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The Devi/Witchblade Crossover!
Two issues, six variant covers, lots of ass-kicking, and lots of boobies. Let's go.
So, confession time: I was a bit hesitant to plunk down the moola for these two comics, as the basic premise combines a character that I love (Devi) with a franchise that I loathe (Witchblade), and I wasn't sure if the books would come out on top in the end. Well, they kinda-sorta did. So here's a spoilery synopsis and lots of scans.
This is the one with FOUR FREAKIN' VARIANT COVERS, Ron Marz penning the script, and Eric Basaldua on pencils and inks. Eric, he certainly brings the cheesecake, as you are about to see.
Anyway, the story opens "in the second century of man," with Isana (goddess incarnate; first Devi; ran around completely naked all the time) and some previous bearer of the Witchblade fighting a demon named Tama. Japanese speakers, start your snickerings.
Okay, I don't know about you, but that second page is just screaming at me for a gender swap re-drawing.
Also, when and where the heck is this set? What sort of Ancient Mystikul culture does Tama come from? And whoa what about that white, blonde, bearskin-clad Witchblade-bearer? Are they somewhere in Southeast Asia? Tama's castle, shown on the first page of the comic, certainly has that generic "Fantasy Southeast Asia" look to it, so... I dunno? Somewhere in or around the Indian subcontinent? Aaaaaagh, this whole setting is too generic and placeless for my tastes.
Anyway, we find out that the Witchblade-bearer's name is Nissa. (That name's still not giving any clues as to time, place, or culture...) There is a big fight. Tama shiskabobs Nissa. Isana kills Tama. Isana holds a dying Nissa and is very, very sad. Emo tears all around. Nissa actually dies saying "...So... dark..." in her word bubble. This could not possibly be more cliché. Oh come on. Ron Marz can do way better than this. He has done way better than this; honestly I think the guy's a fantastic comics writer. But this whole issue just feels phoned-in. Sigh.
Fast-forward to the present!
Sara Pezzini arrives in Sitapur to investigate a murder. Because apparently the NYPD will actually send its detectives to foreign countries in order to carry out investigations...? (Isn't that what Interpol is for?) Anyway, Rahul Singh meets Sara at the airport. For those of you unfamiliar with Devi, Rahul is the obligatory Tuxedo Kamen of the cast: A Sitapur detective who is presumably all surly/broody/badass, but who ends up having to be rescued by Devi a LOT, and is of course also her main love interest.
Anyway, Rahul escorts Sara around Sitapur. Basaldua really does draw some fantastic renderings of the city. During the tour, Sara fills Rahul in on the details of her case: An Indian professor in America is brutally murdered. An ancient sword that he was studying is stolen. Also, the freakin' TSA apparently let a pair of darinde (those'r UNDEAD ZOMBIES with GREEN ROTTING FLESH) board an airplane at Kennedy International. Ha ha oops.
Unfortunately, Sara doesn't believe Rahul when he informs her that the darinde are undead. No no no, they just have a horrible skin condition, really. Rahul goes on to explain that Sitapur is under the protection of Devi, a goddess-incarnate-cum-asskicking-superheroine. Sara doesn't believe him, at all. Um, Sara has the Witchblade, why wouldn't she believe in zombies or goddess-powered superheroines? This seems slightly OOC for Sara. Next, Rahul blatantly flirts with Sara. This is somewhat OOC for Rahul. But ZOMG some darinde are secretly tailing the two of them. Well, at least the zombies are acting in-character.
Oh noes! Tama is lurking in a SEKRIT CAVERN beneath Sitapur. He's all shriveled and zombified, but he will be restored the moment that his sword (freshly stolen from an American professor, natch!) tastes divine blood - in other words, Devi's blood. Also, something about a plan to raise the ancient demon city that Sitapur is built on top of. The darinde inform Tama that another superpowered lady warrior has arrived in town. Tama orders them to go and kill her.
Oh noes again! The darinde attack Sara in her hotel room. But she's the heroine of this story, and will righteously kick their cannon-fodder asses, right?
Empowerful!
Anyway, Sara predictably slices and dices her way through the darinde (some really nicely-rendered dismemberings in the artwork, there!), and eventually takes the fight outdoors.
GIRLFIGHT!!!!
Tara (the current Devi) immediately assumes that Sara is an apsara. Considering that when she's all witchbladed-up Sara does look exactly like the apsara Kratha, this is actually a fairly reasonable assumption to make. Heck, it's a significantly less flimsy premise than you'll find in most they-fight-and-then-they-become-allies superhero crossovers.
But, anyway, GIRLFIGHT!!!! Which I'm sure is the reason that 90% of the people who bought this comic bought it, anyway.
