Dead@17 - The Witch Queen Issue One Review

Josh Howard continues his adventures of Nara Kilday in the Dead@17 universe in the first issue of The Witch Queen. This time around, Nara has ended up in Purgatory trying to live in isolation away from the battle between good and evil, but no one involved seems to want to let her.

It is pretty cool how Howard ties two of his different comic book worlds together. It's almost like he had it planned out from the beginning, which very well could be. He's got the main bad girl from The Lost Books of Eve, Lilith, trapped in Purgatory with Nara. Another fun return to the series is the reappearance of Joan D'Arc, who is the "resurrected" incarnation of the original female warrior leader.

Once again, there's not much I can say bad about this chapter in the D@17 series. It constantly moves forward at a frenzied pace and has some great plot twists and turns on the journey. Howard never lets me down in both story and artwork.

The religious aspects of the story are still intact. No matter how controversial his skimpy-dressed female character artwork may be, he sticks to his guns when it comes to the message and theme behind the stories. (Review by Eric Shirey)