Witchblade is back!

– Cover B: Giuseppe Cafaro and Arif Prianto (Full Color)

As foretold, the aughts are back all the way – and lo, behold the re-coming of Witchblade. Top Cow’s long running supernatural cop is coming back in July in a new series written by NYT Best-Selling Marguerite Bennett (Animosity, Batwoman, DC Bombshells) with art by Giuseppe Cafaro (Suicide Squad, Power Rangers, Red Sonja). Co-creator and IMage co-founder Marc Silvestri, Top Cow’s head honcho, will supply covers and encouragement.

Sara Pezzini as a New York police officer who received a magical sword that turned her into a superheroine with crime and demon fighting powers. The series launched as one of Image’s most popular early series in 1995, created by Silvestri, David Wohl, Brian Haberlin, Christina Z and Michael Turner. The series ran in various incarnations until 2015, and even got turned into a TV show all the way back in 2001 back when a comic book being adapted for TV was a shocking thing to happen and not Teusday. She also returned in a 2006 anime-style version.

Is the world ready for the return of Witchblade? 10 years is about the right time for a comeback, and this time the origin and world have been reimagined with a vision a little more suitable for 2024 than the “bad girl” inspired original.

In Witchblade #1, New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini’s life was forever fractured by her father’s murder. Cold, cunning, and hellbent on revenge, Sara now stalks a vicious criminal cabal beneath the city, where an ancient power collides and transforms her into something wild, magnificent, and beyond her darkest imaginings. How will Sara use this ancient power, or will she be consumed by it?

Bennett, who has been a bit absent from comics pages as she worked on the upcoming Butterfly TV Series and Ark: The Animated Series, seems the right person for the job. “The ability to tell a ferocious story full of monsters, sexuality, vision, and history was irresistible,” she said in a statement. “Our saga is sleek, vicious, ferocious, and has a lot to say about power in the 21st century and will be the first time that we are stopping the roller coaster to let more people on. I’ve loved Witchblade since I was a child, and there is truly no other heroine like Sara with such an iconic legacy and such a rich, brutal relationship to her own body.”

Cafaro is onboard to modernize the series. “The Witchblade universe is being modernized to reflect how Marguerite beautifully explores the extreme sides of Sara through memories, her personal thoughts, like desire and hunger, in her solitude and when she is possessed by the Witchblade. So, I had to visually intersect a noir True Detective-like world with a supernatural, horror world that is a fantastic mix between Berserk and Zodiac!”

Marc Silvestri notes, “This is brand new mythology around Sara, and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with her and all the twists and turns. Discover Witchblade reimagined this summer, and join us as we bring all the fun of the 90s to the modern age and see how exciting comics can be. I can’t wait for you to read this new series.”

Witchblade has not been entirely absent for a decade: in 2021, Top Cow began to Kickstart the Witchblade Complete Collection, with a glimpse of a new armor design by Silvestri. The most recent campaign netted more than $200,000, so clearly there is an audience for the character.

Witchblade #1 lands in comics shops on July 17th, for $4.99 for 48 pages. The Final Order Cutoff deadline for comic shop retailers is Monday, June 24th, 2024. And there will be variants: