Artifacts #5 – Review

By Ron Marz (writer), Whilce Portacio (pencils), Joe Weems and Marco Galli (inks), Jared Liffreing (ink assist), Sunny Gho and Arif Prianto (colors), Troy Peteri (letters)

The Story: While the good guys continue to try and sort out their various personality issues, Aphrodite takes one giant leap for cyborg kind by infiltrating the HQ of Cyberforce, and leading them in a big 9if hopefully not yet climactic) assault on Sara and her friends.

What’s Good: First and foremost, a fond farewell to Michael Broussard and the absolutely superlative job he did bringing the last four issues of Artifacts to life. I love Ron Marz, and I love this series, but it was Broussard’s art that put it a cut above almost everything else on the stands.

That said, a hearty welcome to Whilce Portacio, who steps into this issue (and the next mini-arc) quite admirably. While it is different (and while I would just as soon have every Top Cow book ever printed drawn by Stjepan Sejic because everything his pencils touch turn to gold), the new look ends up being rather refreshing, and nicely sets this chapter apart from its predecessor. Considering the way this issue ends–with our team of heroes and team of villains face to face for the first time–I think that’s a very good thing indeed.