Publisher: Image
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Nicola Scott
Colourist: Chiara Arena
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

Puberty can be a real witch can’t it? No, that’s not a spelling mistake, because, in Black Magick #6, Rowan Black is celebrating her thirteenth birthday and is really excited because, just like generations before her, this is the night when she gets inducted into the witch fraternity.

If there is a message here at all it must be: “be careful what you wish for” because Rowan’s induction involves being put in touch with all her past lives and they did not end well. Black Magick #6 is the brainchild of multi-Eisner Award winner Greg Rucka (you’ll know him from such titles as: Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Action Comics and Detective Comics to name but a few) and his co-creator and artist, Nicola Scott, currently also drawing Wonder Woman, and previously Birds of Prey, Superman, Earth 2 and the ever so wonderful sounding Spike vs Dracula!

With that kind of pedigree behind it, Black Magick #6 is going to be a class act whichever way you look at it. Despite being Black Magick #6, this is an origin story which takes the timeline back twenty years and focuses on the emotional anguish that hits Rowan as she embraces her destiny. No doubt the previous five issues dealt with the aftermath of the events depicted in Black Magick #6 but, even if, like myself, this is your jumping on point, you can pretty much figure out that the intervening twenty years haven’t been a bed of roses for Rowan and her family.

Slow paced with an almost monochrome colour scheme – presumably, denoting a flashback – Nicola Scott provides killer visuals and Greg Rucka is that most assured of writers, who lets the artist have free rein, letting the pictures tell the story in the most powerful way possible.

Like I said, this is a class act and even if you haven’t met up with Rowan Black before now, Black Magick #6 will make you want to know just what you’ve been missing.

 

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker