The Magdalena # 1

 By Mark Rodriguez

This was one of the comics advertised in the Tomb Raider comic which made me curious. I was lucky enough to find this issue (and 2 and 3) in a basement comic sale this past weekend for only 2 bucks rather than the higher costs online (not to mention the shipping costs). I'm glad I waited before buying it online. This series must have been popular seeing as how the long boxes had its own Magdalena section. So let's check this out and see what this is all about. 

'Blood Divine Part 1' opens in a church on a Paris night as a priest is up praying for the strength to stand against the wickedness that demons have sent after him. He hears something and thinks it's someone named Colette. It's some sort of growling creature that leaps out and chases the priest. As he runs from the dark figure, he crashes into an altar adorned with candles, the hot wax and flames falling over his face. 

The holy man prays for his life as the creature smacks his head back. His face, now covered in blood can only watch as the beast bears its fangs and eats him. Colette, a girl with her stuffed animal, sees this and runs to hide in the confessional. The monster notices her and opens the door to the confessional. We then fade to black. 

The next morning a cloaked figure enters the church to investigate the scene. She touches the holy water and says a prayer. She inspects the murdered holy man and finds two puncture wounds in his neck and his blood drained. She says this might not necessarily be a vampire, but someone pretending to be one. She says sometimes the greatest evils are done by regular men and not something supernatural, and she has faced both. She greets Father Dominique and he asks who she is. The woman introduces herself as The Magdalena.

Father Dominique is surprised and says this might not be a task for a nun, a young woman such as herself that might be put off by the victim. Magdalena says she is not an ordinary nun and despite her looks, she is 33. She also already inspected the body and her preliminary findings tell her it might be a vampire or someone posing as such. The father mentions there were other similar killings. Two nights ago three people were killed in an apartment in Paris, with two of them being drained of their blood. Magdalena assures him that if this is a vampire or some other demonic being, she will find it and kill it.

Meanwhile in the Vatican, Father Jasper visits Cardinal Innocent and tells him that while he was remodeling his church, he came across some items hidden under a loose stone behind the altar. He remembers the Cardinal having studied biblical archeology and decided to go to him. The Cardinal is curious as to what items would disturb him this much. 

The items are a scepter, a crown and two rings, all of Hebrew design, possibly from hundreds of years BC. The Cardinal is impressed and wonders how they would have ended up in that church. Father Jasper also says he's heard that the Cardinal works alongside The Magdalena. The Cardinal is surprised since this is not common knowledge. Father Jasper says he's heard of her but doesn't know what it is she does exactly. Cardinal Innocent tells him she is the protector of the church.

The Cardinal explains the story of how Mary Magdalene, the sinner, went to repent to the savior and was blessed with a gift. This gift would be passed down by all her descendants, all of them women, the ability to let someone see all the sins of their past as a chance of redemption as Jesus gave to Mary. 

After an encounter with a certain fuhrer in 1945, she was able to obtain the Spear of Destiny. This spear was used in Jesus' crucifixion and kept safe in the Vatican's vault to be wielded by The Magdalena if ever needed. Father Jasper is confused because the bible never mentioned Mary Magdalene ever having a child. The Cardinal says the bible never mentioned her not having a child either. Due to her sin, she could have had several children but the gift would only be passed to the first child, who would always be female. 

Mary's descendants were lost to anonymity for thousands of years until 153 where a convent discovered a woman gifted with special abilities. Father Jasper asks if she was Arianne De La Croix. The Cardinal says he's right but he thought he knew nothing about the Magdalena. Father Jasper explains that name was in a letter he found alongside the relics. It was written to Arianne by her mother Mireille De La Croix, and everything is true regarding the relics and The Magdalena, it could bring the destruction of the holy church.

The Magdalena continues to study the body seeing that it wasn't completely drained of blood, though a large amount was taken. She notices the footprints and based on how they are spaced so far apart, it's as if the attacker was leaping from spot to spot. She also finds the child's footprints near the confessional but can't tell if this happened before or after the murder. She looks for how the murderer got in and sees the open window though it's incredibly high and there's nothing for anyone to use to climb down. She tosses a grappling hook and climbs up to find footprints on the windowsill. There doesn't seem to be a tree or anything the person could have used to get up there though, but she does find footprints where the murderer landed. She decides to follow the trail as it's already starting to get dark. 

The Magdalena follows the trail and finds the stuffed animal the girl had from earlier. The trail leads her to a crypt where she finds the girl lying in one of the lots. The Magdalena tells her she's safe now and says she is Sister Rosalia. The girl has now become a vampire and she lunges out at her. Magdalena bashes her face in with her flashlight. 

Rosalia narrates the story of how vampires are descendants of Cain and Lilith. As she tosses holy water around the area, she splashes some in the vampire girl's face. She mentions that some of the older vampires have been able to withstand the discomfort caused by holy relics and can even enter churches. Despite common beliefs these creatures don't fear mirrors, garlic or silver. 

The vampire claws her face and leaps back to perch herself on a tombstone. Rosalia wields her spear as she prepares for the bloodthirsty creature to strike. Magdalena impales the vampire with her spear, aiming for the heart. She drops the vampire, the spear still sticking out of her. The Magdalena thinks that her job is done, but the vampire lashes out at her again. Suddenly, someone else kicks her from behind, making her land up against a tombstone. A second woman has arrived, armed with a sword, as the vampire yanks the blade out of herself.

The Magdalena narrates that vampires usually hunt alone, in fact if another one comes along, they might fight each other over their prey. It is rare for them to work together as a coven, usually younger weaker vampires following an older stronger one. The Magdalena sees that she is face to face with a coven of vampires. 

My Thoughts-

Man this story has amazing art. A lot of these are pin up worthy. The Magdalena is an awesome design and I like all her little weapons and things she uses. Everything just looks top notch and I'm really enjoying stuff from Top Cow Comics.

The story is rather wordy, The Magdalena is a very wordy narrator, even detailing the story of Cain and Lilith and how they came to bring vampires to the world. The Cardinal explaining The Magdalena backstory might also be controversial, especially where she was able to make a certain fuhrer repent but chose to go to hell anyway to atone for his sins. If I were to go into full detail of all of Sister Rosalia's narration, this article would be twice as long. 

It's a good read, it does a good job setting up our heroine and explains her backstory. I also like seeing her thought process as she investigated the crime scene. Sure we saw that it was some kind of creature that killed the Father, she went about her investigation as logically and sound as possible without jumping to supernatural conclusions too quickly. There's also the mystery of these relics and how they tie to Sister Rosalia and possibly to these vampires. I can't wait to read the next issue. 

This story seems to be a 3-issue mini-series and luckily I grabbed all 3. It seems The Magdalena has first appeared in The Darkness, and she has crossed over in other stories with characters like Vampirella, Lara Croft, Witchblade and even Marvel's Daredevil. There also seems to be a volume 2 of the series. Looks like I have quite a bit to catch up on. 

There's not much in terms of retro ads, mostly ads for other Top Cow comics. Similar to the Lara Croft comic, the comic's last 5-6 pages are ads and other stuff. There's a three page interview with Pat Lee on his at-the-time upcoming Witchblade/Dark Minds comic.