Witchblade

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Witchblade is a monthly comic series from the Top Cow / Image Comics publishing house that has been published since 1995 . It was conceived by Marc Silvestri , David Wohl , Brian Haberlin and Michael Turner . The German edition was first published by Splitter Verlag , then by Infinity / Paperwerk and is now published by Panini Verlag .

The first 25 issues were drawn by Michael Turner . When he turned to his own series Fathom , Randy Green took over the artistic direction at Witchblade . From the beginning of Witchblade - New Series (US issue No. 40), the series was supervised by Keu Cha (drawings) and Paul Jenkins (text). In addition to the main series, there is also a secondary series called Tales of the Witchblade and some crossovers , including The Darkness , Wolverine , Tomb Raider , Fathom , Spawn and Vampirella .

action

The main character in the series is Sara Pezzini, a New York police officer who wears the Witchblade, a mystical artifact with supernatural abilities and a high level of violence, which the police officer Pezzini cannot always tame. Your most important opponents are Kenneth Irons, who discovered the Witchblade and covets it for himself, although the artifact only accepts women as wearers, and Ian Nottingham, a mysterious martial arts specialist who also owns the Witchblade's male counterpart, the Excalibur, is. It later turns out that the task of the Witchblade is to keep the eternal struggle between the Darkness and the Angelus in balance, so that neither the dark nor the light win.

The Sara Pezzini story came to an end in January 2017 and in December of the same year the series started again with a new Witchblade wearer: former journalist Alex Underwood, who works as an investigator for the public prosecutor's office.

The Witchblade can only be worn by women. The following women are named as carriers in the television series:

  • Alex Underwood

The bracelet turns into various weapons in dangerous situations, such as B. in a sword, a metal glove or even in armor-like full-body protection.

The Latin name for the Witchblade is Digitabulum Magae , the Gaelic name Lan an Galig . Every woman who wears the Witchblade has the opportunity to turn back time. Unfortunately, this is also associated with a (not 100%) loss of memory for this time.

Tales of the Witchblade

The Tales of the Witchblade contain self-contained stories about past or future wearers of the Witchblade. In terms of content, these stories are relatively independent of the main series. Rather, they are used to shed light on certain aspects of the Witchblade that were previously not in the foreground.

Television series

see main article: Witchblade - The weapon of the gods

A television series of the same name with 2 seasons of 12 episodes each was produced by Warner Bros. Studios . The main characters are Sara Pezzini (played by Yancy Butler ), Danny Woo ( Will Yun Lee ), Jake McCartey ( David Chokachi ), Kenneth Irons ( Anthony Cistaro ) and Ian Nottingham ( Eric Etebari ). The German dubbed version ran from January to June 2004 on RTL II .

Movie

For 2013, a film version independent of the television series was planned. No further details are known about the direction, cast and plot so far.

Anime series and manga

see main article: Witchblade (Anime)

From April 2006, a 24-episode anime series was broadcast on Japanese television , which is produced by the GONZO studios. The plot was moved to Japan in the year 2100, so the characters of the original story are irrelevant. The series was released in Germany on 6 DVDs by Panini Video .

A Witchblade-themed manga was also released in Japan . Originally intended as an implementation of the anime series, the creators then decided on a separate story arc around a new Witchblade wearer. Under the title Witchblade Takeru , the two-volume manga series was published in Germany from 2007, also by Panini Verlag .

Soundtrack

On September 8, 1998, the CD Songs of the Witchblade: A Soundtrack to the Comic Books was released in the USA . This is a collection of songs that have been written or rewritten for this CD in order to bring the atmosphere of the comic closer to the listener.

The structure of the CD can best be described using the term musical , whereby the impression is underlined by design features such as:

  • The content of the songs describes characters / episodes from the series.
  • The names of the singers are placed with the image of the "embodied" character on the back of the cover next to the tracklist.
  • The pieces, mostly by babes in Toyland , are linked through comments from a speaker.

Special features of the CD are:

  • The booklet, with different covers of the magazine series on the inside as a background.
  • The cover of the booklet, the front, which is available in 3 different versions.
  • The hidden track in which the speaker finishes the CD.

In 2005 Witchblade: The Music was released . This sampler contains various songs from the television series, as well as remixes of some of the songs used.

In addition, the score for the television series composed by Joel Goldsmith has now been published.

Web links

Commons : Witchblade  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0494292/