“Witches Get Stitches Part 1”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ray Fawkes
Art: Alvaro Sarraseca
Colors: Salvatore Aiala
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
DEBUT ISSUE! From the team that brought you the seismic VAMPIRELLA VS. PURGATORI series comes the solo follow-up for the demon of dark humor! Purgatori’s really living the vampire demon life. She’s got Lilith’s nasty mind worm eating her willpower. She’s going bug-nuts crazy. And now, there are a bunch of witches targeting her with their weird body-snatching schemes. Clearly, it’s time for some quiet introspection and careful planning, right? Get ready for bloody mayhem instead!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having enjoyed the recent miniseries that brought Purgatori and Vampirella together, a new ongoing Purgatori series certainly made sense since there was enough setup there. I’ve not been a huge fan of the old Chaos characters but Purgatori managed to win me over with some of the recent use of her. Ray Fawkes takes on the challenge of getting her own series underway and handles it well, though she’s mostly absent from a decent chunk of the debut, at least in terms of being awake and active. The book makes out really well with Alvaro Sarraseca on board for the artwork as I really like their style and approach to her design which certainly keeps the attractiveness but doesn’t overly sexualize her, which sounds weird considering how little she wears but we’re talking about the framing of scenes and panel that doesn’t lean into it being all about the fanservice.
What we get here is that after recent events, Purgatori has returned to the monastery and is meditating over the events that have been going on. I do like the process that she operates under with this group in retaining the knowledge of all the masters going back a long time by consuming them when their lives are at an end and having all of that within her. But she also struggles a bit with all the voices inside, trying to keep things straight and maintaining control over everything. Her current bout of meditation is over events from the prior miniseries where we learned that she’s been infected with Lilith magic that is going to consume and control her hundreds of years down the line when Purgatotri finally fulfills her destiny in being the only god left. I do like getting that nod included while placing her in a position in the present to figure out how to undo it.
What complicates all of this is that there’s a group of magic users/witches that are intent on dealing with Purgatori themselves with their own agenda. Using some special skin magic, Sara takes on the form of one of the monks and infiltrates the place to kill all the other monks before being consumed by Purgatori herself. While that’s unfolding, we see how the others are in touch with Sara and setting the next phase of the plan for dealing with Purgatori moves forward. It’s not clear what their end goal is here yet but their plan is really well-executed overall and I like the efficiency of it all while bringing in just enough dialogue and character material. When you get that end image of Sara after she gets her neck ripped out, well, it cements us with a really great moment that has you wanting more.
In Summary:
The Vampirella/Purgatori miniseries did a lot of the heavy lifting of getting me to like Purgatori so I’m definitely keen to see where all of this goes. I like the character and concept that we get here and the stinger bit at the end definitely makes me want to see more of what the real plan is here. I’ve liked a lot of Ray Fawkes’ works over the years, especially when it really leans into the dark and supernatural, so there’s a lot of potential with this series. Alvaro Sarraseca has definitely been one of my favorite artists that works on a number of Dynamite titles and their work with Purgatori and the story, in general, are solid, from the calm moments to the extended action sequence. I’m cautiously optimistic here.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: October 20th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
