Top Cow’s big Rebirth event comes to its third title, The Darkness, next.  The event came out of Artifacts, which launched a little over a year ago, and is also running in Witchblade.  “Response has been positive,” Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik told ICv2.  “Both critical and anecdotal response has been good.” 

The Darkness #100, shipping this week, wraps up the previous storyline by Phil Hester, with artists Romano Molenaar, Leandro Oliveira, and Jose Louis.  The special $4.99 issue, with covers by Todd McFarlane, Michael Golden, Jeremy Haun, and Michael Broussard, will include a preview of #101.  Providing additional support, The Darkness is coming off the release of the tie-in videogame last fall (see “’The Darkness II’ Follows Million Seller”).

Then with The Darkness #101 on March 21st, David Hine and Jeremy Haun take over with the new storyline. 

Sablik described Rebirth for ICv2.  “Now there’s a new status quo that’s coming out of this world-changing event,” he said.  “We tried to create a very linear storyline and one that continues to move things forward.  It’s not a reboot in the traditional sense.  The story is moving forward; we didn’t redo the origins.  The characters are the same characters, but the situation has changed.”

The event has been heavily promoted with POS items, returnability for the three first issues, variant covers, and a national signing event.