“Witches Get Stitches Part 4”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ray Fawkes
Art: Alvaro Sarraseca
Colors: Salvatore Aiala
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
Purgatori! She’s got the memories of thousands of people in her head! But who is she, really? She might be able to figure it out if only people would stop trying to kill her, eat her, become her, conquer her, feed themselves to her, die in entertaining ways, all of the above… literally ALL the time. But maybe that’s… someone’s plan? Maybe if she stops and thinks, everyone’s in real trouble. Let’s find out! IN THIS ISSUE.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The progress the series has made since the opening and building on the previous miniseries has definitely helped to get me more and more into this book. I’ll always give Ray Fawkes a chance to prove that his project is one worth paying attention to and while I’m not much of a fan of the Chaos characters, he’s nailing this one right. Once again, 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.
This issue is bringing us closer to a resolution to the opening storyline and it’s definitely going to be interesting. Initially, a lot of our time is spent with Purgatori and Darwish as he’s doing his best to get her back to realizing some control over herself. She’s still in a violent mode overall and not exactly pleased with him with what he did to get her true attention back, and she shows it by nearly getting him to death’s door with how she treats him overall. But he’s able to get her to start thinking about what the witches are doing and that while she has been around a long time overall, there are things she still doesn’t know and they may have found a way to take advantage of her that she hasn’t figured out yet. Just getting her to take a step back is an important thing, something that Darwish was willing to die for.
When it comes to the witches themselves, which has Purgatori coming to visit at the very end, it’s boiled down to Juliet now going all out to get what the original plan is here. She’s already absorbed one of them that has had her body die and now Lisa is doing her best to keep some distance and stay away from her. Not that it’s actually happening as Juliet knows she needs Lisa but she tries the route of going sweet and using honey to do so. Lisa, being foolish and wanting to believe her friend, thinks she’s actually gotten through to her but it just lets Juliet get her hands on her all the easier. It’s not done badly and there is definitely a creep element to the visual design that really works. And seeing how Juliet is doing her best to control it works well too as it’s not just power gained and suddenly ready to rock the world. It’s an adjustment.
In Summary:
Purgatori’s slowly revealing a bit more about herself and establishing how she’s handled things over the centuries with her appetite and the minds of those that she’s consumed. It’s definitely interesting and helps to make the character better to work with. Her back and forth with Darwish here makes sense but it’s also something that just feels slightly off with how she feels toward him considering her lack of control. The time with the witches is definitely disturbing, however, and I’m excited to see how that unfolds as it has some more dark time ahead to be sure.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 19th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
