VS Analysis: Sara Pezzini, bearer of the Witchblade (Top Cow Productions)

 


In case you’re wondering

The following analysis will be specifically covering the Witchblade run from 1995 to 2015, as well as spin-offs like the anime and manga. I’ll also be including any crossovers for the comics, as several of them are established as being canon to the Top Cow universe.



Background

Sara Pezzini

Nicknames: Pez, Tentacle Girl, Supercop, Pezgrl39, Jane Tracy, Pandora, Trixie, Officer McGruff

Age: 25 (start of series), 45 (end of series)

Height: 5’9

Weight: 134 lbs

Occupation: Homicide Detective for NYPD (formerly), private investigator (formerly), sheriff of Saratoga County in New York (resigned)

First appearance: Cyblade/Shi: The Battle for Independents #1 (January 4, 1995)

Likes: Police shows and movies (especially Dirty Harry), aggressive music, baseball, Chinese food, Lisa Buzanis, Lara Croft, Patrick Gleason, her daughter Hope

Dislikes: Her sister Julie breaking into her apartment and being an attention whore, Rick Springfield, hot dogs, Manhattan coffee, Ken Irons, Ian Nottingham (over time), Aphrodite IV, Jackie Estacado (end of series) 
 

Backstory

Born November 18, 1970, Sara Pezzini was raised by her mom and policeman Vincent Pezzini. Growing up, Sara idolized her father and wanted to be a policeman just like him, but tragedy struck when she was 8 years old. Vince’s partner Joe Siry appeared on their doorstep and explained that their father had died in the line of duty, shot by an unknown assailant.

This news shook Sara to her core, and she retreated into denial and violent outbursts. Even when her mom took her to a child psychiatrist, it was determined that she’d grow up to one of three options: becoming a victim, a violent criminal, or a police officer to deludedly live up to her father’s memory.

That last hypothesis would come true when she graduated from the police academy at 22 years old, becoming a homicide detective under Siry’s supervision just two years later. Despite being hot-headed and occasionally reckless, she still made for a damn good officer.

But Sara’s life would be permanently changed after a disastrous stakeout in the Rialto theater.

While investigating a tournament that had gained the attention of numerous crime families and wanted felons, Sara’s partner Michael Yee was discovered and kidnapped, set to be executed in front of the audience. Before he could be shot to death by firing squad, Sara jumped in the way, taking multiple fatal shots in a failed attempt to save Michael. But in her rush to save him, Sara had unknowingly knocked over the tournament’s prize: a jeweled metal gauntlet.

As she lay bleeding on the ground, Sara reached out, hoping for a gun, a knife, anything that could save her, and the gauntlet reacted. Something whispered in her mind, and the next thing she knew, Sara was back to her feet, her mind reeling from her near death experience as she used the gauntlet to torch the men responsible. When this adrenaline rush finally subsided, Sara fell unconscious and awakened in a hospital to horrible news. Michael had died of his wounds, and she’d only survived through a miracle.

After finishing her recovery, Sara tried venting her grief and anger through a visit to the gym, and while there she met the eccentric businessman Kenneth Irons. Though she had no idea who he was, Irons would slowly earn her trust through his sympathy toward her and by saving her when she was ambushed by the Rialto tournament’s host: a superhuman assassin named Ian Nottingham. 

Over the next few days, Sara would learn more about Ken and his studies regarding her new gauntlet: an ancient artifact called the Witchblade. But in doing so, she’d also discover that Ken had been stringing her along. He had organized the tournament in Rialto to find someone worthy of activating the Witchblade, and he’d assigned Nottingham- his current bodyguard -to test her abilities with it before claiming the Witchblade.

Irons enjoyed a brief success in wielding the artifact he’d sought for so long, but Sara’s superior control over it resulted in his defeat, sending him to his supposed death.

From there, Sara would team up with her new partner Jake McCarthy and their cases would become more involved in the supernatural. They fought super soldiers, cyborgs, demons, and had repeated run-ins with Nottingham and the Italian hitman Jackie Estacado, who wielded an ancient force called the Darkness which was seemingly tied to the Witchblade.

As she became more involved in these cases, her relationship with Ian grew closer, their bond symbolized by his own union with the severed Witchblade piece “Excalibur.” And as Sara learned more about the Witchblade, she’d also discover how Irons had ruined her life from the start, ever since he blackmailed Joe Siry into killing her father.

This would all come to a head when Excalibur began amplifying Nottingham’s existing hatred toward Irons, driving him to track Ken down and mortally wound him. As Siry stayed behind to finish Irons off, Sara was able to fully extract Excalibur from Nottingham’s body, rendering the Witchblade whole again.

This brief period of triumph would end when Sara was ambushed by a group of dragons and fell into a coma. While she did awaken some time later and seemingly prevent their masters from summoning an ancient god, it came at a cost. While trying to stop them, Jake wound up taking an attack meant for Sara, leaving him critically injured and comatose.

Sometime later, Sara would be reassigned to One Police Plaza and become part of their Special Cases division, working explicitly supernatural cases alongside her new partner (in work and romance), Patrick Gleason.

With the help of a mysterious antique salesman called the Curator, Sara would finally learn the truth behind the Witchblade. It was the spawn of the primordial forces of light and dark, the Angelus and the Darkness, and one of 13 Artifacts that would decide the fate of the world. But that wasn’t all she discovered.

After Jake woke up from his coma and killed himself to keep the ancient god from manifesting through him, Sara learned that she’d somehow gotten pregnant, courtesy of a possessed Jackie impregnating her during her coma. To ensure her child, Hope, would remain safe, Sara passed the Witchblade onto ballet dancer Danielle Baptiste, but this would only prove a temporary solution. 

Upon her birth, Hope became the focal point of a war between Jackie’s Darkness and the embodiment of light, the Angelus. In the aftermath of this battle, Sara was manipulated by the Curator’s brother Tau’ma into reclaiming the Witchblade, and Dani would become the new Angelus.

But even with the Witchblade by her side, Sara never could’ve suspected that she and Hope would become involved in a greater scheme by the Curator to destroy and remake the universe.

Through his machinations, the Curator was able to bring all 13 Artifacts together, slowly erasing the entire universe, but before he could kill Hope and ensure it would be remade in his image, Jackie killed him at the last second. As a result, the only ones left to dwell in the blank, empty void were Hope, Sara, and Jackie, having been spared thanks to their connection to their daughter.

Unfortunately, as the Curator had told them beforehand, their daughter’s death was the only way to ensure the universe would be restored. Left with no other choice, Sara was forced to kill her own daughter despite Jackie’s wishes.

The universe was reborn, but something about it felt off. For reasons she couldn’t remember, Sara had quit the police force, broken up with Patrick, and moved to Chicago, becoming a private investigator to make ends meet. She was alone, her only companion being the Witchblade on her wrist.

During her time in Chicago, Sara would discover the hidden realm of Faerie and battle the forces of the Corruption Cataract, the remains of an otherworldly god that had entered the universe in 1871. With help from the fat policewoman Jane Wosnicki and Faerie’s sheriff, the former Witchblade bearer Katarina, Sara was able to defeat the Corruption Cataract and its anti-christ, Alisa Spencer.

Some time after this, Sara would be contacted by another Artifact bearer, Tom Judge. Back in New York, he and the other bearers discovered Jackie Estacado had somehow rewritten the universe to get his ideal life, now living with his resurrected girlfriend (now wife) Jenny and their daughter Hope.

This news, combined with showing her a picture of Jackie’s “daughter,” brought back Sara’s memories of raising Hope. Enraged that her daughter had been taken from her, Sara confronted Jackie, only for him to fully restore the memories he’d wiped. As he forced her to relive her memories of killing Hope, Jackie callously explained that after killing his daughter, he’d rewritten the universe because he could no longer trust Sara.

Sara was left in her apartment, completely broken as she reminisced over the memories of the family she never had. However, her emotional distress would take a backseat when Aram, a former wielder of the Darkness, informed her of Jackie’s plans to summon the Ancient Ones, the same gods that had birthed the Corruption Cataract.

Left with no other choice, Sara went to the Estacado estate to dissuade Jackie, but when that failed, Sara and Aram worked together to kill him and destroy the Darkness for good. Sadly, her victory turned out to be hollow, because she learned immediately after that Hope had been watching the whole thing.

Unable to cope with what she’d done and hated by her former daughter, Sara returned to Chicago to drown her sorrows, but her anger caused the Witchblade to lash out and sever the hand of a nearby patron. This loss of control horrified Sara, and she couldn’t bear to wield the Witchblade any longer. With the help of an old friend, the Magdalena, Sara was able to contain the Witchblade in the Reliquiary of St. Vitus, nullifying its power and supposedly ensuring nobody would ever be able to use it again.

Now free from its influence, Sara continued making progress as a private investigator, and for the next two years, she’d spend her time as the sheriff of Saratoga County, New York. But unbeknownst to her, the Angelus had possessed Jenny and stolen the Witchblade for herself, seeking to tip the universe’s balance in her favor now that the Darkness was dead.

Sara would find herself in the middle of this conflict when an Angelus-worshipping serial killer shot her in the stomach with a piece of the Witchblade. Right before he could finish the job and reclaim his piece, he was attacked and killed by an Angelus warrior seeking to return the full Witchblade to its mistress. Instead, Sara would end up obtaining the piece, drawing the Angelus’ attention.

The two did battle, ending with Sara’s victory and the Angelus swearing vengeance. But even after two years of separation, the Witchblade still felt sore about being abandoned. At first it tried to kill Sara when they were alone, but when that failed, the two hashed things out and made up.

Now fully combined, they returned to the Estacado home, destroying it and the last remnants of the Darkness virus, and briefly entered a partnership with the supernatural aficionado (and sorceress) Amaryllis… who almost immediately betrayed them and used her final moments to bring an entire building down on them.

This proved to be the last straw for Sara, who decided to resign as sheriff and head back to New York. Believing her time with the Witchblade was over, she recorded her history with it on a tape and tried passing them on to the women she’d met in the past, but no matter who she gave it to, Dani, the Magdalena, Cyberdata CEO Francesca Taylor, it inevitably returned to her. It was only when she realized she didn’t want to let it go that the Witchblade finally left, allowing Sara to return to a normal life with Patrick while it searched for its next bearer.

Personality

As a kid, Sara was a daddy’s girl and a tomboy into guns and dinosaurs, while her sister Julie was a mommy’s girl that liked dresses and horses. Growing up, her dad always took her to every baseball game he could, making her a huge fan. The only thing she loves more is Dirty Harry, which she and her dad watched about 20 times in the theater. It made such an impression on her that when she became a cop, she was said to have the disposition of Dirty Harry and the body of a Victoria’s Secret model.

Sara and Julie never saw eye to eye and she’d always get annoyed at Julie breaking into her apartment or whoring herself out to get attention, blaming herself for not being there for her.

While she’s said on occasion that she doesn’t watch much TV, she’s a huge fan of cop shows and movies. She’s even used some tricks she saw on Law & Order during an investigation, though she stopped watching it after they added the “new blond chick.”

Aside from cop shows, she’s a massive cinephile, having watched all of the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacres in high school, and has all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies.

By her own admission, she’s a thrill-seeker and will accept missions if they sound exciting. She’s also stated the only time she has a clear mind when she’s fighting. She can be a bit hot-tempered and reckless, and has a bit of a sadistic side to her. Thanks in part to the Witchblade’s influence, she’s had no problem spending hours whipping Jackie until his skin dripped with pink fluid, or gaining information and confessions through physical harm, threatening castration and lobotomies, and torture.

However, when it comes down to it, she still has a strong sense of justice and dedication to upholding the law. She’s against killing in general and will only do so in the line of duty when there’s no other choice. Even if she has the opportunity to save humanity by letting an anti-christ fall to her death, she’ll still prioritize saving that person over herself.

She’s also expressed disappointment whenever a cop cracks a joke over a dead body since she can’t see how people, especially the good guys, can have such a disregard for life. Though she has sometimes skirted the law like when she took a pedophile to a bridge and had him get killed by a troll instead of arresting him.

Because of her constant investigations into homicides and kidnappings, she briefly took up smoking as a coping method. Even after the Witchblade forced her to drop it, she’d still occasionally crave them, but this trait was dropped entirely after issue 64.

Her reason for becoming a police detective has been given different explanations by various characters. Sara has said she became one since her dad was a cop and she never thought she could be much else, though a later issue says it’s so she could take care of someone and love them like her dad did with her. Her child therapist believed this career choice was a delusional attempt to cope with her father’s death. Julie’s said it was to cope with the trauma of being kidnapped and molested by her therapist for three months.

Regardless, it’s suggested that the trauma from that therapist caused Sara to develop trust issues and become a loner who cut off from her friends and family. This doesn’t stop her from developing a relationship with fellow detective Patrick Gleason and wanting to have kids, which she initially believed wouldn't happen because of the Witchblade's impact on her life.

As the years went on, Sara became more accustomed to the supernatural, recognizing that the homicides she was called into solve usually had some sort of supernatural twist to them. It eventually got to the point where she treated a duo of undead serial killers like regular murderers, and didn’t bat an eye at meeting a necromancer who summoned a demon and trained under a hundreds year old sorcerer. This expertise in the supernatural eventually got her and her partner Gleason assigned to the special cases division, which investigates crimes that defy rational explanation.

After all the betrayal and disappointment Sara’s suffered in her life, she’s come to see the Witchblade as the only real friend she has left, though its violent outbursts have caused her to struggle with it on occasion.

She likes listening to aggressive music, White Stripes, Sloan, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. However, listening to Rick Springfield makes her want to take a shot to the chest without kevlar.

In terms of food, she’s a fan of tofu, nacho cheese Doritos, and can eat an entire container of edamame hummus. But the one thing she really likes is Chinese food. She’s regularly eaten it when she was with Patrick and when she moved to Chicago.

She dislikes hot dogs because of how much mystery meat is in them, and isn’t a fan of coffee from vending machines or Manhattan.

While she might come across as stoic and fearless, she’s still freaked out by flashlight gags thanks to a childhood trauma from summer camp.

Experience

Over the course of 20 years, both in-universe and real life, Sara’s picked up an impressive track record of dealing with the supernatural. When she started off, she was the youngest homicide detective on the force, being top of her class in the academy physicals, graduating from the police academy in September 1993, and being promoted to a detective in January 1995. And after gaining the Witchblade, her life was thrown into one supernatural encounter after another.

She’s served as a homicide detective, an agent at Level 42 (the highest security area in all government agencies and independents), a private investigator in Chicago, and acted as sheriff of Saratoga County for two years. And during all this time, she’s battled experimental super soldiers, robots, ghosts, demon lords, vengeful spirits, and creatures from other dimensions, among many other things.

Thanks to her connection to the Witchblade, her experience goes beyond what a normal human has endured.

According to Ken Irons, who’s studied it all his life, the Witchblade dates back as far as 304 BC, though later retcons would establish it existing as far back as Pangaea. And Sara has a direct connection to everyone that's beared it, giving her the “experience of millennia.”

Sara’s somewhat pragmatic at times, willing to go for low blows like the crotch to gain an advantage. And after realizing from their previous encounter that she couldn’t beat him in a straight fight, she dropped Gerard Irons off a building and let gravity do the rest.

While the extent of her formal training is unknown, it is shown in an early issue that she practices boxing in her spare time.
 

Arsenal

The Witchblade

Formed after the Darkness and Angelus had sex as part of a temporary truce, the Witchblade has been called by many names: the Balance, the Digitabulum, the Hand of God, the Demon’s Hand, the Gantelet des Epines, and the Cheetah’s Claw. No matter what it’s called, it’s a gauntlet of living metal made to act as a balance between the light and dark, keeping them from destroying each other and everything else. To carry out these duties, the Witchblade will bond to one woman per generation in both body and soul. Upon attaching itself to a "bearer," the Witchblade's mind becomes bonded with hers, responding to her thoughts and communicating with her.

While women are its ideal hosts, the Witchblade has occasionally bonded to men, though it’s extremely rare and requires prerequisites like taking control of it through magic runes or having your body modified to filter its energy. But doing this will cause debilitating effects unseen in its female bearers. Even if his body is modified to absorb it and he receives the mental training to control it, a male host will slowly be killed by the Witchblade and eventually lose control as it starts merging with him.

Should it encounter someone it deems unworthy or the current bearer begin doubting her ability to wield it, the Witchblade will destroy their right hand or incinerate them. It’s also been shown that the Witchblade will leave a bearer for doubting its power or if something happens to make it view them as unworthy, such as becoming a selfish drunkard whose actions lead to a child’s death. Though as shown from Katarina, they can be vindicated if another is there to inspire them.

When not in use, the Witchblade takes the form of a bracelet or necklace, activating in response to the bearer’s anger or when it senses danger, even if the bearer isn’t aware of it. This includes people who interacted with it in the past and beings spawned from itself. It’s reacted violently in when it sensed Ken Irons, his son Gerard while he was living under a different name, Sallah, the goddess Bastet, and the Weave (a being spawned from the Darkness and itself).

The Witchblade will automatically defend Sara from anyone or anything it sees as a threat, including her allies, former bearers, and unhealthy habits, even if she’s unconscious. By the end of the series, Sara’s used it for so long that it will act and transform on its own without her needing to think about it, and it can defend her without being attached. If a situation becomes too dangerous for her, it can latch onto someone nearby and force them to take her place, which happened to Lara Croft.

Despite its nature as the balance between light and dark, the Witchblade is naturally malevolent, requiring a strong enough bearer to keep it in check. Failure to do so will cause the bearer to become overwhelmed by bloodlust, relishing the violence she causes, becoming more violent, and actively trying to kill.

And while it’s one of the things the series is most famous for, the Witchblade doesn't tear through clothes too often. Across the main series’ 189 issues (counting annuals and specials), it’s only happened in 14 of them (8, 10, 14, 41, 47, 49, 66, 79, 103, 110, 164, 168, 174, and 175). Counting spinoffs and crossovers, it’s also done in Tales of the Witchblade #1, Shades of Gray #4, Medieval Spawn/Witchblade 1, Elektra/Witchblade, Vampirella/Witchblade: The Feast, and Monster War #3. This usually happens when the bearer or Witchblade gets angry, but it’s implied the Witchblade will stop if the bearer communicates with it… at least temporarily.

Tendrils

While the full list below encompasses everything it can make, the Witchblade’s go to for shapeshifting is the creation of tendrils. These razor sharp tentacles are typically summoned in droves to stab through enemies from behind, restrain them, or tear them to shreds. They can pierce straight through a man's head or helicopter glass, perform lobotomies, break falls, lift full grown men, pin people to walls, crush them to death, rip apart monsters, and break through molecular bonds.

If she really wants to be cruel, she can subject you to some horrifying executions like forcing it through your body and ripping you apart or what it did to the Cyberdata androids.
 

Constructs

Thanks to its shapeshifting, the Witchblade can take on many different forms, ranging from weapons to armor, and like the Witchblade itself, they’re bulletproof. These include:
Crossover exclusive constructs include a healing pod that lets Sara gradually regenerate from massive blood loss, a statue of her, and a buzzsaw.

In the anime, the Witchblade can create blades that elongate at will to cover wide distances. These blades can come from anywhere on the bearer’s body, even her legs.

Wings 

Can summon them to take to the air and fly or wrap around her to create a soundproof shield. But if she goes too high, she can lose control and risk crashing. 

Armors

 

When facing off against gunmen or more inhuman threats, the Witchblade can create different types of armor to defend Sara. These range from arm guards that can withstand grenades, an armored helmet, a metal infrared mask, body armor that can withstand a dragon’s bite and has wings, samurai armor, and full body armor that’s bulletproof, flame retardant, can withstand explosions, and take on a more monstrous form for intimidation. 
 

Revolver

 

A .357 sub-nose swing-out revolver that serves as Sara’s standard weapon when on duty. 


Pistol

After her revolver was destroyed fighting a samurai ghost, Sara was shown using this for a few issues before going back to her old one. Though she seems to have gone back to this model following the two year timeskip.
  

Catsuit and Machine Guns

During a battle with a mutated Ian Nottingham, Sara outfitted herself with these for some heavier firepower. 

Fun fact: The catsuit was a gift from Lara Croft.


Shotgun and Bulletproof Vest

 

Used in Tomoe/Witchblade: Fire Sermon while dealing with a hostage situation involving mad cultists.

Misc. Equipment


Powers

Shapeshifting

The Witchblade’s main power and what allows it to create its various constructs. It can take on any form it or its bearer desires, limited only by their imagination. The Witchblade has even been shown taking its own forms, like a man, woman, and T-Rex. Aside from making constructs, this power has occasionally been used for lockpicking.


Self-Sustenance

According to Sara, the Witchblade prevents its bearer from feeling hungry.

 

Extrasensory Perception

 

In addition to detecting potential threats before they appear, the Witchblade can sense the arcane and supernatural, letting it pick out real witches, shamans, and “cyberoccultists” among regular people and charlatans, and tell when someone’s using a power that isn’t from this world. This includes fellow Artifacts, split off pieces of itself, and beings related to it like the Weave.

After Sara bonded with Chad, who can see ghosts, she gained the ability to do the same. She can see them even if they’re supposed to be invisible to regular people.

Non-Physical Interaction

The Witchblade and its constructs are capable of harming and destroying normally intangible beings like ghosts or the demon Agrat Bat Mahalat, who could phase through gunfire.

This power also applies to offshoots like Excalibur, which can potentially squeeze ghosts to death.

Illumination

If Sara doesn’t have a flashlight on hand, the Witchblade can be used to light her surroundings even with just its jewel. Its light can reach as high as an underground cave.

Acausality/Time Travel

The Witchblade exists in all times at the same time. It knows what is and what will be, and automatically recognizes bearers from other eras. This comes with the added bonus of letting bearers and those nearby travel through time, like when it sent Hyper Sapiens from the year 5030 back to 2003.

