During the early years of Image Comics, founder Marc Silvestri shared a studio with Jim Lee.

[1] After setting up his own studio, Top Cow Productions, he expanded into other comics, launching Codename: Strykeforce, a new Cyberforce series and various spin-offs.

Top Cow attracted several professionals including artist Brandon Peterson, writer Garth Ennis and former Marvel staffer David Wohl.

The company also helped launch the careers of various writers and artists, such as Christina Z,[2] Joe Benitez, Michael Turner and David Finch.

Thanks to the success of Witchblade, Top Cow was able to expand, adding new titles to its lineup including The Darkness, Magdalena, Aphrodite IX, and others.

Silvestri was heavily involved in training and developing new talent through the studio and Top Cow was known for a time for its "house style" (standardized elements of illustration across multiple titles produced by Top Cow), though former publisher Filip Sablik has argued that the company never truly had a house style.

[15] In December 2004, Dimension Films paid an undisclosed six-figure sum to develop a movie based on the comic, possibly for release in 2008.

[16] In February 2012, a sequel to the video game, entitled The Darkness II, was released for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

[19] The cancellation was announced as a production decision, but there was widespread speculation that the true reason for its cancellation was Butler's alcohol addiction; Butler was ordered to enter rehab for alcohol addiction a year later, after being arrested for wandering intoxicated amidst traffic.

[21] In January 2017, NBC announced that it would be developing a Witchblade reboot, with Carol Mendelsohn and Caroline Dries serving as executive producers.

[citation needed] The film was to be produced by Arclight's Gary Hamilton and Nigel Odell, Platinum Studios' Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, and Steve Squillante of Havenwood Media.

Although this series centers around all new characters and tells a new story not contained in the source material, it is set in the same continuity as the comic book.