Artifacts - Reclamation - Danial Carroll

PANEL ONE

A scientific research ship sits alone upon an endless sea.

CAPTION: Gulf of Mexico

CAPTION: The not too distant future.

PANEL TWO

Professor Avery is standing, looking over the shoulder of a technician seated at a monitor.

TECH: We've found it, Professor--the thirteenth one.

AVERY: I knew it! I knew they'd all be here!

PANEL THREE

Close on the face of Avery. He is looking very stern and serious.

AVERY: When they all came together, we feared the end of the world.

AVERY: Indeed, the energy build-up was immense...

PANEL FOUR

From the POV of the monitor, we see the technician turning around to face the Professor. Several other curious crew members have grouped around behind him.

AVERY: ... but then, seconds before critical mass, they just...

AVERY: Vanished.

AVERY: I posited a theory--discounted by my peers--that has now been conclusively proven within these sediments--

PANEL FIVE

We see a deep-sea rover, hovering above the seabed in pitch, inky blackness. It has a spotlight shining upon the floor, centered upon the Witchblade.

AVERY (OP): --of sixty-five million years.

Artifacts - The Man Behind The Curtain - Matt Duarte

Artifacts - The Man Behind The Curtain by Matt Duarte

Note from the author: I have never read any of these Top Cow comics, so if I got the character voices wrong, then... well, you are going to have to deal with it.

Five panels, the first one is the biggest one, almost half the page. The rest of them are the same size.

Panel 1

Description: A man with long blond and shaggy hair is walking down a room, with his back to the reader. He is wearing a flowing white garment. To his sides, all the wielders of the Artifacts are trapped, powerless and devoid of the Artifacts, secured against the walls. Their arms are held apart and so are their legs (think of it like in an X shape). They are all barely conscious.

MAN: I must simply commend you for your efforts. Even with all the fighting and warring factions, your group manged to find all the Artifacts in record time. Better than any other group in the past.

MAN: I fear, however, that your search for the thirteenth artifact was always going to be futile...

Panel 2

Description: The man is approaching Jackie Estacado, who is still being held in the wall. He doesn’t look in good shape but he still musters up some energy to talk. The man’s wearing a golden gauntlet, which he is using to lift Jackie’s head.

JACKIE: Let me guess... >cough< You have it.

MAN: No, I used to have it, but it is now something far greater. You were never going to find it because it simply isn’t in this universe to begin with.

MAN: And now, thanks to a friend of mine, neither are your artifacts. They have all been scrambled across the multi-verse.

Panel 3

Description: Patience (Magdalena) remains unscathed, but she looks positively terrified of being there. The Man continues walking, inspecting it’s captives.

PATIENCE: The m-multi-verse?

MAN: Yes, the folds of reality itself. Whole worlds and universes exist besides your own. Though for some reason, the Artifacts feel drawn to this one. They will eventually find their way here.

MAN: It won’t matter. You will all be long gone by then. Someone else will have to look for them.

Panel 4

Description: Sara Pezzini, also on the wall, remains defiant. She is visibly angry and despite her captivity, she looks ready to jump out and kill the man.

SARA: Are you finally going to tell us what the thirteenth Artifact is? That way once we get out of here and kick your ass, we know what to look for.

MAN: Ah, Sara, I was just educating all of you. Humanity is nothing without the knowledge we gather, you know? But yes, I think you have earned that much. The thirteenth artifact is what protects all of humanity against this holy war you are all fighting.

MAN: The thirteenth Artifact is a shield...

Panel 5

Description: The man, who we can now clearly see is standing in front of Sara. He has a very long bushy beard, and an inquisitive look fueled by deep blue eyes, but remains young and good looking. Around his waist, he is carrying belt full of scalpels and other medical tools. On his arm, he is wearing a big golden gauntlet that cracks with energy. This is none other than Leonardo Da Vinci.

LEONARDO: And I am simply an agent of it. Doing my best to protect humanity against the forces that would control and shape her development.

Next: The Dissection of the Artifacts!

The Artifacts - Grave Danger - Sime McDonald

I will freely admit I know nothing of the Top Cow universe or of this event, and this script suffers for it. I can’t promise any of this makes sense in terms of continuity. So, if it doesn’t, and my errors are obvious, apologies. But, if it's any consolation, I have been inspired to take a peek. So, in later years, when Thought-Balloons has exhausted every character in comics and we're back doing re-runs, I'll be far better equipped. Look forward to that!

PANEL ONE

Hope Pezzini is staring down at her mother’s tombstone. Years have passed. She’s mid-thirties, attractive, but her features have weathered from age and responsibility. She's a hard woman. Nothing sweet about her. She dressed in a trench coat, wrapped tightly around her lithe frame. Her hands are buried deep in her pockets. She is gazing at the tombstone impassively. The sky above is grey, threatening rain. There are three people standing behind her, standing soberly, allowing Hope her moment. Two men and a woman, similarly clad, dark coats, standard graveyard attire. They’re all holding shovels.

