 Dominated and divided by darkness and light, the Top Cow Universe is home to characters that deal with drama on an epic scale. Last summer, the major players crossed paths through First Born, a custody battle to define the balance of power between its forces. For now, a volatile stability has been restored. But this May in the three-issue Broken Trinity, a destructive new artifact, a new male character “and possibly more” will land on the shaky ground of the TCU.
“Obviously First Born, last summer, was about birth,” says writer Ron Marz, who’s once again paired with Witchblade artist Stjepan Sejic for Broken Trinity. “This one is about death.”
Starting with May 3’s Free Comic Book Day issue, Broken Trinity will introduce not just a new artifact bearer, but a major power player to the TCU. “He’ll be on a pretty even footing with Witchblade and maybe even the Darkness once he gets used to what the hell’s going on,” explains Marz.
But don’t expect a Darkness double. “We didn’t want to do a carbon copy of Jackie Estacado, who is, for my money, a bad guy. This guy isn’t necessarily a bad guy; he’s somebody whose life has put him in the position of making bad choices. The artifact itself is what has the destructive nature. We’re putting together an artifact that has a destructive aspect to it and a guy who isn’t the traditional lantern-jawed hero.”
Bad guy or hero, he brings chaos. “There’s a reason why this story is called Broken Trinity. We positioned Darkness and Angelus as eternal opposites and Witchblade the balance between them. The introduction of this artifact unbalances that trio of characters and powers.”
With original Witchblade bearer Sara Pezzini’s ambiguously powerful baby a major advantage to possess, you can expect the new artifact holder to take chase. “There’s definitely going to be a reason why the baby is necessary to this character, or at least as a way to maybe control the Darkness or the Angelus.”
While one balance is broken, another will be established. The female-heavy universe will finally get a testosterone injection, a fact Marz couldn’t be happier about. “For a couple of years I’ve been saying we need to get some sort of a guy in here that can stand on his own and be a worthy player, in addition to Jackie.” And you can expect this guy to stick around for the long haul. “This is not just a one-off thing where we tell the story and go away,” says Marz. “The idea is to set up something with some permanence, so it’s a viable piece to the universe for quite a while.”
THE DARKNESS
"At the end of First Born, Jackie Estacado’s in a classic ‘single guy running away’ situation," says the series’ new writer, Phil Hester. "His criminal empire is in tatters, and he’s responsible for bringing this weird, supernatural stuff down on his earthly criminal organization. ... We start after a six-month lapse between the end of First Born and our first [Darkness] issue. He has gone to Central America and started this drug cartel. He’s running a country indirectly, as sort of a Pablo Escobar-like figure. It’s a drug that only he can manufacture because it’s made with the Darkness."
WITCHBLADE
"We still have two Witchblade bearers, so the book is going to address both of them," says writer Ron Marz. "Sara is dealing with being a new mother. The baby’s going to be a constant presence, but we’re not going to do stories about Sara changing diapers. She goes back to work as a police officer and she gets involved in a pretty brutal, weird case right off the bat, which we start on issue #116—the first issue with Stjepan as the regular artist. They’re finding bodies that have been ritualistically killed, and it will ultimately involve Dani [the other bearer] as well. Their storylines will end up threading together again with this mystery." |
