Ian Nottingham (Witchblade/Top Cow/Image Comics)

Background

Ian Nottingham

Height: 6’3 - 6’5

Weight: 210 lbs

Occupation: Assassin, Special Air Services captain for MI5 (formerly), bodyguard (formerly)

First appearance: Witchblade #1 (November 1995)

Likes: Sara Pezzini, Setsuke, Casablanca, the Blood Sword, killing people for money

Dislikes: Ken Irons, the Irish

Backstory

“If there is a challenger to my power that does merit that weapon, may they hunt me soon. For now, I have proven I rely on no specific tool. I have tested the limits of human ability... The combined powers of instinct, strategy, and physical prowess, pushed to the hilt. I am Ian Nottingham… A man amongst gods.”

Much of Ian’s past is a mystery, and thanks to the experiments and reconditioning he underwent, not even he remembers much of it. From what little we’re shown, he was originally a Special Air Services captain in MI5 whose missions ran deep undercover in Iran, Kuwait, and Japan.

His missions in Japan led to Ian becoming a well-respected bodyguard for the Yakuza and the daughter of one of its heads, Setsuke. In their time together, Ian would come to see her as family and love her like a daughter.

At one point, during a joint venture with the CIA, Ian was sent to investigate Russian mob activity in Detroit and Washington and subjected to behavioral modifications, conditioning him to be an assassin and placed deep undercover.

As part of this mission, he was assigned to serve under Ken Irons, an occult-obsessed businessman with ties to the Russians. Ian’s employers were particularly interested in a religious artifact Ken had obtained: an ancient artifact called the Witchblade. They assigned him with one goal: investigate the gauntlet and, if possible, retrieve it.

Unfortunately, the conditioning worked too well. In his five years with Ken, Ian’s memories began to blur, becoming so deeply entrenched in his undercover work as an assassin that he couldn’t remember his original objectives. But this amnesia wouldn’t hinder him from still becoming involved with the Witchblade.

Viewing his new bodyguard as a prime specimen for the Witchblade, Irons used his connections to get Ian involved with the military’s supernatural research facility Level 42. There, Nottingham would have his DNA infused with… something that’s never elaborated on. Whatever it was, this was just the start of a larger plan by Ken to activate the Witchblade. Ian became his personal guinea pig, being subjected to rituals and training that modified his body and enhanced his mental strength to control it.

But even with this training, there was still the problem of turning the Witchblade on. Ken’s latest attempt at this was to organize a tournament at the Rialto Theater, attracting the attention of numerous crime families and the FBI’s most wanted. Nottingham served as its host, but when it began, something happened that none of them could’ve expected.

A police detective named Michael Yee had infiltrated the tournament and was set to be executed in front of a live audience. Before he could be killed, his partner Sara Pezzini jumped in the way, taking multiple fatal shots in a failed attempt to save him. And when she’d rushed toward him, she accidentally knocked over the Witchblade’s casing.

As she laid there dying, the Witchblade activated and bonded to Sara, fully healing her and spiking her adrenaline. Her mind operating on instinct, Sara torched the gunmen that shot her and her partner, forcing the rest of the audience to flee.

From a surface level, the tournament was a bust, but not for Ken. He kept tabs on Sara, slowly earning her trust and befriending her while covertly dispatching Ian to stalk her and test her skills. Over the next few days, Ken began planning to steal the Witchblade using the same runes he’d grafted on Ian. Having served her purpose, Ken ordered Ian to amputate Sara and transfer the Witchblade to him, but to his fury, Ian had fallen in love with Sara and attacked him instead.

Unfortunately, Ian’s rebellion proved unsuccessful as Ken quickly overpowered him, beating him within an inch of his life and throwing him from the top floor of his building. Yet Ian somehow survived and continued his work as an assassin, only to soon be discovered by a man named Nino Sonatine. Seeking an ancient power called the Darkness, Sonatine brainwashed Nottingham into using his control over the arcane to absorb both the Darkness and Witchblade. This process nearly caused the world to enter an early Armageddon, but by working together, Sara and the Darkness’ wielder Jackie Estacado were able to stop Sonatine’s plans.

Though Jackie was able to reclaim the Darkness, Sara had briefly doubted the Witchblade’s power, causing it to remain bonded to Ian. But as he soon discovered, even his training wasn’t enough to tame it. The Witchblade began merging with his body and taking over, transforming him into a violent, unstable monster. It was only thanks to Sara’s intervention that Ian was freed from its influence, but in doing so, he was buried under a mountain of rubble.

Ian was eventually nursed back to health by Setsuke, only to end up back in Irons’ service. To make matters worse, his first mission was to kill Setsuke so she wouldn’t disrupt a larger plan involving another of Ken’s underlings, the celebrity/cult leader Gavin Taylor. Left with the ultimatum to kill her or let her suffer worse tortures under Ken, Ian reluctantly carried out his job.

Being forced to kill the woman he saw as a daughter tarnished Ian’s mental state. Even as he tried to convince himself that he’d done it out of love and spared her from a worse fate, he couldn’t shake his remorse, not just for her death, but for all of his murders. Wracked with guilt, he turned to Sara for comfort, but his inner turmoil caused their previous romantic tension to become somewhat rocky.

Things only got worse when he obtained Excalibur, a mysterious gauntlet similar to the Witchblade. Over time the blade started to mess with his head, filling him with delusions of grandeur, amplifying his love for Sara, and intensifying his anger and hatred. After killing an entire SWAT team and mortally wounding Ken Irons, Ian battled Sara, dragging her through multiple buildings before Sara emerged victorious and absorbed Excalibur into the Witchblade.

After this humiliating defeat, Ian laid low for several months and began targeting Nogawa, a new age Yakuza boss so violent that even the older generations were terrified of him. When one of the Yakuza’s attacks led to him literally being thrown back into her life, Ian reached out to Sara for help, and she directed him to another ally of hers: a mysterious man known only as the Curator.

But instead of visiting the Curator’s shop like a normal person, Ian broke in and stole one of his artifacts, the legendary Blood Sword. With this demonic sword in hand, he killed all of the Yakuza in his way and stabbed Nogawa in the mouth.

When she found out about this, Sara was naturally pissed off, and upon confronting him, Ian was arrested and hauled off to jail. He soon escaped, but after realizing Sara was no longer interested in him, he attempted to ditch her, only to get beaten down and sent back to prison.

After a long time of incarceration, Ian pulled off a prison break during a brief blackout, killing an entire squad of officers before meeting the advanced assassin android Aphrodite IV. As it turned out, the Curator had plans to remake the world, and he needed the wielders of 13 Artifacts to pull it off.

Ian’s first order of business was to kill the current wielder of the Blood Sword, an Irishman named Michael Finnegan. While Finn had a surprise for him in the form of the Glacier Stone, this didn’t stop Ian from escaping to fight him again later. This time, he made sure to kill Finn this time and claimed the Glacier Stone for himself… for like two minutes before the universe was destroyed and remade.

While we don’t see much of him in the reborn universe, it is shown that Ian continued his job as an assassin, killing high-ranking members of three major Yakuza clans in one night without the Blood Sword just to prove that he could.

Personality

Ian is a bit of an odd case for Top Cow characters since he has two wildly different depictions: Pre-Ron Marz and Post Ron Marz. I don’t mean that as a jab to Ron, I like what he did with Witchblade. It’s just that after his defeat in issue 75 and when he shows back up in 97, Ian might as well be a completely different character.

Pre-Marz

For most of his appearances, Ian is shown to be a serious man dedicated to his job, willing to carry out his orders no matter what, even if he doesn’t want to do it. From the start, he made it no secret that he despised working for Ken, and his infatuation with Sara convinced him to fully defect. Though even after betraying him, Irons was eventually forced back into his service, much to his chagrin. It was only after Excalibur amplified his hatred toward Ken that Ian permanently severed ties with him.

Thanks to his life as an assassin, he has little time for anything other than training and killing. He has no knowledge of pop culture, and the only movie he’s seen in his life was Casablanca, which he liked.

Despite not being romantically interested in her, partially because he babysat her when she was a kid and saw her more like a daughter, Nottingham was still willing to do anything to please Setsuke due to their past. When he was ordered to kill her, he still carried it out to keep her from suffering worse torture at Irons’ hands, and even satisfied her wish to have sex with him so she’d feel loved in her final moments.

Being forced to kill his longtime friend haunted Ian and changed him. Even after being forgiven by her ghost, he no longer saw himself as an honorable man who only took the lives of warriors and spared innocents. His guilt over killing her, combined with his own tensions with Sara, made him realize he was nothing more than a murderous thug hiding behind honor as an excuse. This eventually led to a spiral where he felt guilty over the assassinations he’d performed and developed a death wish.

While this is never expressed in any of his appearances, the guidebook Top Cow: Book of Revelations states Ian believes in the power of human will and that through force of will, you can accomplish almost anything. He also believes all life is chaos and control over it is fleeting at best.

Post Marz

If you thought any of that development sounded interesting, it’s completely abandoned when he returns in issue 97.

Now instead of a stoic, tortured assassin who went through self-reflection, Ian’s a cocky asshole that enjoys scotch, openly flirts with Sara despite knowing she has a boyfriend, and has a cavalier attitude towards theft and killing. To him, killing’s what he’s good at, and his jobs mean a few less bad guys in the world and a pile of money for him.