Precognition & Retrocognition

When it encounters or senses someone it’s met before, the Witchblade has shown Sara visions of the past, including past bearers, enemies, the murderers and motives behind the deaths in her cases. These visions can occur while Sara is awake, asleep, or unconscious.

It’s also shown Sara visions of the future at one point, which came true despite her best efforts.

Enhanced Jumping

 

By using the Witchblade, Sara was able to cross a massive gap between rooftops.

The anime expands on this by having its bearer, Masane, and manmade replicas called Cloneblades leap from building to building, across bridges, and even letting them cross water.

Wall-Crawling

With the Witchblade’s claws, Sara can pull a Spider-Man and climb up walls.

Pyrokinesis

When it isn’t being used for shapeshifting, the Witchblade’s primary form of attack is unleashing blasts of fire at its enemies. This fire can be focused into specific shapes, small beams, and a wide blast, burn through part of a column and the side of a subway train, split into multiple paths, destroy beings made of necroplasm, and are precise enough to cause decapitations. She can channel it through the Witchblade’s claws, tendrils, or constructs to shoot waves of fire.

Electrokinesis

A lesser used ability of the Witchblade that Sara’s used when she was angry with Joe and while fighting Nottingham.

Other users of this ability include Danette Boucher, who- with only traces of the Witchblade in her DNA- could fire blasts of electricity that burned others from the inside out, and Nottingham, who was able to electrocute Ken Irons while wielding Excalibur.

Energy Manipulation

While it mainly uses pyrokinesis, the Witchblade is occasionally shown firing regular energy blasts and channeling it through enemies to fry them from the inside-out. In the crossover Tomoe/Witchblade: Fire Sermon, the Witchblade could fire energy capable of making explosions and summon energy shields to defend her.

Mental Manipulation

While possessed by the souls of two dead children, Sara was able to transfer their memories into their neglectful parents via contact.

Biological Manipulation

 

During a homicide investigation where the only witness was so paralyzed he couldn't even twitch or blink, the Witchblade forced him to speak by shoving tendrils down his throat.

Soul Manipulation 

 

While rarely used, the Witchblade can absorb souls into itself or Sara. Sara’s used this to store souls inside her body, though this almost immediately exhausted her, absorb ghosts (as seen above), and once channeled the souls of 36 people to enhance the Witchblade’s firepower.

Immortality Negation

The Witchblade and its offshoot Excalibur have been able to remove immortality from Ken Irons, Sallah, and Bastet by stabbing them. This is despite their immortalities coming from things like the Holy Grail and blessings from the gods.

Absorption

After the future criminal Vox used it to spread techno-organic nanomachines that merged with New York and its civilians at the subatomic level, the Witchblade then absorbed all of the nanomachines out of New York, including Vox, his minions, and nearly the Ultra Sapiens.

It can also absorb other beings like Excalibur and arcane energies like magic, though it needs to vent this off so it doesn’t overload.

Fissionism 

On occasion, the Witchblade has been known to split itself into multiple copies to protect multiple bearers. It’s done this to save Sara after she died in childbirth and after she was captured by Alisa, and in a crossover to give Vampirella some extra strength to fight demons. This process can even occur accidentally, as pieces of a shredded cocoon became sentient and ambushed Sara shortly after she unlocked the Witchblade’s secrets.

No matter how much it splits off or who bears these copies, the ones that were split off feel an instinctive nature to rejoin with their original and will leave their current host should the Witchblade demand it.

Even when the Witchblade rejects a woman from wielding it, attempting to force it onto them will cause traces of it to bond to their DNA, leaving them horribly mutated.

And while it’s most likely non canon (the only JLA/Top Cow crossover that’s explicitly canon is with Cyberforce), JLA/Witchblade establishes that even a sliver of the Witchblade is able to quickly transform itself into a full replica, complete with giving Oracle a spider body and webs.

Evolution

As time passes, the Witchblade’s abilities change and metamorphosize, letting it evolve to gain new, unknown abilities. This includes becoming more sapient, as it went from issuing warnings with few words to being capable of full sentences and conversations.

Additionally, the Witchblade is capable of adapting to its surroundings and enemies, learning from previous encounters to discover how to kill something it had difficulty with before. It’s created an infrared mask to fight the invisible Aphrodite IV, and formed underwater armor to let Sara fight as fluidly as she does on land.

Power Nullification

Because the Witchblade is designed to maintain the balance between light and dark, it can keep the Angelus and Darkness from destroying each other when they come into conflict by canceling them out.


Darkness Disease Purging

The Witchblade is able to nullify diseases spawned from the Darkness. It can even do this to a fake version of the Darkness by whispering promises of chaos and destruction to it to draw it out, take in the infection, and destroy it.

Regeneration

From the moment she first gained the Witchblade, its healing abilities have saved Sara from crippling or fatal wounds numerous times. After the failed bust at the Rialto theater, Sara was shot in numerous vital areas, yet with the Witchblade at her wrist, wounds that would’ve taken months to heal were healed in days. Being shot in both shoulders, a deep stab wound in one, getting shot three times in the chest, cut on her side, and impaled through the diaphragm have all healed in seconds, and after being shot in the side and losing enough blood that she was about to black out, it restored her to full health the instant she agreed to accept it.

After having her face bashed against a mirror, Sara was left a bloody mess, yet was fully healed by nightfall.

Sara can extend this healing to others, letting her restore Jake to full health after he was impaled, healing Gleason’s burns and broken arm, and bringing Jackie back from being impaled twice.

This regeneration even applies to offshoots of the Witchblade. After being stabbed through the stomach, Excalibur was able to revive Nottingham a few seconds later.

Resurrection

After Sara died in childbirth, the Witchblade revived her by splitting itself apart. And after a lance stabbed through her back and out her chest, she got revived over the course of five minutes when even CPR couldn’t bring her back.

Additionally, the Witchblade can be used to revive the recently deceased, though their heart won’t be beating, they won’t have a pulse, and their skin will remain cold.

Resistances

Fire and acid:
While testing it, Ken submerged the Witchblade in fire, acid, and every imaginable liquid, and it came out unharmed.

Electricity:
Sara endured prolonged blasts from Danette, whose electricity burned its victims from the inside out.

Illusions:
The Witchblade dispelled the illusions of the unholy trinity to reveal their demonic true appearances.

Life Absorption:
When a mystical tree began draining her life force, she endured it long enough for the Witchblade to cut through the tree and kill the family that imprisoned her. She later resisted similar effects from Miranda Smalls’ Flesh armor.


Sleep Manipulation:
Was unaffected by a hypnotic lullaby that caused Jane to fall asleep.


Darkness-empowered diseases:
Thanks to the Witchblade, Sara and Katarina have been able to absorb and destroy diseases spawned from the Darkness and similar beings.


Corruption and Mental Manipulation:
The Witchblade was able to purge Katarina of Alisa’s influence, which causes those with “corrupted souls” to follow her and gain her will and desires. In Sara’s case, she resisted mind control from the telepath Kaliope and Keene’s hypnosis magic.

 

Support

The Other Bearers

 

During her journey to gain a better understanding of the Witchblade and unlock its secrets, Sara obtained a spiritual connection to every one of its past bearers, gaining the memories, skills, strength and experience they had in life. She can actively communicate with them to learn about her current situation. 
 

Forms

Dark Witchblade

After Sara died in childbirth, the Witchblade split itself in half to save her, giving her the dark half while another bearer, Dani, got the light half. While the effects weren’t obvious at first, this Dark Witchblade started to slowly influence Sara, causing her to do things she normally wouldn’t like crack jokes during a murder case and manipulate a crime scene to cover up a death. Over time the effects became more obvious, making her really irritated, bitchy, dismissive, and neglectful toward her boyfriend and daughter, only focused on obtaining the Witchblade and becoming whole.

It even turned her constructs into the black and green associated with the Darkness and gave her the ability to summon Darklings, necroplasmic manifestations of the Darkness’ life essence created by the user’s mind. While the number is unknown, it’s apparently enough to fill the Brooklyn Bridge. 

However, this transformation also gave her the Darkness’ vulnerability to light, which allowed the Angelus to purge the Darkness’ influence from the Witchblade, returning it and Sara to normal.


Strength

Speed

The Witchblade

Scaling

Thanks to lod and T0m on Discord for the scaling images. 
  

The Other Bearers

Aside from having their experiences, memories, and strength thanks to their connection, Sara’s fought against Dani and Katarina, holding her own against them and nearly killing the former on two occasions. It’s also been confirmed by Kazasa Sumita, the artist of Witchblade: Takeru, that the Witchblade used in the manga and anime is the same as Sara’s.

Katarina
Jackie Estacado
Others

The Angelus

Sara fought multiple Angelus hosts across the series and directly overpowered her near the end of it.

Lauren Franchetti
Celestine Wright

 

Ian Nottingham


Sara fought him on numerous occasions, easily defeated him every time, and absorbed the Witchblade copy Excalibur, so she should scale to his feats.

Other Artifact Bearers

Sara’s shown the ability to match if not surpass them physically, having fought them or fought alongside them before.

The Magdalena
Sabine

 

Feats

  • Was the youngest homicide detective on her force
  • Stopped Ken Irons and his wife Danette Boucher from obtaining the Witchblade
  • Teamed up with Lara Croft to fight supernatural threats multiple times
  • Took down a cult of cannibals on her own
  • Unlocked the Witchblade’s secrets and became more in tune with its past bearers
  • Has prevented numerous gods, demons, and monsters from invading or taking over New York and Chicago
  • Was one of the three survivors of the universe’s destruction
  • Killed Jackie Estacado and destroyed the Darkness
  • Became sheriff of Saratoga County for two years
  • Defeated the Angelus
  • Finally let the Witchblade go
  • By the year 5030, she becomes a legendary figure in history and is considered the greatest legend of the Witchblade’s wielders
    •  

    Weaknesses

    Sara’s proven her worth as the Witchblade’s bearer time and again, but that doesn’t mean their union is completely flawless. Sara is constantly fighting the Witchblade’s bloodlust and can fall victim to it if she isn’t careful, often needing a third party to snap her out of it. This constant struggle has sometimes led to friction between them, though this isn’t a problem by the end of the series.

    Sara’s been noted to be highly manipulable, and has been tricked by people like Ken Irons, Tau’ma, and Alisa in the past.

    The Witchblade’s influence can be shut down by magic runes, allowing people to wield it when they normally wouldn't be able to, including men. Magic has also been used to make the Witchblade fully possess bearers in the past, remove it from them, knock them out, or erase memories. And strangely enough, the Witchblade has been tricked by the art of Shinjutsu, which disguised an unworthy user so thoroughly it couldn’t sense a human presence, allowing her to briefly wield it.

    The Witchblade doesn’t provide any inherent defenses against spiked alcohol, drugs, psychic attacks and illusions, possessions, or Sara’s memories being rewritten, and it has refused to manifest at times because it didn't think she was in danger.

