The Best of Warren Ellis: DOWN and Tales of the Witchblade

Tales of the Witchblade #3-4

by Warren Ellis, Tony Harris, Cully Hamner

Get all of Warren Ellis' best Top Cow work including the mini-series Down as well as his Tales of the Witchblade issues. If you're an Ellis fan, this is a must-have in your collection. Includes new cover art by fan favorite Tony Harris!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Crime, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2006

About the author

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR. His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals, listed as one of Amazon’s Best 100 Books Of 2016.

The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013. IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS. He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company. He is the creator, writer and co-producer of the Netflix series CASTLEVANIA, recently renewed for its third season, and of the recently-announced Netflix series HEAVEN’S FOREST.

He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In, Haunted Machines and Cognitive Cities.

Warren Ellis has recently developed and curated the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment with the series THE WILD STORM, and is currently working on the serialising of new graphic novel works TREES: THREE FATES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and the serialised graphic novel THE BATMAN’S GRAVE for DC Comics, while working as a Consulting Producer on another television series.

A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.

Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative. He is a Patron of Humanists UK. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.

Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.

Reviews

[Sven McNiven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any graphic novel that relies on its main character to sell the narrative by wearing a wet t-shirt on the front cover, probably hasn't got the deepest plot driving it. This is certainly the case with The Best of Warren Ellis: DOWN and Tales of the Witchblade. The art work is passable, but the tale is gratuitously violent and far-fetched. There's two different works in here and Tales of the Witchblade, while slightly more interesting, wasn't enough to pull this novel out of the "never to read again" pile.

[Nicholas Driscoll · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good, but readable. The first story is about a police detective who botches an undercover drug bust when she sees some jerks about to rape a prostitute, and she kills them all--her partners die in the crossfire, and she comes out fine. She is suspended, but then her shady boss puts her on a new case to take down the OTHER drug boss, a former cop gone bad. She starts killing people, including innocent cops who stop her in the street, and eventually she kills the other drug boss because he was about to rape someone. After killing her old boss, she becomes the drug boss and decides she likes killing people who deserve it and begins a suicidal campaign to destroy her own drug empire.

Yeah, great. Super bloody nonsense.

The Witchblade story is... worse. In the future, everyone is immortal and murder is super rare. So when some folks end up dead, the detective on the job is completely clueless (I guess they don't have good tech for solving crime either), and he enlists the help of the current bearer of the Witchblade, who is using the device to deliver sex fantasies to people by attaching to their brains I guess (I didn't realize it could do that--uh, creative?). Anyway, it just so happens that she knows everything about this particular murder case, and she uses the Witchblade to turn the detective into her own sex slave (huh?), so he kills himself to escape from her clutches and she decides to take over for him.

What a great story.

Garbage.

[Tobin Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, this steaming pile is supposedly "the best of Warren Ellis"...

To which I vociferously disagree. This is utter crap.

There's two stories here, the first is a four issue collection that takes place mostly over the span of a few hours. While it's readable, and the art is quite good, it's shockingly unbelievable, and therefore completely unenjoyable. I guess Ellis was trying to make some point that SA is bad...as though no one knew that before now.

The second, two issue story is...just...so bad. On all levels. A nonsensical story that has elements tossed in simply for shock or titillation value, and an even more ridiculous ending than the first one. And don't even get me started on Billy Tan's artwork. He draws women like Barbie dolls. Well-endowed sticks.

Just awful.

Don't waste your time on this. Go read the multitude of Ellis stuff that is far, far better than this.

[wbforeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was awful mediocre, cartoony, art, and gratuitous violence and sex with no purpose. The only positive I can give it is this was a quick read.

[Keith Irwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of the work that Warren Ellis did for Top Cow, a short graphic novel called Down and two issues of Tales of Witchblade which form a contained tale. In a strong sense, these are both definitely Warren Ellis books. They have badass characters making hard decisions and confronting deadly situations. But in both of them, I had a lot of trouble rooting for anyone. In Down the main character is just too violent for me to relate to. She starts out sympathetic and we get to see her descent, somewhat like Breaking Bad, but even in sympathetic mode she seems violent and reckless. In the Witchblade story, the main character seems hopelessly unprepared for the situation he finds himself in and the secondary character is distinctly psychopathic. Still, both stories are compelling. But as a Warren Ellis fan, generally, I have to say that I liked them, but didn't love them.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Em Down, uma detective com propensão para abater a tiro qualquer culpado de violação é obrigada a infiltrar-se numa organização criminosa liderada por um polícia que, na sua missão secreta de infiltração, acaba por se tornar um rei do crime. A detective infiltra-se, com extremo prejuízo para os restantes criminosos, mas ao apanhar o seu alvo em flagrante violação, não se contém. Mata-o a tiro e decide tomar o seu lugar, planeando mergulhar a cidade numa onda de violência criminal.

Tales of the Switchblade leva-nos a um futuro próximo pós-escassez, com a imortalidade assegurada por tratamentos diários. O segredo de como foram desenvolvidos esses tratamentos revela-se quando uma série de assassínios violentos abala uma cidade que já não está habituada a este tipo de violência. O detective encarregue de investigar as mortes recorre à ajuda de uma ex-agente da CIA, que se revela portadora da Witchblade e o mergulha num mundo inesperado de sexualidade e violência.

[Camilo Guerra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me encuentro una miniserie de genero negro, con guión de Warren Ellis, y arte de Tony Harris, con una portada increible...¿como no comprarlo?. El primer numero es muy bueno, un numero cargado de acción, tensión y sangre, oh si, balas, cerebros, decisiones rápidas, drogas...un numero que no te da respiro...pero después, todo va cuesta abajo, todo se apresura, no se entienden las decisiones del protagonista en tan poco tiempo, el arte pierde calidad de manera meteorica, y al final Cully Hammer nos dice que todo paso por un problema de agenda, problemas personales de Ellis y Harris, entonces todo se ve como algo que se fue al trasto. Una lastima.

[Alex Sarll]

To read this right after an issue of Kieron Gillen's Über is to have a perfect illustration of what the disciple outstripping the master looks like. Even by the standards of Ellis' mid-noughties miniseries, Down is a will-this-do film pitch; being compressed from six issues to four probably didn't help, but at least gets this generic undercover cop story out of the way quicker. And then there's a Witchblade story set in the near future which just feels like a grab-bag of Ellis ideas thrown at a franchise because they'll get commissioned quicker that way.

[Fernando Lenis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess Warren Ellis can make a stinker.

Both stories lacked any cool ideas, or good execution. The dialogue between characters in the down story line just felt false, and badly paced.

As for the witch blade half, I just didn't care for it.

Tony Harris in down though was a welcome surprise, and reminded me of his brilliant run on Starman. It's felt like the only saving grace of the book for me.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

[This only covers Down. I haven't read Tales of the Witchblade yet, and I have yet to find a copy]

This four-issue comics brings us to a circle of violence, death, and the problem of evil. I don't know, but Warren Ellis beyond Marvel is good material for moral reflection.

[Gord · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reminded me of RED. Not very deep but it wasn't boring.

[Karl Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of stories by Warren Ellis published by Top Cow, first is a stand along the second as part of the Witchblade series. MATURE book. In fair shape. $5.