some girls, a guys, lots of armor, plus spears and guns and other fun toys

[meganbmoore]

 I bring a picspam of Stjepan Sejic's Top Cow art.  Because it is pretty.  And involves awesome armor.  And even though a LOT of it is shamelessly fanservice-y, I don't mind as much because Sara, Dani and Magdalena look like they'd make you suffer a lot if you mentioned it.  Jackie looks badass too, of course, but that's normal for him.

This is our heroine, Sara.  She's a cop.  She forgot most of the armor and half her shirt at home today, but did remember her gun.  And that's what counts.


This is her friend/partner/heir, Dani.  Dani is a dancer, so she can do the twisting required for this picture without breaking her back.  It's to be admired.


This is their friend Patience, who goes by Magdalena.  She's a Warrior of God.  She knows how to use all those weapons strapped to her, and a lot more besides.  The spear  has absolutely NO symbolism.  Honest.


This is their friend/ally/antagonist/boytoy, Jackie.  He's a mob assassin.  From the look on his face, I think someone said something disrespectful about Jenny.  I hope they have access to another reality.


The striking, winged, horned, dominatrix-looking lady with the impressive sword is The Angelus, who is everyone's enemy.  She wants to bring the world love and peace by making everyone her obedient slave.  Likes to surround herself with strapping male warriors and a harem of stunning female love bunnies.


Dani:  "Ok, which of us is Batman, and which is Robin?"
Sara:  "They're boys, Dani.  We're better than that."
Dani:  "Good point.  Hey, how long do I have to pose like this?  I'm getting cramps."
Sara:  "Look at this hip twist I'm having to hold before you complain.  It only LOOKS easy."


"DIE, UPPITY LESBIAN GLOWING WINGED DESPOT!"  "DIE, LECHEROUS YET REBELLIOUS MINION OF DARKNESS!"  "GRR!" "GRAR!"


"GRR!" "GRAR!"  "DIE!" "SCUM!" "PRAT!" "WORM!" *pose pose pose*


Angelus: "Oh, is it time for out 'every-million-years' fling?  Well, I don't mind switching teams once every million years..."
Jackie:  "Uhm...yeah...whatever...I have more free will than that body you're wearing.  But hey, you just might be the only chick in the universe I can have sex with without dying, so why not?"

(I feel compelled to mention that I'm not really making much up in the Darkness/Angelus pics...)


Dani:  "She's mine!"
Jackie:  "No! She's mine!"
Angelus:  "Well, while you two bicker, my minions and I will just kill you.
Minions:  *look menacing*
Magdalena:  "Oh, sure, everyone with all powerful weapons is fighting over the pregnant girl, so the nun with the glowing spear has to do all the hard work.
Sara:  "HELLO! GIVING BIRTH HERE! CAN WE SAVE THIS FOR LATER!"


Magdalena:  "Neither the spear nor the placement mean anything.  Save that I can use it to do very unpleasant things to you."
Jackie:  "Point that somewhere else.  Are you mocking my curse?"
Sara:  "Is my spirit leaving my body or something?  Patience, why are you placing your spear there?"
Dani: "Why am I shoved off in the corner over here?"
Angelus:  "All the better to leer at you, my dear."
Dani:  "Back off or I'll use my gloves to deflate those balloons on your chest."
Angelus Force:  "Why am I up here when I'm still inside Celestine's body?"
Minion: "Visual Symmetry."


Sara: "I'm doing way too much "innocent Madonna"-like posing here..."
Dani:  "Don't worry, I'm told that comic book moms recover in about 5 minutes."
Magdalena and Sam:  "We have nothing to do, so we'll just look cool with our weapons."
Wolf:  "I having nothing to do, so I'll stand here and figure out how to cop a feel from Sam without the nun trying to hack my hand off."
Angelus:  *poses ominously*
Jackie:  *poses threateningly*
Cyberforce: "We don't know this chick, we're gone.*
Ian:  "Wait a second...why am I not here and people with no connection whatsoever to Sara are?  Oh yeah...Marz hates me and butchered my character so he could shoehorn that stupid cop into Sara's life."
Gleason:  "HEY! I'm not here either!  I'm supposed to always be perfectly suited for every situation Sara finds herself in!"
Ian:  "Please, not even your sole fan could find a way to justify you being involved in this.


Jackie:  "Did I mention that I love Batman?  And thought Gargoyles was the best show ever as a kid?"
Dangling Guy : "AIEEGH!"


Jackie doing his best Gdfather impersonation.


With a twist...


