The Magdalena # 2

 By Mark Rodriguez

Sister Rosalia, The Magdalena, was called to investigate the murders at a Paris Church. Her investigation led her to a young woman that was recently bitten and turned into a vampire. As she tries to help her, she is attacked by a coven of vampires! I have to advise to some that this issue goes into darker themes, some might be triggering, so do read this at your own discretion. 

"Blood Divine Part 2" opens with Sister Rosalia, drawing her blade against the vampires. A woman named Giselle rushes over to Rosalia, grabbing her by the throat and picking her up. Giselle bears her fangs and says she hasn't had breakfast. Another vampire named Michael stops her. Giselle says she was just playing and drops Rosalia into an open grave. Rosalia leaps back, ready to strike, but she found that all of the vampires have vanished. 

Rosalia returns to the church and asks the Father for a phone. She calls for Lamiae and tells the person that she has encountered vampires. 

We have a flashback to the Vatican as Father Jasper has a letter written to the first Magdalena from her mother, and he fears it will cause the downfall of the church. Cardinal Innocent reads it, as he can translate it from Italian to French. He runs across the word Montsalvat, and Jasper explains it was a Chateau in the French Pyrenees before it was torn down in 1244 by the order of the inquisition. 

The letter was written in 1239, the end of September, at Montsalvat Abbey, France. She informs the intended reader, her daughter Arianne, that if she is reading this it means she had failed in her task and has passed from this Earth. 

In the event of her death, Mireille De La Croix entrusted her baby girl to Perfecti Vivienne and the good sisters at the Montsalvat. They will raise her as they had raised Mireille when she was a child. When she is old enough, Arianne will be given the letter as well as the other items which would be family heirlooms. 

The French countryside has been ravaged for forty years by Pope Innocent III who called for a crusade against the Cathars and all that refused to denounce them. The Cathars were friendly folk, only guilty of worshiping their god in a different way. The Crusade wasn't enough to wipe them out, so the Inquisition was formed. The Inquisitors, who only listen to the Pope, were sent to find and kill all the Heretics. Innocent men, women and children were dragged from their homes and thrown into prisons. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed, many of them weren't even Cathars but fellow people of the Catholic faith. 

Mireille now leaves to join the fight against the Inquisitors. If she falls, Arianne will be the only heir. She will learn the same truth that Mireille's mother had learned from her mother, who also learned that from her mother and so on. The story begins over a thousand years ago with a young man named Jesus. 

The Magdalena is in the orphanage and has heard that 'they're sending the Garduna'. She explains that the Inquisitors still exist in modern day, as do their soldiers, the Garduna. Faithful and perfect warriors, loyal to the death, the Garduna only serve the Inquisitors directly and not even the Pope can control them. They were mostly used to take care of the problems that the church could not publicly acknowledge.

The Garduna have arrived before Sister Rosalia. They hand her special weapons to use against the vampires. Rosalia explains that she stabbed one through the heart but it didn't die. They say she probably missed, but Rosalia insists she did not. Holy water also seemed to have no effect on them. She says maybe the books were wrong and they say they're not. Rosalia asks them how many vampires they have fought before. They tell her that no Garduna has ever faced a vampire and survived. They asked where the vampires currently are. The Magdalena explains they vanished without leaving a trace, but there was a similar killing two nights ago in Paris. She has a feeling they will find them there.

Sister Rosalia and the Garduna arrived at Paris to investigate the murders. The murder took place at an apartment with the victim being a manager of 'working girls'. Aside from him, his assistant and one of the streetwalkers were also murdered. Another streetwalker survived the attack, but just barely and is being kept alive at a hospital. The Magdalena arrives at the apartment and tells the Garduna to go ahead without her as she wants to ask the women there some questions. The Garduna call them filth, but Rosalia reminds them 'judge not and ye shall not be judged'.

