10 Comics You Loved As A Teen (But Should Never Return To)
9. Witchblade
Top Cow Productions
There's a lot of love for Witchblade out there amongst readers, and the character has even been recast as a sort of feminist icon too. Alongside characters like Red Sonja and Vampirella, who've all undergone similar transformations over the last two decades, to grapple with Witchblade's legacy isn't as clear cut as you may think.
Still, for all that Witchblade commands a loyal fandom and continues to see success even twenty years following its original debut... it's still a weird comic. Too weird, if anything. It so transparently conforms to the worst excesses of the nineties and just looks comically out of place in 2019, where nuanced depictions of women in the medium tend to be less exploitative.
Look, there's nothing wrong with a sexy comic. But there is a point where 'sexy' gets so exaggerated that it becomes almost comical. Witchblade sadly falls into that category in hindsight, even if there's still plenty to appreciate about it.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