"Oh, you thought I was tought before?  Try me now that I have the freaking Phoenix Force!"


"See?  PHOENIX FORCE!"


This is Sara with her baby.  Please don't mess with Sara's baby.  She's practicing to be just as badass as her mommy and her daddy(who, thankfully, is NOT some stupid Gary Stu cop) when she grows up.

These two, I think, must be early conceptual pieces or something, considering how different they are from how he usually draws Sara and Dani.


Dani: Fairy Princess


Sara: Super Mech Warrior

Also, icons:

    

    

    

     

    

    

    

    

Comments

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Jackie looks like Amon or Alex from Last Exile. He also looks vaguely like an Uruk-Hai in some of those, so go figure.

So who IS the daddy of the baby? You said it was a cop, so it's obviously NOT Jackie.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Actually, I said it WASN'T the stupid Gary Stu Cop that Sara is very unfortunately dating. Technically, Jackie is the father. Basically: The Darkness took over his body while he was asleep and raped Sara while she was in a coma. Normally, that would make me throw something, except that I can take it as they were both actually raped. Jackie had no idea it happened until it was almost time for the baby to be born(at which point, he ran to tell her what happened.)

ETA: I should find and post more pics of Jackie with a gun. He looks even more like Amon then...

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

The Darkness took over his body while he was asleep and raped Sara while she was in a coma

Don't you hate when that happens? Darkness always taking over someone, commiting some felony...

I read your comment differently than you meant it. I thought when you said the father was NOT a Gary Stu cop that you meant the cop character wasn't a Gary Stu, not that he wasn't the father.

I like Jackie's character design. I've always called that one the Mordred design because that's what I've always imagined that Mordred looked like. Amon has it. Alex has it. There are a couple other manga characters who have it and plenty of Snape fan art.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I think the Gary Stu Cop comments probably makes sense best if you've read all my rants and know I despise the character and what he's done to the book and Sara with every fiber of my being.

Heh...I tend to think of the design as the Mordred design, too. It suits the look.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

What author in their right mind would think that the fandom WOULD prefer the Gary Stu over the dark, handsome, sort of bad character?

Oh...that's right...Paolini...

And Murtagh is another Mordred character.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

"What author in their right mind would think that the fandom WOULD prefer the Gary Stu over the dark, handsome, sort of bad character? "

Over the hot, swordweilding, british ninja assassin who she had sex dreams with, at that?

Marz can tll good stories, and write and create interesting female characters, but he's not so good at new male characters, and is horrible when it comes to romantic relationships.

Murtagh is wonderful...Paolini might actually become a good writer if he gets half a dozen or so manuscripts rejected and some good criticism.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

He's a British ninja WHA? Honestly my opinion is that there aren't nearly enough British ninja assassins in the world.

Paolini makes me want to slap him. He's good enough that people took him for some kind of wunderkind and he's NOT. He has a massive amount of room for improvement that he needs to use. Murtagh is about the only thing he came up with that doesn't need tweaking to not violently annoy me.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Bristish ninja is Ian, Sara's OTP all the way from the start of the series. Marz engaged in a marvelous bout of character butchering to try to get us to hate Sara, including the extremely blatant manipulation of having him punch her in the stomach while she was pregnant(he didn't know she was pregnant, but punching a woman is amazingly beneath him.)

Murtagh is...the only decent thing in the books. The dragon needs to roll over in her sleep and crush eragon.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, pretty Jackie hair. And wow, they really are letting Sara wear clothes and/or more functionally covering armor these days, what a concept!

I'm still headscratching a little over that workaround to make him be the baby's father without dying, though. But really, most of what I've read about that whole "Darkness = no sex for fear you will DIE for impregnating someone!!1!" bit just leaves me scratching my head and going "but what about ---- or --- or...?" endlessly.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Sara's been pretty consistently wearing more and more clothes the last few years.

As far as the Darkness goes...there's actually a (very sensible) theory that the Angelus and the Witchblade are male, and the Darkness as female, as they all tend to come across as jealous lovers. All three forces are EXTREMELY specific about the acceptable gender of their bearers, and all come across as jealous lovers. If Jackie "cheats" he risks death, The Witchblade armor bears a striking resemblance(in earlier incarnations, before Sara completely overpowered its will) to hands over certain parts, and it reacts violently at times to a male presence, and the Angelus(which, unlike the other 2, almost completely overpowers the will of the person it possesses) turns it's bearers lesbian(no, really...I don't know about the first one, but the others were all straight before being possessed) and surrounds itself with a harem of gorgeous, scantily clad chicks, one of which is created purely for pleasure.

