Though it was released in 2000, it’s hard to imagine a more 90s comic than The Magdalena. It’s all extreme art and ‘mature’ content, with a badass heroine who, of course, goes into every deadly encounter with her midriff fully exposed.

The Magdalena as a character first appeared in the pages of The Darkness; another oh-so-edgy 90s comic, which debuted in the mid-90s, and was itself a spin-off from another comic featuring a badass female hero who, at least initially, had her midriff and quite a bit more exposed in her ‘costume’.

There’s an interesting ‘chosen one’ style feel to The Magdalena, with the character here being just the latest in a long line of women to have held the title, and the religious elements are intriguing too. You see, each Magdalena is a descendant of Mary Magdalene, with the bloodline beginning from her marriage to Jesus Christ himself. Each subsequent daughter born of the same bloodline inherits the mantle (and powers) of The Magdalena, and is raised, from childhood, to defend the Catholic Church from supernatural threats.

This particular issue sets up a situation in which the Church themselves may not have the best of intentions for the current Magdalena; vampires and Nazis feature quite prominently, but even so the Church seem to be up to no good.

Given the supposedly pure nature of The Magdalena, her costume and the opportunities taken in the artwork to showcase her (ahem) ‘assets’, seem completely out of place, and there’s a standard, stereotypically 90s vibe to the art in general. It looks fine, but even more generic now than likely it did 25 years ago. The publisher, Top Cow, had a noticeable house style which didn’t tend to differ very much between artists, and that’s really apparent here too.

Story-wise, it thankfully gets new readers, who haven’t seen The Magdalena before, up to speed pretty quickly, but it can feel a bit overstuffed and, just like the art, the writing does have the very overwrought, almost noir like style that was in vogue at the time of publication.

It’s fine, but don’t expect anything earth shattering; if you’re after a Buffy-esque tale of a badass female hero, presented in a deliberately ‘sexy’ way, with some slightly intriguing moral ambiguity behind her mission, The Magdalena may well be worth checking out.

Shout out to Southampton Comics, where I picked up this issue of The Magdalena very cheaply indeed!

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