Art by Whilce Portacio, Joe Weems and Sunny Gho
Lettering by Troy Peteri
Published by TopCow/Image Comics
Review by Scott Cederlund/Newsarama
Chaos reigns in Artifacts #6 as the first major battle rages. Tricked by Aphrodite IV, Cyberforce attacks Sara Pezzini, Jackie Estacado and their allies. Ron Marz’s story is a standard heroes-mistakenly-fight-each-other story as the usual mistaken identities, wrong assumptions and just some characters general dislike of other characters spur on the battle as unknown forces attempt to gather the 13 mystic artifacts and the Pezzini and Estacado’s daughter. Marz and Whilce Portacio deliver the first big battle of Artifacts where more characters are brought together and join forces to fight the big bad.
The first four issues of Artifacts was pretty dense as Marz introduced a lot of characters and divvied them up into factions, those with the Witchblade and Darkness and those siding with Aphrodite IV and her mysterious master. Those issues moved deliberately and covered a lot of ground. It’s odd that a giant battle issue would be the breather point in the series. Marz has most of his characters where he needed them and it’s a nice nod to Top Cow history to bring Cyberforce into this series. After the patient way he built his plot, it’s a welcome release to have this issue bursting with energy. Every now and then, you need a release and this issue is it as characters hit, punch, shoot and rip apart other characters and demons.
Whilce Portacio delivers some of his best artwork, focusing almost purely on the pandemonium of the artwork. His artwork this issue is a blur of movement, like he’s rushing through the drawing, creating gestural and expressionistic superhero artwork. And when he does get a moment to just stop and focus on an image, such as one scene of Aphrodite IV just stopping to watch an explosion over a double-page spread, he still packs a lot of energy in a still and reflective moment. Portacio is able to incorporate some of original Artifacts artist Michael Broussard’s art style while making the book look like pure Portacio.
Around just half over, Artifacts has been an intriguing story and has featured some lovely art. As Marz and his artists have slowly built the drama and mystery, they let go in this issue, letting the energy they’ve built explode as everyone fights everyone else. For all of the trauma and heartache Marz has put Sara Pezzini in during this series, it’s good to see her be able to fight and have an enemy to focus on. This fight issue was needed; now the characters will be able to focus on their target and find Sara’s daughter and the unknown master of Aphrodite IV.
