With the threats in Chicago pilling up, can our hero find some balance in her life and take them down?  Read on to find out.

The official description from Image:

“APPARITIONS”

Private detective Sara Pezzini’s recent exploits have had an unintended, but not all together negative side effect – she’s now actually getting paid to investigate paid supernatural cases! However she may make an enemy of another one of Chicago’s supernatural agents in the process. Meanwhile, all around her forces move in a much larger, sinister symphony…

Since Sara Pezzini arrived in the windy city, her life has had one supernatural mess after another with each of these mini-arcs carrying a rather disjointed feel.  But somehow the pieces are steadily coming together to form an intricate and interesting road map that’s proving the mantel of this creative team.  We’ve had run of the mill apparitions, biker witches, a trip to a fantasy realm, the reveal of an underground magic trade and a mysterious company that now seems to be the string that ties it all together.  In short, it’s been an interesting run so far.

Tim Seeley continues his stint as series writer by revealing some more characters in an issue that feels really important to the ongoing narrative.  The problem here is that we, the audience, get a lot of information from this release but by the end we really have no idea what the impact on our main character might be.  Without spoiling anything we close out the romp with a rather somber note, as the author succeeds in making readers abundantly clear with regards to the threats that our protagonist and the Witchblade face.

Diego Bernard continues to impress as the series artist.  His lavish pencil designs perfectly illustrate the script as he uplifts the narrative with some truly exquisite panels.  Thick and thin lines combine with the appropriate use of angles to deliver an outstandingly strong visual sense that’s easily some of the best work to grace this book.

Witchblade #161 is another very good issue form this talented creative team, and it easily earns a recommendation.

4/5