HOPE PEZZINI

Thank you for coming.

PANEL TWO
Focus on the other female. Around the same age as Hope. Cassandra Judge. She doesn’t look happy.

CASSANDRA JUDGE

We don’t want to be.

PANEL THREE
Hope smiles joylessly.

HOPE PEZZINI (1)

So, we have something else in common.

HOPE PEZZINI (2)

Okay. Let’s get this done.

PANEL FOUR

Hope has moved away from the grave. She’s facing us, eyes closed, gazing up at the sky. It’s just started to rain. Behind her, the trio are digging up her mother’s grave.

PANEL FIVE
Focus on the trio standing around the grave. There are mounds of dirt surrounding them. Their coats are filthy. We can’t see inside the hole in the ground. But they’re looking down at the contents of the grave, awestruck.

CASSANDRA JUDGE

Whoa.

PANEL SIX
Birdseye shot, looking down at the grave. There is no body. Rather, the thirteen artifacts are stocked together, untouched for years.

PANEL SEVEN
Tight on Hope, her eyes now opened. The emotion of the moment has passed.

HOPE PEZZINI

Grab your weapon.

We’re at war.

The Artifacts - What Is The Thirteenth Artifact? - Rol Hirst

Panel One.

A desert clifftop somewhere on a small island in the Aegean Sea. The Ark of the Covenant stands on a ceremonial mound, but it has been smashed to pieces. Bodies lie scattered in the immediate vicinity, many of them have had their flesh melted away down to the bone. In the foreground lies a battered Fedora hat. A man’s hand was reaching toward it from a brown leather jacket, but has failed to grab it. He’s dead now and sand is blowing across his hand and the hat; soon they'll be completely covered.

CAP: What is the Thirteenth Artifact?

Panel Two.

An old stone fireplace in a cold, draughty mansion house. In the hearth, a fire burns. On the fire, a child’s sledge with a picture of a budding rose painted upon it. The paint is bubbling and cracking as the flames lick across it.

CAP: What is the Thirteenth Artifact?

Panel Three.

The office of a gumshoe private eye. Horizontal window blinds cast shadows on a scene of murder and mayhem. The PI lies face down on the floor, dead, blood pooling from underneath him. On his desk, in the foreground, lie the remains of a bronze statue. We can just make out from the shattered pieces that the statue was of a stoic bird of prey, perched, its wings folded to its side.

CAP: What is the Thirteenth Artifact?

Panel Four.

A diner in downtown LA. Interior. Aphrodite IV is fighting two curiously dressed hitmen. She’s holding the larger of the two off the ground by his neck, yelling into his face. He’s a black man with an Afro, wearing a blue T-shirt with cartoon figures on it. The other hitman, white with grease-backed hair and a University of Santa Cruz T-shirt, is firing a big gun at Aphrodite. The bullets are bouncing off her. On the table in the booth the two men were sitting at is a briefcase, open, a golden glow emanating from inside. Diners and waitresses run or cower/hide from the chaos.

APHRODITE IV: I’m going to keep asking this question until I get the answer I want…

Artifacts – The Intended Wielders – Ryan K Lindsay

1. Establishing shot of a library. Usual stuff, cloudy sky.

Caption: I always get these jobs.
Captions: Always.

2. We are looking down a long and dimly lit library stack, at the end we can see some candlelight illuminating a table and someone sitting there. It’s hard to see exactly what is at the end, and that’s fine. The someone is a female, Hope Perkins (new character).

Caption: “When we find the thirteenth artefact you can have that one.”
Caption: Yeah, right. They just don’t believe it exists and if it does you can bet I’ll be shafted onto the Coin of Solomon. If I’m lucky.

3. Hope turns the pages on a dusty tome. She is tired, her head in one hand. She is a decent looking girl, but flat chested so clearly nothing like the rest of the Top Cow cheesecake.

Caption: I get to research and sit around to catalogue information. If I don’t have breasts out past my nose then I’m certainly no good. Haven’t they heard of a fighter’s body?
Caption: My intellect, amongst other assets, is wasted.

4. Hope’s face lights up.

Caption: …
Caption: Well, what do you know, there is something to say for book smarts.

5. We look down with Hope at a page in the book. On it is a matching diagram that fits that diagram showing you the different Artifacts and how they align. This diagram is in the same shape and manner but instead of having Artifact symbols it’s got 13 familiar symbols from culture, Christian Cross, Nazi Cross, etc.

Caption: Now what to do with it…

The Artifacts – Hope for the Future - Ben Rosenthal

Setting: A large area, perhaps in the middle of a city or an inner-city park. It is not important. What is important is the fact that whatever it used to be, it is not a mess. A huge force has errupted here, and taken most of the surroundings out. I'm thinking a post-apocolyptic look.


1. Witchblade’s hand lies on the ground. It looks pale, as if it has been drained.

CAPTION (Note: the ‘voice’ that we are reading should look powerful and important.)
I created you. Created everything.

2. The Witchblade and The Darkness lay defeated, next to each other, unconscious. Both are of the same pale colour as Witchblade’s hand in the previous panel.

CAPTION (1)
I was loved and worshipped by all.

CAPTION (2)
But I was forsaken. Shattered, then imprisoned by those who once did my bidding.

3. A wider shot, with the wielders of the 13 Artifacts are scattered on the ground. Witchblade and The Darkness are in the centre. All have the pale drained complexion.

CAPTION (1)
However, my return was preordained.

CAPTION (2)
Amusing. You thought she was the hope for my universe.

4. Hope Pezzini floats above the fallen thirteen. She is possessed with power – eye’s cracking with raw energy, covered in a weird amalgamation of The Darkness and The Witchblade’s armour, with wings of The Angelus behind her. Hope is only 1-2 years old, so this scene should look horrifying and creepy.

CAPTION
She’s not Hope at all. She is but a Vessel.

Artifacts - Fire and Brimstone - Max Barnard

The Premise: Ironically enough I struggled a fair bit with what I could do with just one page for this group of characters that *I* chose, but after no small amount of research and re-reading I decided that the most well-suited format for these characters is to have them face off. Obviously doing that with all thirteen characters on one page is insane, so I picked two I felt would have an interesting bout and decided to let them have at it. I can't say I'm overly pleased with the result, but it's something that given more pages or time I'd love to explore further (oops that's the apologist in me breaking free a bit there)

And so we come to this: Glorianna, bearer of the ember stone who is capable of turning into a giant firebreathing dragon and Tom Judge, bearer of the rapture, which turns him into a hulking brimstone man... thingy. Two power-sets that seem to compliment each other, hence the title, and both on opposing sides of the ongoing conflict of the Artifacts event series itself.

It probably helps to consider this moment heavily out of continuity, as I'm not sure if they've ever met or if a confrontation between the two would go anything like this. Just have fun, okay?

-------------------------------------------

#.1
We open on Tom Judge and Glorianna Silver, both in their human forms, in a dark, moonlit field. Tom is smoking a cigarrette as per usual, and smirking.

Tom Judge: So it's come to this, eh?


#.2
Close-up on Tom Judge as he takes the cigarette away from his mouth and exhales.

Tom Judge: Hhhh.... I guess this is where I stop you from gathering the others.


#.3
Close-up on Glorianna as she starts to smoulder and catch alight.

Glorianna: You can try, sweetie.


#.4
Glorianna transforms into her full-on dragon form, roaring down at Tom Judge, flame spewing forth at him. How to approach the transformation in a single panel is a matter of debate in my head, whether it should be a motion blur, or showing all the various stages at once, faded out accordingly with what came first. There are possibilities, and I think in the end you can decide what would suit your artistic needs best.

SFX: RAA-FWOOOM!


#.5
The flames are now mostly past Judge, who has turned into his full Brimstone form, a dark hulking brute of sulphur, his whole body smoking.

Tom Judge: Fire? HAHA! I'm brimstone, &!#%$, this is goddamn biblical!


#.6
Judge is leaping at Glorianna's dragon form, both arms raised to strike. Glorianna is rearing her head, mouth full of fire and ready to strike again.

Tom Judge: And I know from $#%&ing; biblical!

Why Artifacts?

The Witchblade. The Darkness. Angelus, The Spear of Destiny, The Rapture, Pandora's Box, The Blood Sword, The Glacia Stone, The Ember Stone, The Wheel of Shadows, The Heart Stone, The Coin of Solomon and The Thirteenth Artifact. Thirteen items of power beyond human belief, from turning a man into a monstrous creature of brimstone to angelic powers that leave the host as leader of a horde of angels, the scope and differences between these 13 mystic items is HUGE, allowing for any variety of tales to be told when used correctly.


I'll level with you here, I don't expect all too many of you to know much about the artifacts, at least outside of Ron Marz's epic event series, but I'm sure that you'll all at least have heard of two of the characters; Witchblade, long-running Marc Silvestri creation formerly remembered for wearing nothing much but a bikini made out of magical material (again, a character improved in recent years) and The Darkness, wielded by Jackie Estacado, star of one of the best video games in recent years (you guessed it!) The Darkness. Those two are the clear mainstays of the Top Cow universe, popular characters oft written by some of the more talented writers in comics.


But still, I chose these characters purely on the strength of the event comic, and on how easily they resonated with me as a writer. Whether that pays off is something we'll see in a minute or two, but with any luck this feeling isn't just fanboy squees from me. Of course it helped my choice that the Top Cow universe has been growing into something more solid and respectable in these last few years, and seeing that encouraged me to highlight it with this week's choice.


So have at, check some spots for information about the characters, maybe buy the first trade of Artifacts to help you on your way (AMAZON US) (if it's anything like the single issues it will contain sufficient backmatter to get you up on all things Artifacts-related), and most importantly, HAVE FUN.