Top Cow’s teaser:
Artifacts promises to be Top Cow’s most ambitious art series to date and will weave together story lines from a number of Top Cow titles, including Witchblade, The Darkness, Angelus and Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box. It has been known that thirteen mystical Artifacts guide the fate of the Top Cow Universe. For centuries, it’s been whispered that bringing together all 13 artifacts would bring upon mankind’s destruction. The series will begin with a mysterious figure who seeks to put Armageddon into motion.
Unique to the mega-series Artifacts will be the fact that the series will be split between three teams, each completing four issues. Marz will reunite with artist Michael Broussard (The Darkness, Unholy Union), who will pencil Artifacts #1-4. The remaining two art teams will be announced in the future. Additionally, a special guest artist will complete the ultimate 13th issue of the series.
“Both Ron and I are incredibly excited to have Michael leading the artistic charge for Artifacts. He’s done an incredible job of the last few years on The Darkness and this is a fantastic opportunity to elevate fan’s awareness of his beautiful work,” commented Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik. “By having three different art teams working on this massive event series, we hope to avoid some of the problems that have plagued other projects of this scope, such as delays or last minute artistic changes,” Sablik added…
….[the] lead-in series Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box by the writing team of Rob Levin (The Darkness: Shadows & Flame, The Darkness: Butcher) and Bryan Edward Hill (Broken Trinity: Aftermath) with art from Alessandro Vitti (Secret Warriors)….center[ed] on Michael Finnegan and Glorianna Silver, the bearers of the Artifacts known as the Glacier Stone and Ember Stone, respectively, who return for a pulse-pounding, world-spanning adventure to gather the 13 artifacts before a fanatic cult does.
The Broken Frontier site has more:
The Artifacts shown on the teaser images:
* Witchblade (Sara Pezzini)
* The Darkness (Jackie Estacado)
* Angelus’s Crown (Dani Baptiste)
* The Wheel of Shadows (Sabine)
* Spear of Destiny (Magdalena)
* Ember Stone (Gloriana Silver)
* Glacier Stone (Finnegan)
* Blood Sword (Finnegan)
* The Rapture (Tom Judge)
And, finally, the solicit for issue #1:
Created by: Ron Marz & Marc Silvestri
Key Artists: Michael Broussard, Stjepan Sejic
Genre: Action/Supernatural
Hope is lost.
The offspring of the Darkness and the Witchblade has been abducted, straining the already tenuous balance between Dark and Light.
But the conflicts within the central Trinity of the Darkness, the Witchblade, and the Angelus do not alone doom our world. There are Thirteen Artifacts. Separately, they maintain the equilibrium and guide the fate of the universe. Together, they will end the universe.
Our world is dying. But there are those who have grown impatient. Cults, governments and madmen all vie for control of a power they do not fully understand.
The race is on between billionaire industrialist Glorianna Silver and Irish gun-runner Michael Finnegan to collect the remaining lost Artifacts that comprise the Thirteen. Both exist to destroy each other. Both will stop at nothing.
Lost in the eye of the storm are two people. A mother. A father. And their frantic search to find their missing child.
All bets are off.
