insight into the Survivor's plans and goals. He has more control over the conflict than his group of bearers who get little time in the spotlight. The end goal isn't revealed, but Hope is at the center of it. Jackie's side is still stumbling around, more focused on finding Hope that winning the battle.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews