Your Funnybooks with Aron and Paulie hosts are super-excited about Top Cow’s upcoming Artifacts crossover, which began with a zero issue released on Free Comic Book Day and continues with Artifacts #1 this July!

The FCBD issue of Artifacts introduced readers to the 13 Artifacts and mythology of the Top Cow Universe, including The Witchblade and The Darkness, two of the company’s longest running titles. Still, if you’re confused after reading the FCBD issue, hankering for more information, or missed out on the book, your friends at Funnybooks and IdeologyofMadness.com are here to help get you caught up on what is sure to be an AWESOME comic book event!

We’re going to introduce you to the 13 Artifacts, and their current bearers (what information is currently known, anyway), talk about comics that are involved in the Artifacts crossover that you may not have even known about, and go over some of the key players in the storyline.  This is going to be the best place to come to get yourself prepared for Artifacts!  And not only that, to help cement some of that information in, in the coming weeks, we’ll be holding contests for some of the best Top Cow has to offer, including trades of Witchblade, Darkness, Tom Judge, and more!

We’ve told you about The Witchblade and The Darkness…

This week’s Artifact:

The Angelus, and its current bearer, Dani Baptiste!

Since the dawn of time, there have been two opposing forces – the Darkness and the Angelus.  In an attempt to create a truce, albeit temporary, they created The Witchblade, the balance between the dark and the light.

Just as Darkness bearers are male, Angelus bearers are female, but unlike the Darkness, the female bearers of the Angelus don’t maintain control over themselves.  The Angelus takes control over them entirely, using them in her quest to rid the world of the Darkness.  When Jackie Estacado became the Darkness, the Angelus tried to take advantage of the moment of weakness during the transformation to eliminate the Darkness once and for all.

However, Jackie kicked some Angelus tail and the Angelus was left without a host for a while, and the Angelus has been having a hard time finding a decent host ever since.  It’s possessed members of the Frenchetti crime family (the crime family Estacado belonged to), but was defeated by the Magdalena (check back next week for more on her), before trying unsuccessfully to possess her.  When that didn’t work, it tried to possess Velocity (of CyberForce), eventually finally finding some success in possessing a convicted murder Celestine.

Celestine co-existed with the Angelus during First Born, when she tries to kill the baby that the Darkness (Estacado) fathered with the Witchblade (Sara Pezzini), Hope.  During Broken Trinity, Celestine was decapitated, leaving the Angelus once again without a host.

When Sara is possessed by the dark half of the Witchblade (during War of the Witchblades), she assaults and mortally wounds fellow Witchblade bearer Dani Baptiste (check my Witchblade entry for more on that).  The Angelus takes hold of Dani Baptiste and tries something it’s never tried before – Dani is the bearer of the Angelus, but still maintains free will, much like Jackie Estacado and the Darkness.

The forces of the Angelus, particularly Sabine, find the choice of Dani offensive, and conspire against her.  Sabine sends some of the Angelus forces to Hell itself to attain the Wheel of Shadows, which she plans to use against Dani to take control of the Angelus for herself.

In the meantime, Dani, along with her friend Finch (who has romantic feelings for her) has returned home to New Orleans to try and make sense of her life without the Witchblade, and with the Darkness.

You can follow the adventures of Dani Baptiste leading up to Artifacts in the Angelus mini series, currently published by Top Cow!

Check out previous tales of the Angelus in the stories below!