And no, I'm not going to scan the fight scene for y'all. But, to Mr. Basaldua's credit, the fight scene has a lot more ass-kicking and a lot less cheesecake exploitation that I'd honestly expected. I mean, it's certainly a lot less exploitative than his rendering of the Sara-versus-darinde fight a few pages earlier.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the big fight scene, the issue concludes on a cliffhanger.
Yes, they actually changed the title. Yes, I'm pretty sure they did it deliberately just to mess with the heads of the obsessive-compulsive fanboys and fangirls who edit the Comic Book Database. Only two variant covers this time, but guess what? The artwork duties have been handed over to Mukesh Singh.
MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH.
Also, the fantastic Samit Basu handles the writing on this issue. So guess which of the two isses I liked better?
Anyway, this issue begins right in the middle of a fantastically-rendered, all around completely badass GIRLFIGHT!!! But the GIRLFIGHT!!! culminates in some sort of mystical energy exchange. Cue: Full-page watercolor collage by Mukesh Singh droooooooool. Anyway, Sara and Tara suddenly remember their past alliance as Nissa and Isana. End of fight; the two are officially allies now.
Tara: "Tell me, then, what brings you to Sitapur?"
Sara: "Dead men clearing airport security."
I know that the TSA is an easy target, but that still made me LOL.
Anyway, Sara and Tara interrogate a surviving darinde. Tara wants to kill the darinde right away, but Sara plays the good cop and tries to negotiate with him. She asks the darinde for his name, and he has none. She asks him what he wants to be called, and he settles on "Elvis." Sara questions Elvis until he willingly reveals Tama's whereabouts and his Evol Plan. Sara puts on some clothes, and then she and Tara are off on the hunt.
Darinde spies, however, hurry to inform Tama of his enemies' movements. "I don't know why I even bother making plans," Tama comments. But, having apparently studied the Evil Overlord List, Tama plays it smart: He doesn't kill the darinde messenger. He doesn't plan to face Devi in open combat. Instead, he comes up with a sneakier plan.
Cut to the Durapasya temple! (For non-Devi readers: the Durapasya are warrior-monks that serve the Devi. Except for that one time that they tried to kill Tara. It's complicated. But anyway, they're generally good guys.) The Durapasya are hanging out, as Durapasya are wont to do, when suddenly:
Because no entrance is too ridiculously overdramatic for Inspector Rahul Singh. No wait, that should really be typed with the capslock on. INSPECTOR RAHUL SINGH. LIFELONG MEMBER OF THE OFFICIAL EVIL KNIEVEL FANCLUB. PROUD FOLLOWER OF THE ARAGORN SCHOOL OF PERSONAL GROOMING OR LACK THEREOF. DETECTIVE, MOTORCYCLE ENTHUSIAST, AND PROFESSIONAL DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. Except during this crossover event, wherein Rahul is amazingly not captured, killed, or turned evil. Not even once.
Moving on...
So, anyway. Sara and Tara storm Tama's fortress. Tama's hidden darinde army, however, rises up from the ground and ambushes them. One darinde manages to stab Tara with Tama's sword, and then Elvis himself throws the sword to Tama. (See? Tama's super-smart plan? Rather than killing the darinde that failed him, he spares them, and they reward him with loyalty. Smart!)
The moment that Tama takes back his sword, he launches into his big MWA HA HA HA HA I'M BAAAAACK! speech, except... Oops. Slight problem. Nothing's changing; he's still a rotting corpse. Tama doesn't understand - after all, he fed his sword divine blood, so by some sort of magical supernaturaldickery that should have restored his life, right? Well...
See, that's kind of the point of the current Devi's origin story. Previous Devi warriors have all been incarnations of the goddess Isana reborn into the world via human sacrifice; Tara, however, is the first Devi who's actually a living human with Isana's spirit inside of her. Guess Tama didn't get the memo.
Anyway, Sara declines to kill Tama. She rather hilariously arrests him instead.
(Okay, headdesk time. Can an NYPD detective arrest a foreign national in his home country? Leaving aside the whole issue of him being undead, of course. Does that... uh, how does that even work...?)
So all's well that ends well. Sara and Tara hand Tama over to Rahul and the Sitapur PD. And then they have this great little exchange:
In colloquial Japanese, it's also a slang term for "testicles." Gotta love those linguistic coincidences.
Despite the fact that her investigation is concluded, Tara invites Sara to stay in Sitapur for a while longer. Sara declines, however: "I get the sense that one ageless-power-endowed badass crimefighter is all Sitapur has room for." But Sara does invite Tara to visit her in New York sometime.
ZOMG. Set-up for a sequel!
THE END.
So, confession time: I was a bit hesitant to plunk down the moola for these two comics, as the basic premise combines a character that I love (Devi) with a franchise that I loathe (Witchblade), and I wasn't sure if the books would come out on top in the end. Well, they kinda-sorta did. So here's a spoilery synopsis and lots of scans.