Granted, most with the theory focus primarily on Angelus and Witchblade being male, but when you apply it to the Darkness, too, then when Jackie "cheats" and gets a woman pregnant, then he's no longer worthy of the love, and it moves on to the next person in the genetic line.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

The thing that I keep getting hung up on (and I know, I should just go into hardcore comics-mode suspension of disbelief instead of letting that pesky "logic" get in the way) though, is having that rule be so tightly focused on pregnancy. If it was just "sleep around at all and the Darkness will kill you", well, that'd be obvious instant angst and a nice logically consistent rule. But when it's instead "impregnate someone and die", I sit there thinking "so he just has to stick to non-reproductive sex acts...or women past menopause, or women who've had ovariohysterectomies...or post-op transsexuals...or..."

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well...if you think about women in real life, a lot will deny the cheating or "tolerate" it...until a child is involved, providing undeniable physical proof of the adultery. If you have your own child with the guy, then it's a double threat because the other child could be "Chosen" over your own.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Well, again, it's not so much the Darkness' own attitudes that have me head-scratching -- it's a bizarre inhuman entity, I can handwave things more easily there; it's Jackie's seeming failure to see any workarounds to the Darkness' rules. The impression I get from discussion and scans on S_D is that he is perpetually cranky and sexually frustrated thanks to all this, and that's what has me going "bwuh?". I mean, sure, simple birth control is probably too much of a risk for him to take -- even the most reliable methods have some risk of failure, and if he got a vasectomy maybe the Darkness has enough influence on his body that it could undo it -- but is it so powerful it could somehow lead to impregnation of the other person if they're just lacking the necessary bits for reasons of surgery or birth, or if they've stuck to the sort of sex acts that simply cannot lead to pregnancy, outside of the most deranged sort of fanfic at least?

That is the angle that leads to all the "bwuh?" for me -- and again since I only know this by way of disjointed scanned chapters and second-hand discussion, I know I might be getting the wrong impression, or for that matter given its long run and comic editorial shifts it may be an angle that was played up in the past and currently retconned or ignored. Either way, the impression I've gotten by way of S_D is that Jackie is cranky, angsty etc. due to the Darkness-imposed celibacy, and that's just -- OK, I can see being bitter because this thing imposes all sorts of restrictions on what kind of sex you can have and who you can have it with, but no sex at all? That feels more like sloppy-writers looking for insta-angst without thinking about it too much, and leaves me fighting the urge to make horrible puns about thinking outside the box...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the series, despite the fanservice, is still fairly mainstream, and you can't include a lot of what you mentioned without a label and/or sealed bag. That said, Jackie was a manslut, but he seems to have mostly been a "Slam bam thankyou ma'am" guy, and (from what I recall) pretty straightforward in his habits and not very kinky. Most of the S_D posts dealing with it are from fairly early on, soon after learning his prefered method is no longer available to him...later on, he does figure out ways to have sex...specifically, the Darkness creates a construct for him(without clueing him in) of a woman who supposedly IS missing all the parts so he could have sex. Of course, he got peeved at being tricked when he found she was just a part of the Darkness, but now (looking at scans of the new series) he seems to be trying to create a darkness construct to serve as a mate. (Specifically, he seems to be trying to make her exactly like the Dead True Love, which is quite unhealthy, yet rather in character.)

But all that said...

"That feels more like sloppy-writers looking for insta-angst without thinking about it too much"

That *cough* pretty much was the case, at first...insta-angst and jokes...they just started making it more later.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Dani: "Why am I shoved off in the corner over here?"
Angelus: "All the better to leer at you, my dear."
Dani: "Back off or I'll use my gloves to deflate those balloons on your chest."

ROTFLMAO

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's what their faces look like they're saying...

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

I've been following this artist on DeviantArt for a while; I just wish he worked on characters I cared about, or even simply liked looking at.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well, he's supposedly signed on to Witchblade for 30 or so issues...

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

That's what I had heard, aye. It's a shame, but at least it's very pretty work and doesn't make me recoil like most Top Cow work does.

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Very nice icons :) The illustrations, though showing excessive boobs, are quite good :)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

You should see the art the company used to put out(and still does, sometimes.)

It has oft tested whether my dislike for excessive fanservice or my fondness for story and character would win out.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is "Preeetty."

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

very, very preeetty.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

I'm horny now. And rather embarrassed to admit it.

I don't really look at this kind of art. I don't know why it has this effect on me today.

But there you go.