I’m not sure why I decided to review Artifacts Deluxe. I think it was the artwork that caught my attention. I should really have spent some time reading the related comics like Witchblade and The Darkness first. I would have not been so confused initially. Fortunately for me there is a Artifacts: Origins hidden in there that explains a lot of the back story. I’m glad I jumped ahead and read this first as it really helped me keep track of who everyone was. When you have 300+ pages and over 15 major characters not knowing the back story would make things tough to follow. This compilation includes Artifacts 0 – 13 and then almost 100 pages of bonus content.
Like I said initially it was the artwork that drew me in. It is very detailed and colorful. Without this level of detail things would have been hard to follow. With so many characters, and each using a different artifact or ability, had things not been so well drawn would have let to a jumbled mess. Even though I did not know the characters or locations I was able to easily follow along because each panel was so distinct. With the extra art pages as the end this book will be a great pick up for fans of the art.
I really enjoyed this giant event story line. The setup moves along with plenty of action and plenty of different characters facing off against each other. The main story line focuses on Sara Pezzini, bearer of the Witchblade, and Jackie Estacado, host to The Darkness. Their child, Hope, is the key to everything and they will do anything to protect her. The way the mysteries and pieces are tied together and ultimately paid off was very well written. Even though the story moves along at a pretty quick pace it takes time for each character and gives some back story about how their artifact works. I personally enjoyed this as there was no real slow points yet I never felt like there was so much going on that I was loosing track of things. Which is saying a lot given the number of characters involved. Fans of these characters probably already pre-ordered this book, but if you are new too these characters you should really consider checking it out too.