    Additionally, its healing powers are somewhat limited. While it can save Sara from falling 800 feet and 40 stories, a 108 story fall would still be lethal. It can’t resurrect a bearer or anyone else if they’ve been strangled to death or shot in the head, and when Sara died to a dragon god’s explosion, she had to be brought back by a mystical statue instead.
     

    Q&A

    Crossover Scaling

    Like any series, Witchblade’s had its fair share of crossovers throughout the years, and while under normal circumstances we’d exclude them, with the crossovers from Top Cow/Image, things are a bit different.

    According to Erik Larsen, one of the founders of Image Comics:

    “Every character that comes into another character's book exists in that universe, as well as in their own. When characters meet we get to see events, which take place in both characters' respective universes. In other words: When Savage Dragon meets Invincible, it's an event that Invincible experienced in his life in his universe and it's an event that Savage Dragon experienced in his life in his universe. Duplicate events took place simultaneously in both universes! You ever listen to a friend tell a story about an event that you were part of? You ever notice that it's often a little off from the way you remember it happening? Same deal in the ‘Image Universe!’ When you read about Savage Dragon in the pages of ‘Invincible,’ that's Invincible's side of the story. That's the way he remembered things happening.”

    Basically, the crossovers are canon, but characters from other companies are a version of them specific to this crossover, not the version from their own series.

    Even with this in mind, Witchblade has several crossovers that have been officially acknowledged in the comics.

    The Tomb Raider crossovers are the most consistent in this regard. Items and plot points from them appear in the main series and spinoffs like Tales of the Witchblade, there’s an entire story arc taking place between the two series, and Lara makes several appearances in the main Witchblade comics.

    However, other crossovers get in on this too. Issue 11 has Mephisto appear at the end with a text box stating the story continues in Wolverine/Witchblade.

    Medieval Spawn/Witchblade is shown to be retroactively canon through things like Katarina showing up in issue 92, the Bearers of the Blade guidebook, issue 168, and a backup story of Faerie’s history in 158 mentioning a “mysterious knight”/”Hell knight”/”undead knight,” with 168’s profile also acknowledging her fight with Savage Dragon in Altered Image.

    The ending of the Top Cow/Marvel crossover Unholy Union leads directly into the start of First Born, and is referenced by Dani in First Born #2. Unholy Union also has Jackie reference meeting Hulk in a previous crossover.

    So that would make at least 6 crossovers explicitly canon, potentially more depending on how you interpret Larsen’s statement. But even if we gave Sara scaling to all of the Witchblade crossovers, it wouldn’t really change anything.

    Most of them are relatively low tier in power and scale. The only impressive feats are from Lady Death/Medieval Witchblade, where Sister Sara (a completely different bearer from Sara Pezzini) tanks an explosion created by a weakened Lady Death and works with her to destroy a crystal talisman that would’ve let a sorceress unleash darkness across the world.

    But what about when Wonder Woman used the Witchblade to defeat the rest of the Justice League?

    While it’s definitely an impressive feat on the surface, thanks to Erik Larsen’s statement, these aren’t the the Justice League from DC's main canon, just a variant of the League that’s unique to Top Cow. Even if they were the mainline versions of the JLA, there’s nothing in the comic to suggest Sara is physically comparable to Wonder Woman. The closest we get to a confrontation between them is a Witchblade-possessed Wonder Woman telling Sara it refuses to return to her, only for Sara to stretch her hand out and force it to anyway.

    Cosmic and FTL Top Cow feats

    I’ve gone over these arguments with some other guys in greater detail in Venom vs Jackie Estacado, but for some summaries:

    The Angelus’ nanosecond statement

    In The Darkness #75, we see an apocalyptic future that only ends when the Angelus releases all of her pent-up power “in a nanosecond,” burning the oceans and destroying Earth.

    Despite being calculated at over 68 million times the speed of light, it assumes the Angelus fired a blast that reached the Earth in a nanosecond (a billionth of a second). This wouldn’t make sense since the Angelus is already on Earth, and in the same page where the Angelus unleashes the energy, the narration says, “Mere minutes after the boy first cut into the Angelus tomb, the planet and all who stood upon it were mere cinders spinning their last remaining heat out into the implacable cold of space.” This energy destroying the planet in minutes would mean the narrator’s use of “nanosecond” is more likely describing a very brief moment, and since both the narration during her release and Jackie’s dialogue say she’s been conserving her power for decades/centuries, this clearly isn’t something the Angelus can do any time she wants.

    And right after this sequence, it’s revealed the comic’s narration comes from a fortune teller explaining Jackie’s future, so the use of nanosecond would fall under scrutiny since it comes from character-based narration instead of an omniscient narrator. Additionally, while he says he’s seen the same future multiple times and admits the visions were real, he isn’t sure if he actually saw the future or was just explaining something he saw in panic. So not only is this statement contradicted by its own page, it’s from an event that wasn’t even real to begin with!

    The Sun Dagger Feat and Immeasurable Angelus

    In The Darkness #82, the opening scene has narration from an Angelus worshipping cult where it’s stated “Borne on the towering wave of her believers eternal souls, she hastened through the ether at a speed beating the hands of time.” We then see this nameless Angelus host spend 28 years in front of a distant small star, using her magic to slowly shrink it until she can condense it into the form of a dagger.

    On the surface, both of these sound promising, with one being an extremely high tier feat and the other being a potential argument for immeasurable speed. However, both are inconsistent with the series’ other feats.

    The Sun Dagger’s creation comes out to 36.424 - 54.302 zettatons, over 182 trillion times stronger than her second highest feat: causing the eruption of Krakatoa, which is only 200 megatons. And that’s from comparing the Sun Dagger’s creation to a lore feat! If we only use what she’s done on screen, her best feats otherwise are blowing up houses, bars, and casinos, and her only showing above building level is destroying a metal casing around the Brooklyn Bridge!

