How the mighty have fallen. This issue of Artifacts may be the lowest point of the
series filled with mostly boring dialogue, a million characters I can’t keep
track of and artwork that reaches a new low. After a battle with Cyberforce, Sara and the rest of the
team go to Hunter-Killer headquarters where they interrogate the now
decapitated head of Aphrodite IV and run into a little more than they bargained
for.Ron Marz has managed to stuff a ton of characters into this
issue, half of which I have honestly forgotten. Their conversations don’t help though, considering pretty
much every piece of dialogue is a boring and droning on mess that does not make
me enjoy the characters at all. With all the characters Marz has thrown into the mix every member of
Cyberforce except for Ballistic.
After highly anticipating enjoying more of Velocity’s witty marks during
my review of Velocity
#4 and Ripclaw’s awesome… well, Wolverine-esque nature, Artifacts #7 offers
neither. Oh, I’m sorry, it does
have them – in the background on ONE PAGE with no dialogue for either of them. The most interesting characters were
Interface (or ‘Face), ironically one of the main points of why I enjoyed Velocity #2,
and the Darkness’ demons. The only
reason they were enjoyable was because they offered some humor, but both were
pointless if only to create the only slightly – SLIGHTLY – enjoyable moments in
this issue.Story-wise this issue makes more progress than the last
one. The last issue of Artifacts
was nothing but a huge battle that was actually a nice break from the constant
drabble from the characters; unfortunately this translates into complete and
utter drabble throughout Artifacts #7 as if to make up for the loss of time
from the last issue, not that Marz needs any more time. This series could easily have ended by
now if Marz had not insisted on making it thirteen issues to represent the
various Artifacts. The only storyline concept that was interesting was a twist
at the end preceded by an Aphrodite army – an interesting idea that I can see
leading places, A.K.A. beating the crap out of a hundred Aphrodite’s that we
already saw once in Artifacts #6.Whilce Portacio has also delivered poor artwork mainly
because he couldn’t engage in his art’s strong point – action. There are way too many lines in the
art, the colors make it dull and uninteresting, and the characters eyes? When Portacio pays attention to them he
makes the characters’ emotions fairly apparent and enjoyable with their
eyes.Now that my rant is over I do not understand all the good
reviews Artifacts has been receiving overall as a series. The first three were very good but
afterwards Marz failed to move the story a great deal and has just introduced
more and more characters that left lesser in-the-know fans like me
confused. With so many characters
it’s hard to like any of them except the few we’ve been with from the
beginning and even they are still boring in this issue. The art is not noteworthy and the colors do nothing for it
except make it more of a dull mess.
Some concepts introduced are interesting like Aphrodite’s clones. But this is honestly one of the worst
comic books I have ever read, unfortunate for a series that started out with so
much promise… I’d suggest it
too hard core Top Cow fanboys and anyone else trying to get through the entire
Artifacts series. I know I’ll be
back for eight just to see if Marz could put the spark back into the series
that he had in the beginning.Overall Score – 3.0/10*Fanboys only*For more reviews connected to the Artifacts series check out my other
reviews below:
Artifacts
#2
Witchblade #139
Artifacts
#3
Artifacts
#4
Artifacts
#5
Artifacts
#6
An all-around nerdette, I’m a comic book connoisseur, horror aficionado, video game addict, anime enthusiast and an aspiring novelist/comic book writer. I am the head of the comic book department and the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Fuse. I also write and edit articles for Comic Frontline. I am also an intern at Action Lab Entertainment, a comic book publisher at which I edit comic book scripts, help work on images in solicitations and help with other comic book related project. My own personal website is comicmaven.com.
Story-wise this issue makes more progress than the last
one. The last issue of Artifacts
was nothing but a huge battle that was actually a nice break from the constant
drabble from the characters; unfortunately this translates into complete and
utter drabble throughout Artifacts #7 as if to make up for the loss of time
from the last issue, not that Marz needs any more time. This series could easily have ended by
now if Marz had not insisted on making it thirteen issues to represent the
various Artifacts. The only storyline concept that was interesting was a twist
at the end preceded by an Aphrodite army – an interesting idea that I can see
leading places, A.K.A. beating the crap out of a hundred Aphrodite’s that we
already saw once in Artifacts #6.
Whilce Portacio has also delivered poor artwork mainly
because he couldn’t engage in his art’s strong point – action. There are way too many lines in the
art, the colors make it dull and uninteresting, and the characters eyes? When Portacio pays attention to them he
makes the characters’ emotions fairly apparent and enjoyable with their
eyes.
Now that my rant is over I do not understand all the good
reviews Artifacts has been receiving overall as a series. The first three were very good but
afterwards Marz failed to move the story a great deal and has just introduced
more and more characters that left lesser in-the-know fans like me
confused. With so many characters
it’s hard to like any of them except the few we’ve been with from the
beginning and even they are still boring in this issue. The art is not noteworthy and the colors do nothing for it
except make it more of a dull mess.
Some concepts introduced are interesting like Aphrodite’s clones. But this is honestly one of the worst
comic books I have ever read, unfortunate for a series that started out with so
much promise… I’d suggest it
too hard core Top Cow fanboys and anyone else trying to get through the entire
Artifacts series. I know I’ll be
back for eight just to see if Marz could put the spark back into the series
that he had in the beginning.
Overall Score – 3.0/10
*Fanboys only*
For more reviews connected to the Artifacts series check out my other
reviews below:
Artifacts
#2
Witchblade #139
Artifacts
#3
Artifacts
#4
Artifacts
#5
Artifacts
#6 
