Witchblade, Volume 4: Eternal

Witchblade by Ron Marz #4

by Ron Marz, Adriana Melo (Artist), Stjepan Šejić (Artist)

A new era of Witchblade begins in this series-changing volume as Sara Pezzini, the Witchblade bearer for 100 issues, gives up the mystical gauntlet to a new bearer in Dani Baptiste! The Witchblade is a mysterious gauntlet which bonds with a female bearer and serves as the Balance between the forces of Light and Dark. Detective Sara Pezzini, the current bearer has discovered she is pregnant and in order to safeguard her baby has given up the artifact to young dancer Dani Baptiste. Written by Ron Marz (Ion, Samurai: Heaven & Earth) and featuring art by Adriana Melo (Star Wars), Stjepan Sejic (First Born), and Sami Basri (Anita Blake) this volume introduces readers to Dani Baptiste and serves as a prologue for First Born. Collecting Witchblade #101-109, plus cover gallery for a massive nine-issue trade paperback.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Horror, Action

226 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2008

About the author

Marz 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.

Reviews

[47Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume isn't very consistent as there are several artists working on it. Bottom line is the Witchblade gets a new bearer. The artwork is ok most of the time, so I can let that slide because of the highlights I mentioned below, but the story isn't all that impressive. We get it already: having the Witchblade is cool, but challenging.

Jake dies, but I can't really say I miss him as he was constantly in the way. The event leaves Sara sad and not scantily dressed. Her immaculate pregnancy is a deus ex machina moment that has her considering giving up the Witchblade. Gleason offers to stay with her and help with the baby, prompting her to say: 'Sometimes the nice boys get the girl after all.' Yeah, right.

Danielle Baptiste is introduced. Thankfully, she is a dancer with everything that entails. So, yeah, she is hot. The covers reveal her as the new bearer of the Witchblade way before she knows it exists. She has it tough figuring what she wants to do with her life considering that all the people around her see her as gifted and ready for great things to come. Like a Witchblade. Duh!

Sara and Danielle run into each other at the old asian curator's antique store. Danielle takes the Witchblade in an impressive set of panels that leaves a lot of ripped clothing. If you're still reading this comic and claimed that this was a gratuitous display of skin, then I can't help you. The full-page panel at the end was splendid. Period. I can say that because I'm a man.

Sara tries to get back to her life with Gleason finally getting in her pants. That was a long time coming and also one of the most sensual scenes in the whole series so far.

Stjepan Sejic's artwork stands out as photorealistic and dynamic. And totally sexy. Dani investigates a house where a long time ago the owner of a plantation killed her workers in a gruesome manner that left their spirits restless. Dani decides that accepting the Witchblade was impulsive and wants to return it. Sara finds out Dani is her boss's daughter. A bit too many soap opera themes, but the artwork is simply grand.

Celestine, the one who needs to alternate between good and bad deeds, is back and looking for Sara. Dani helps out and kicks ass. That's pretty much it.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

So to shake things up we actually have a near bearer of the Witchblade!

So with Sara getting along in her pregnancy she decides to give the Witchblade to a young girl named Dani. In doing so it frees up time for her to enjoy her time with Gleason. So we get a few issues of just Dani working with the Witchblade to help some dead people after horrible events. We also get a team up with the old witchblade user and the new that's pretty good.

Good: The art changes a ton but luckily it's mostly good throughout. Some are downright amazing while others do the job. The new character, Dani, started off annoying but gets better as it goes. I also enjoyed the ending as it leaves off with some new ideas.

Bad: Little too many cameos of old characters that I had no clue who they were. I also thought Sara giving up the witchblade so quick was odd. The fight scenes are getting better but still lacking.

Overall a solid volume, not amazing, but good, and a new direction that might work in the series favor. A 3.5 out of 5.

[Zec · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think the series would have been better served by sticking with a more consistent art-style but each artist filled in ably. Thought it was a smart idea to have another character carry the Witchblade while Sara is pregnant, but it felt a little cheap to have yet another character lying in a hospital bed. Dani probably could have been better fleshed-out as a character, a newly-graduated student trying to find purpose in life is honestly not that interesting.

[Robert 'Rev. Bob' · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to see a new bearer deal with the Blade...

[Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two big changes to the series in this volume. Firstly, Stjepan Sjejic starts doing art in some of the issues, which is fantastic. Secondly, there is a new host for the Witchblade.