    While this could lead you to argue the Angelus’ Sun Dagger feat is an outlier, it plays a key role in the following arc since Jackie uses it to kill the Heart of Darkness. This means that despite the gap between it and her other feats, the Sun Dagger is narratively important, and it being used to defeat a major villain would make it valid for scaling.

    For the possible immeasurable statement, it’s character-based narration from an Angelus worshiper who uses flowery language elsewhere in his descriptions, so it’s unlikely this narration is from an unbiased perspective or meant to be taken literally. Even if we do buy this, the Angelus doesn’t have any showings of speed to back this up, and there are no feats of this level anywhere else in the Top Cow universe, so it would be an outlier.

    Lightspeed/FTL arguments

    Despite Sara and Jackie both fighting the Angelus, who has a lightspeed feat, this was done in her true form where she’s a living mass of energy, and neither have interacted with or reacted to her in this state. There’s also no evidence for the Angelus ever reacting to anything as she travels through space, which is largely empty, so there’s very little she’d need to react to in the first place. Even if she did react to any objects in her way, those objects would be large enough for her to spot from miles away and adjust her course long before they collide.
     
    And while the Angelus can manipulate light for attacks, Sara blocking it has no proof she moved in tandem, while Jackie’s only interaction shows that her light has force, meaning these aren’t actual lightspeed attacks/blasts.

    There’s also a possible argument where the Angelus force could catch up with Velocity and Danielle Baptiste could grab her mid-run, with Velocity being able to outrun a radio wave. The problem is Velocity outrunning it required her to be in an emotional state that pushed her past her limits, and there’s nothing in either encounter that suggests she was even moving at Mach speeds. Non-speedsters like Cyblade could visibly see the Angelus and Velocity’s chase and tell it was gaining on her, while Dani’s encounter has no visuals or sound effects present to convey that Velocity’s going at supersonic speeds before being grabbed.

    The universal rebirth in Artifacts

    From the start of the Artifacts series, it’s consistently shown in recap pages, the Curator’s dialogue in issues 1 and 9, the actual sequence in issue 12, and Tom Judge in issues 15 and 16 that the universe’s destruction is a chain reaction caused by all 13 Artifacts being brought together, so nobody would scale to it.

    As for the aftermath, despite the number of statements that Jackie was responsible for remaking the universe, these are directly contradicted by the actual scene which shows Sara doing it while Jackie tries to stop it, and later statements from in-universe characters, an official timeline, and the editors at Top Cow confirm Hope was the one who remade the universe while all Jackie did was manipulate its events.
    You might think Sara causing the reset with Hope’s death would let her scale to universal, but it’s established in earlier issues that Hope’s death would remake the universe regardless of what causes it.

    Sara and Jackie’s universal durability feats

    In the same sequence where it’s revealed Sara, Jackie, and Hope survived the universe’s destruction in Artifacts, Jackie says their connection to Hope is what prevented the universe’s destruction from killing them. This implies it wasn’t really a matter of durability, just that they’d been protected by her at some subconscious level.

    Jackie does have a feat after the reset in Artifacts where he destroys the Heart of Darkness' dimension and tanks it, with this dimension being called a universe by two different sources. Unfortunately, it isn’t consistent since he’s repeatedly harmed by far less in previous runs and never displays this kind of durability anywhere else. Even in the same run this feat is from, the Darkness needs to protect him so he doesn’t die from a fall from orbit, and right before Jackie enters the dimension, he gets messed up by a helicopter exploding on him, which does kill an exact duplicate of him.

    The time-eating monster

    Near the end of Witchblade, an Artifact bearer named Sabine kills a monster that’s said to be consuming and weakening time, which an Angelus warrior says would cause the end of everything. Combine that with how time is below the afterlife, which resides in the fifth dimension, and you could argue the monster’s universal, but we only get two pages of it slowly devouring whatever’s in front of it, so it’s likely this process would be over time as opposed to destroying everything in one go. And the statement that the monster would end everything could just be hyperbole since it was eating everything in its way.
     

    Conclusion

    After over two years of going through Top Cow, one of my biggest projects is finally done. And after all this time, I can say two things:

    1. Witchblade is an extremely fun series. You should go out and read it. Not pirate it. Go out and buy the series (unless your paperback copies are like some of mine where they’re cheaply made and the “new” ones fall apart when first opened)

    2. Top Cow has to have some of the most baffling misconceptions and false claims I’ve seen from powerscalers and VS related channels in general. Not even from a “VS is subjective and people can interpret feats differently” perspective. More like a “This is never stated or implied anywhere. How did you come up with this?” 

    I’m talking things like “The Angelus and her warriors are immune to conventional damage and weaponry unless it’s made to kill gods” despite multiple pages of them being dissolved with acid, threatened with knives, wounded and killed by regular bullets, or being killed by a rudder. Or “Jackie Estacado can regenerate at a conceptual level as long as darkness exists” when the Darkness needed to protect him so he wouldn’t die to a fall from orbit, a helicopter explosion nearly killed him (and did kill an exact duplicate of him), or how the best showings of regen across the series are Jackie regenerating from a piece of his jaw over the course of two days and a Darkling resurrecting her master from a pile of dust.

    That aside, I came out of this really enjoying Sara as a character. She’s easily one of my favorite heroines in comics, and is the most consistently written out of any comic character I’ve researched so far alongside Jackie. 

    As for my thoughts on the whole series: click here.


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