Rosalia asks one of the women if they've seen or heard anything strange on the night of the murders and if they've seen any vampires. The woman says there are kids dressed as vampires going to a nearby club all the time. She thought Rosalia was already headed there seeing as how she dressed. Rosalia heads towards the club and she tells the woman that if two men come back asking about her to let them know where she went.

As Rosalia heads towards the club she walks past a person with a mask. This triggers a memory of hers. Back when she was younger, two of her friends scored tickets to a Madonna concert. They only had two tickets so Rosa had to stay behind and cover for them. As she started studying, a mysterious person dressed in black and wearing a mask grabs her. Rosalia tries to fight back, but she is pinned down and the worst happens to her. 

Eventually her friends return and Rosalia is traumatized by the event. She angrily throws things around her dorm, screaming about how she had her faith and asking how this could have happened to her. She grabs a piece of glass and says she'll kill the man and also kill her child. She cries as she declares there is no God. Sometime later, she gives birth, but she is unable to look at her child with hatred. She embraces her baby.

The Magdalena tries to shake those memories out of her head saying she will not be a victim and all of this is behind her now. Even though she had abandoned God and struggled with her faith, she eventually returned to him. Despite her suffering and because of her suffering, her faith has become stronger. She is now stronger.

Rosalia enters the club and sees all sorts of people dancing in all sorts of lavish and erotic costumes. The club is so loud she can barely hear herself think. She sees a staircase and wonders what's up there. As she climbs upstairs, she is stopped by a bouncer telling her that it's members only. Rosalia raises her hand in front of him and it glows. The man is reduced to a sobbing mess, apologizing to his mother as he's seen his sins. Rosalia encounters a room full of vampires feasting on humans. She calls them monsters.

Rosalia draws her sword and leaps into action, telling the women to get away. As she stabs and slashes the vampires, she asks why the women haven't left yet. She tells them to stay behind her and asks if they lost a lot of blood. Suddenly Rosalia is bashed with something from behind and she's knocked out. A woman holding the bottom of a brass stand tells Rosalia that they don't need her protection. One of the men tell her to take her to Giselle. A more monstrous-looking vampire says Rosalia will be the one needing protection.

My Thoughts-

Wow, this series goes deeper into darker and controversial themes that I rarely discuss on this blog. The opening monologue goes into the belief that only men can be holy and women are only bearers of sin. One part I found particularly disturbing was the line about sinful women inviting men to commit forceful acts upon them. Seeing that this was Rosalia's inner monologue and we learned that this act also happened to her, this might be seen as her blaming herself for the tragedy, as many victims unfortunately do. We see her get her faith tested in the worst possible way, and even if we don't see the full story of her overcoming this, her strength to endure was most likely what led her on the path to become The Magdalena. 

We also get into the Inquisition and the atrocities that were caused because of it. There was even a part where someone asks the Pope how they could tell the difference between a heretic and an innocent person. The Pope pretty much said 'kill them all and let God sort them out'. Naturally I'm not opposed to the harsh truths of all the horrors that have been caused in the name of religion, but that's usually kept out of the media at large. I'm surprised Top Cow comics were brave enough to showcase this.

Other than these darker themes, the story does introduce the Garduna, even though they were quickly sent away. I wonder what they will do as we only have one issue left to wrap this up. The art is still pretty amazing and we get more pin-up worthy pages. I am curious how all of this will end and how Sister Rosalia will get out of this one. It's also never explained what did happen to her child.

I'll be covering issue three when I find the time, as I was lucky enough to grab all three issues. One thing for sure, Rosalia needs to learn to watch her back. This is the second time that someone's attacked her from behind, catching her totally off guard.

There weren't any particular retro ads that caught my eye but there was some sort of limited-time deal where if you got variant covers of Witchblade # 3, Tomb Raider # 3 and The Magdalena # 3, you can actually interconnect them to form one huge cover. That's pretty cool since it seems at that time we were heading for the big 2000. I hope they remembered to set their computer clocks back then.