He’s also become so confident in his abilities that he believes Sara wouldn’t be able to kill him because she’s a woman. And despite never showing it in any of his previous appearances, he now hates the Irish out of nowhere.

In his final appearance (Artifacts #34 by Eugene Ward), Ian’s depicted closer to his old self, being a stoic, cold assassin whose use of the Blood Sword left him with a hunger for violence and death, and he casually murders numerous Yakuza without the Blood Sword as a test of his natural skill.

Experience

While much of his past is vague, it’s said that Ian was a Special Air Services captain in MI5 sent to missions across the globe, having received training from the sensei Tadashi and becoming his prized student. After undergoing mental conditioning to make him an assassin, Nottingham spent a year working at Level 42 and five years under Ken Irons, where he carried out multiple assassinations. According to the narration, he’s committed hundreds of murders during his time in the military and under Ken’s employ.

He’s defeated the assassin Tora no Shi three times, with the last time occurring after Tora had been enhanced enough that he could kill opponents with the same powers as Ian. He’s slain experimental super soldiers, killed 30 people in Tokyo, and entire teams of SWAT officers and Yakuza.

During the training he received to obtain the Witchblade, Nottingham obtained a level of discipline over his mind and body that few could dream of, with catching bullets being only a sliver of the superhuman feats he can accomplish through sheer force of will.

He’s weaponized chopsticks against some assassins and says he once killed a man with a paperclip.

While murdering several Yakuza in Japan, he pulled off kills through means like shooting through the plumbing with a shotgun.

Arsenal

Armor

A set of samurai armor worn while carrying out his jobs under Ken Irons.

Ninja Outfit

Worn while helping Sara fight some super soldiers in Rio de Janeiro.

Katanas

Nottingham’s preferred weapon when carrying out murders. Whether he uses one or two, these katanas are strong enough to slice through a car and can even slice through ghosts.

Pistol

Whether he’s using one of his own or stealing from a guard, Ian has occasionally been known to wield pistols. He’s used one to kill some Yakuza.

Knife

Like a true British thug, Ian can use the concealed knife in his coat to kill poor, unsuspecting Irishmen.

Shotgun

During his killing spree in the reborn universe, Ian used this to kill a Yakuza in his bathroom.

Shuriken

Used to blow out the tires in a car and kill some Yakuza.

Excalibur

A male equivalent of the Witchblade created by Ken Irons in his pursuit of the Witchblade’s power. Like its original counterpart, Excalibur is sentient and can choose who wields it. Its first appearance depicted it merging with Ian’s skin, though the rest of its appearances show it forming over his body like armor.

Though it seemed benevolent at first, over time it started spreading through Ian’s autonomous nervous system, central nervous system, and lymphatic system, driving him mad with power and making him more violent. This only stopped after Sara stripped it from him and absorbed it into the Witchblade.

While wielding it, Ian has the following powers:

Extrasensory Perception: It can warn Nottingham about potential dangers even if he can’t see them and lets him see ghosts
Non-Physical Interaction: Lets Nottingham attack ghosts and potentially squeeze them to death
Telepathy: Somehow let Ian read Sara’s thoughts
Shapeshifting: It’s able to summon tendrils, katanas, a bulletproof dragon construct, shoot spikes, and turns into a wedding ring when not in use
Energy Manipulation: When enraged, Ian can channel energy through his constructs to give them more power
Electrokinesis: Channeled electricity through Ken’s body
Regeneration: After being stabbed through the stomach, Excalibur fully healed Ian in seconds
Flight and Evolution: While wielding Excalibur, Ian learned that it could evolve and metamorphosize over time to gain new powers, including the ability to fly
Immortality Negation: By stabbing Ken with its tendrils, Ian removed the immortality he’d gained from the Holy Grail.

The Blood Sword

After losing Excalibur to Sara, Ian stole this from the Curator, and it became his new signature weapon.

Also known as the Ketsuma no Katana, this sword was forged when a shaman summoned a demon and bound its essence into a katana. When first unsheathed, it appears as a regular blade, but if blood is spilled near it or a fight begins, it will start glowing red.

The Blood Sword can communicate with its wielder and increases their strength based on the amount of blood spilled, but anyone who uses it becomes compelled to kill and a slave to their own bloodlust even without the sword. While it is possible to resist its influence by mastering it, Ian’s never shown to have done this.

Speaking of things Ian has never shown, the Blood Sword has a few other abilities that set it apart from a normal blade. It can create an aura around its wielder to prevent them from being aged to death and fuels their strength from the rage of the souls it’s claimed. And if its wielder dies, the Blood Sword will bind their soul to it, forcing them to fight from beyond the grave as long as the sword is held by a suit of armor.