With Sara Pezzini wanting to focus on her pregnancy and having normal life with Gleason, she passes the mantle on to a new character named Danielle Baptiste. Ron Marz does a great job of making Dani an interesting character, although she is completely different to Sara.
While Sara was a cop before getting the Witchblade, and therefore was more mentally prepared for the horrors that she would come up against, Danielle is a young dancer who becomes quickly overwhelmed by the horrific and sadistic situations which she finds herself in. She quickly loses her confidence in being able to be the new Witchblade and needs to learn how to overcome this. Luckily, she gets support from Sara, who still co-stars in this book even though she is no longer the Witchblade.

Great volume that maintains it's momentum even when switching up the status quo to such a large degree.

[Nicholas Driscoll · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Witchblade is passed along to an incredibly hot young dancer who is obnoxious. Pezzini remains incredibly hot and has incredibly hot sex with her boyfriend. An incredibly hot crazy woman tries to kill Pezzini. Plus lots of incredibly hot cover shots of nearly naked women being incredibly hot.

What a dumb comic this is!

[Shane1step · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хорошие новости: Марз вводит новые прикольные штуки и смело меняет положение вещей. Главное: Сара передаёт Клинок и беременеет себе в надежде на спокойную жизнь. Класс!

Плохие новости: редкий хороший злодей, негодяйка Селестина, уверенно и решительно потеряла свой интересный концепт. Зачем? Почему?! Не знаю. Это даже не «сомнительное» решение. Это крайне плохое решение.

[John Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing and art took a bit of a dip this volume and I’m not sold on the new protagonist yet. Interesting turns for Sara though.

[Jeff Lanter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witchblade continues to shine. Something that shouldn't need to be mentioned in any book review, but is a problem with the first three volumes, is finally fixed. The previous three volumes' binding starts coming loose as you open the pages and eventually will completely fall apart. They stitched and glued the binding so that is not issue this go around (finally!). Now the Witchblade books function as nice as they look! Just like the previous iteration, there are major plot developments contained within. The actual cover (as opposed to what's pictured here) of this TPB gives one of them away. The art in this one which has been good throughout takes another step up with the painted style. The only knock is that whatever supernatural creature shows up in this series (or at least with the four volumes I've read so far) never lasts more than an issue or two which makes them feel kind of like filler and is too predictable. Hopefully, that will change in upcoming issues. Overall, I really recommend this series if you like supernatural stuff, cop procedurals, and a strong female lead. It really deserves more readers!

[Adam Luptak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critique leveled at superhero comics, one not wholly without merit, is that characters, by and large, don't change. Volume 4 of Witchblade, however, has change in spades, as Sara Pezzini, who begins the book pondering getting older and reflecting on choices made and roads not taken, realizes that she's pregnant and decides to give up the Witchblade. We meet Danielle Baptiste, the new bearer. In this volume Dani is largely whiny and abrasive; one hopes the character will become more interesting. One story in the collection, in which Dani travels to New Orleans, has a brilliant climax befitting a truly terrifying horror film. Most of the art in this volume is quite good (though Dani's inexperience and lack of control has us tilting back into cheesecake territory with much outfit-shredding), but the final two issues, with art by Sami Basri, are disappointing in their unimaginative depiction of the Witchblade.

[Albert Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if I like this new girl. After Sara I've up the Witchblade due to her... Condition. We're introduced to Dani, a pompous, whiny snot who accepts the responsibility of Witchblade without thinking about it.

While Sara had her police instinct to fall back on, Dani has no transferrable skills that would lend itself to saving the world of fighting demons. I doubt pouting in her room is applicable.

I really hope Sara gets it back.

Side note: the art isn't nearly as slutty as the covers to each of the volumes. So that's something positive.

[Roman Colombo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ron Marz's writing is still really good (though I'm not sure he knows how pregnancy works), and the artists are talented...but this book has some of the most gratuitous sexualizing of female characters I've ever seen in comics. Granted, they are nice to look at, but it's also eye-rolling. I know that's part of the tradition of this book, but sometimes it's distracting from the story.

[Andries van Wyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art: ⭐️⭐️ Story: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The story is fine, though I cant believe that there is only 3 volumes with Sara Pezzini? Unless I am missing something.
I really didn’t like the last artist’s work. Its is oddly childish for such a high class comic. I must say that I prefer Stephen Sejic’s earlier work here as is still has his style but is not as crazy busy as his later work.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic Plot: Sara Pezzini discovers she is pregnant and gives up the Witchblade to young dancer Dani Baptiste.

[Greta Stone]

There was finally too much crazy.