First issue: Witchblade/Devi
This is the one with FOUR FREAKIN' VARIANT COVERS, Ron Marz penning the script, and Eric Basaldua on pencils and inks. Eric, he certainly brings the cheesecake, as you are about to see.
Anyway, the story opens "in the second century of man," with Isana (goddess incarnate; first Devi; ran around completely naked all the time) and some previous bearer of the Witchblade fighting a demon named Tama. Japanese speakers, start your snickerings.
Okay, I don't know about you, but that second page is just screaming at me for a gender swap re-drawing.
Also, when and where the heck is this set? What sort of Ancient Mystikul culture does Tama come from? And whoa what about that white, blonde, bearskin-clad Witchblade-bearer? Are they somewhere in Southeast Asia? Tama's castle, shown on the first page of the comic, certainly has that generic "Fantasy Southeast Asia" look to it, so... I dunno? Somewhere in or around the Indian subcontinent? Aaaaaagh, this whole setting is too generic and placeless for my tastes.
Anyway, we find out that the Witchblade-bearer's name is Nissa. (That name's still not giving any clues as to time, place, or culture...) There is a big fight. Tama shiskabobs Nissa. Isana kills Tama. Isana holds a dying Nissa and is very, very sad. Emo tears all around. Nissa actually dies saying "...So... dark..." in her word bubble. This could not possibly be more cliché. Oh come on. Ron Marz can do way better than this. He has done way better than this; honestly I think the guy's a fantastic comics writer. But this whole issue just feels phoned-in. Sigh.
Fast-forward to the present!
Sara Pezzini arrives in Sitapur to investigate a murder. Because apparently the NYPD will actually send its detectives to foreign countries in order to carry out investigations...? (Isn't that what Interpol is for?) Anyway, Rahul Singh meets Sara at the airport. For those of you unfamiliar with Devi, Rahul is the obligatory Tuxedo Kamen of the cast: A Sitapur detective who is presumably all surly/broody/badass, but who ends up having to be rescued by Devi a LOT, and is of course also her main love interest.
Anyway, Rahul escorts Sara around Sitapur. Basaldua really does draw some fantastic renderings of the city. During the tour, Sara fills Rahul in on the details of her case: An Indian professor in America is brutally murdered. An ancient sword that he was studying is stolen. Also, the freakin' TSA apparently let a pair of darinde (those'r UNDEAD ZOMBIES with GREEN ROTTING FLESH) board an airplane at Kennedy International. Ha ha oops.
Unfortunately, Sara doesn't believe Rahul when he informs her that the darinde are undead. No no no, they just have a horrible skin condition, really. Rahul goes on to explain that Sitapur is under the protection of Devi, a goddess-incarnate-cum-asskicking-superheroine. Sara doesn't believe him, at all. Um, Sara has the Witchblade, why wouldn't she believe in zombies or goddess-powered superheroines? This seems slightly OOC for Sara. Next, Rahul blatantly flirts with Sara. This is somewhat OOC for Rahul. But ZOMG some darinde are secretly tailing the two of them. Well, at least the zombies are acting in-character.
Oh noes! Tama is lurking in a SEKRIT CAVERN beneath Sitapur. He's all shriveled and zombified, but he will be restored the moment that his sword (freshly stolen from an American professor, natch!) tastes divine blood - in other words, Devi's blood. Also, something about a plan to raise the ancient demon city that Sitapur is built on top of. The darinde inform Tama that another superpowered lady warrior has arrived in town. Tama orders them to go and kill her.
Oh noes again! The darinde attack Sara in her hotel room. But she's the heroine of this story, and will righteously kick their cannon-fodder asses, right?
Empowerful!
Anyway, Sara predictably slices and dices her way through the darinde (some really nicely-rendered dismemberings in the artwork, there!), and eventually takes the fight outdoors.
GIRLFIGHT!!!!
Tara (the current Devi) immediately assumes that Sara is an apsara. Considering that when she's all witchbladed-up Sara does look exactly like the apsara Kratha, this is actually a fairly reasonable assumption to make. Heck, it's a significantly less flimsy premise than you'll find in most they-fight-and-then-they-become-allies superhero crossovers.
But, anyway, GIRLFIGHT!!!! Which I'm sure is the reason that 90% of the people who bought this comic bought it, anyway.
And no, I'm not going to scan the fight scene for y'all. But, to Mr. Basaldua's credit, the fight scene has a lot more ass-kicking and a lot less cheesecake exploitation that I'd honestly expected. I mean, it's certainly a lot less exploitative than his rendering of the Sara-versus-darinde fight a few pages earlier.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the big fight scene, the issue concludes on a cliffhanger.