Glacier Stone

A glowing blue gemstone necklace that gives its user access to an endless amount of ice to manipulate any way he likes. After killing the previous wielder Michael Finnegan, Ian briefly used the Glacier Stone to create a set of samurai armor, further enhance the Blood Sword’s power, and fire a blast of ice.

While he only gets a total of four pages with it (one of them being his armor shattering from a punch), it’s likely he could replicate Finn’s feats of freezing his apartment, a street in New York, and part of a lake given he witnessed its power during their fights.

Skills

Swordsmanship

Ian is said to be one of the most skilled swordsmen around, able to slice through cars with the precision of a surgeon.

Martial Arts

While rarely shown in the comics, Ian’s said in guidebooks to be a master of martial arts.

Stealth

Ian’s got an expertise with stealth and assassination, letting him kill others from the shadows and leave without being seen. He can even pull a Batman by disappearing in the time it takes someone to turn away and look back.

Powers

Mystical Energy Absorption

Thanks to the runes Ken Irons carved into his skin, Ian can absorb mystical and arcane energies into his body and channel them through his weapons to enhance their strength. He can even absorb ancient, sentient forces and beings like the Darkness and Witchblade from their hosts.

Enhanced Senses

When Setsuke was being tortured, Ian could somehow sense it.

Non-Physical Interaction

Can somehow slice through ghosts with his regular katanas.

Resistances

Mind control:

Casually resisted the telepath Kaliope when she tried to brainwash him into surrendering.

Strength

Merged with Witchblade

Rips a grown woman in half
Creates an explosion of energy that collapses a building (0.078 tons of TNT - 0.085 tons of TNT) (Small Building level)

Excalibur

Speed

Excalibur

Durability

Witchblade

His skin is bulletproof

Excalibur

Intelligence

Scaling

Sara Pezzini (downscaling)

Ian and Sara have battled each other several times, and despite ultimately losing to her each time they’ve fought, he has at least shown that he can hold his own against her. Couple this with his use of Excalibur, a copy of the Witchblade that could combine its power with the original, and you can at least argue he’d downscale from some of her feats.

Michael Finnegan

Ian’s fought him twice, and both times he wounded (and later killed) him with the Blood Sword. And while brief, he did wield the same Artifact as Finn, so he should be comparable to his feats.

Accidentally froze his apartment
Froze a street in New York and part of a lake
Survived a fall that created an explosion and a massive crater, though it knocked him out

The Angelus (downscaling) (debatable)

While Ian has fought the Angelus host Dani Baptiste, their “fight” consisted of Ian with the Blood Sword and amped by a second Artifact clashing swords for one page, possibly warding her and Ji Xi off with a blast of ice, then getting punched out of his armor by Tom Judge. Thus it would be hard to justify Ian scaling to her physically.

However, the Blood Sword was used to decapitate a previous host, Celestine, so you can argue for it having the power to kill them. Though it should be noted that the hosts were on the weaker end of the spectrum, so it’s debatable whether the Blood Sword should only scale to the weak ones or get higher end scaling.

Weak hosts

Lauren Franchetti:
- Blew up her home and a casino (0.0018 and 0.562 tons of TNT)
- Has the power of the sun flowing through her arms (Likely hyperbole)
Celestine Wright:
- Without the Angelus, she somehow survived her suicide bomb exploding
- Burned a man to a skeleton with a kiss
- Blew up a bar (0.029 tons of TNT)
Danielle Baptiste created enough light to destroy a metal casing around the Brooklyn Bridge (1.3 - 4.3 kilotons)

Higher end scaling

Feats

Is one of the most wanted criminals in the world
Has committed hundreds of murders under MI5 and Irons’ employ
Nearly caused an early Armageddon when he briefly absorbed the Darkness and Witchblade
Became the first man to wield the Witchblade
Defeated the assassin Tora no Shi twice
His exploits are so legendary that a team of trained SWAT officers were terrified of him
Is so hot that the sight of him shirtless briefly distracted Sara
Broke out of jail twice
Killed Michael Finnegan and briefly claimed the Glacier Stone
Murdered multiple high-ranking Yakuza in a single night

Weaknesses

Nottingham might be one of the most skilled assassins in the world, but at the end of the day, he’s no harder to kill than any other man. Despite his pain tolerance, he’s been knocked out by a hard enough punch and electrocution in the past, and unlike some of the other Artifacts, the Blood Sword doesn’t grant its wielder a healing factor.

In terms of non-physical weaknesses, using the Blood Sword makes him less patient and fills him with bloodlust, though he can briefly curb these traits if he abandons it. And while he can resist mind control from telepaths, the same can't be said for mystical methods.