Written by Ben Blacker
Illustrated by Mirka Andolfo
Published by DC Comics / Vertigo
The new DC Vertigo line trucks along with this new entry. And luckily, it’s a pretty good first issue for this title.
Ben Blacker starts off this story by introducing the characters and setting up the overall storyline. It could go either way at this point, but I enjoyed this for the most part.
The book begins in Salem, Massachusetts in the year 1692. Nadiya and a group of witches are on the run from a lynch mob. They can’t run any farther and the lot of them are massacred right then and there. Quite an auspicious beginning for this title!
We then cut to Pawling, New York where two witches are laying in a barn, holding each other. They are smoked out by an angry lynch mob just like the previous scene. This scene follows with another city in the year 1873. The same thing happens where there are witches and they are harassed by an angry lynch mob.
We then see a page of this with different scenes of witches and lynch mob throughout history. There is a specific one in New Orleans in the year 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. Then we end up three years later in the year 2008. Just what the heck is going on here?
It turns out that for hundreds of years a war has been waged between a coven of perpetually reincarnating witches and the all-male conspiracy known as the Architects. During the meeting in 2005, the lead Architect looks to have been killed. And since then, there has been no sign of the Architects.
Now we pick up in 2008 with a witch named Izzy living in suburban America with her witch friends. But have we seen the last of the Architects? I’m guessing not by the events of the rest of the issue. Blacker does a great job setting this book up.
The art by Andolfo is quite good. The book is full of life and the storyline and storytelling are both very spirited. This may be a sleeper hit for the new Vertigo line. Worth a look.
RATING: B+
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