Second issue: Devi/Witchblade
Yes, they actually changed the title. Yes, I'm pretty sure they did it deliberately just to mess with the heads of the obsessive-compulsive fanboys and fangirls who edit the Comic Book Database. Only two variant covers this time, but guess what? The artwork duties have been handed over to Mukesh Singh.
MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH MUKESH SINGH.
Also, the fantastic Samit Basu handles the writing on this issue. So guess which of the two isses I liked better?
Anyway, this issue begins right in the middle of a fantastically-rendered, all around completely badass GIRLFIGHT!!! But the GIRLFIGHT!!! culminates in some sort of mystical energy exchange. Cue: Full-page watercolor collage by Mukesh Singh droooooooool. Anyway, Sara and Tara suddenly remember their past alliance as Nissa and Isana. End of fight; the two are officially allies now.
Tara: "Tell me, then, what brings you to Sitapur?"
Sara: "Dead men clearing airport security."
I know that the TSA is an easy target, but that still made me LOL.
Anyway, Sara and Tara interrogate a surviving darinde. Tara wants to kill the darinde right away, but Sara plays the good cop and tries to negotiate with him. She asks the darinde for his name, and he has none. She asks him what he wants to be called, and he settles on "Elvis." Sara questions Elvis until he willingly reveals Tama's whereabouts and his Evol Plan. Sara puts on some clothes, and then she and Tara are off on the hunt.
Darinde spies, however, hurry to inform Tama of his enemies' movements. "I don't know why I even bother making plans," Tama comments. But, having apparently studied the Evil Overlord List, Tama plays it smart: He doesn't kill the darinde messenger. He doesn't plan to face Devi in open combat. Instead, he comes up with a sneakier plan.
Cut to the Durapasya temple! (For non-Devi readers: the Durapasya are warrior-monks that serve the Devi. Except for that one time that they tried to kill Tara. It's complicated. But anyway, they're generally good guys.) The Durapasya are hanging out, as Durapasya are wont to do, when suddenly:
Because no entrance is too ridiculously overdramatic for Inspector Rahul Singh. No wait, that should really be typed with the capslock on. INSPECTOR RAHUL SINGH. LIFELONG MEMBER OF THE OFFICIAL EVIL KNIEVEL FANCLUB. PROUD FOLLOWER OF THE ARAGORN SCHOOL OF PERSONAL GROOMING OR LACK THEREOF. DETECTIVE, MOTORCYCLE ENTHUSIAST, AND PROFESSIONAL DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. Except during this crossover event, wherein Rahul is amazingly not captured, killed, or turned evil. Not even once.
Moving on...
So, anyway. Sara and Tara storm Tama's fortress. Tama's hidden darinde army, however, rises up from the ground and ambushes them. One darinde manages to stab Tara with Tama's sword, and then Elvis himself throws the sword to Tama. (See? Tama's super-smart plan? Rather than killing the darinde that failed him, he spares them, and they reward him with loyalty. Smart!)
The moment that Tama takes back his sword, he launches into his big MWA HA HA HA HA I'M BAAAAACK! speech, except... Oops. Slight problem. Nothing's changing; he's still a rotting corpse. Tama doesn't understand - after all, he fed his sword divine blood, so by some sort of magical supernaturaldickery that should have restored his life, right? Well...
See, that's kind of the point of the current Devi's origin story. Previous Devi warriors have all been incarnations of the goddess Isana reborn into the world via human sacrifice; Tara, however, is the first Devi who's actually a living human with Isana's spirit inside of her. Guess Tama didn't get the memo.
Anyway, Sara declines to kill Tama. She rather hilariously arrests him instead.
(Okay, headdesk time. Can an NYPD detective arrest a foreign national in his home country? Leaving aside the whole issue of him being undead, of course. Does that... uh, how does that even work...?)
So all's well that ends well. Sara and Tara hand Tama over to Rahul and the Sitapur PD. And then they have this great little exchange:
In colloquial Japanese, it's also a slang term for "testicles." Gotta love those linguistic coincidences.
Despite the fact that her investigation is concluded, Tara invites Sara to stay in Sitapur for a while longer. Sara declines, however: "I get the sense that one ageless-power-endowed badass crimefighter is all Sitapur has room for." But Sara does invite Tara to visit her in New York sometime.
ZOMG. Set-up for a sequel!
THE END.
no subject
I was contemplating buying the second issue, but clearly your descriptions are far better.
And yes, linguistic coincidences are the best. I used to crack up all the time in Spanish class whenever I heard the word "sala" since, in Hindi, that's a curse word (it also means "brother-in-law", which, I presume, is a G-rated version of its usual definition).
Have I mentioned that I love Rahul Singh? There's something about being dark, angsty, perpetually stubbly, and brooding. He kind of reminds me of sulking Arjuna.
no subject
(Also, you should totally buy the second issue. It's waaaaay better than the first issue.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2008-07-28 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
no subject
...
AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA