Beyond The Panels #17: The Wicked and The Divine And Why I Love It So Much... And Why You Should Too

So, if you been reading for a while, you might remember how I feel about Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's fantastic Image book, Phonogram. Long story short, I fucking love it. So, based on that love, I started reading The Wicked and The Divine. Guess what?

I fucking love it, too.

In the world of The Wicked and The Divine, 12 young people are granted the powers of mythological gods every ninety years. At the end of two years, they die. This isn't a secret- everyone knows it. It's recorded in the history books. The book begins in 2014- some of the gods have come around, but not all of them and it follows one fan, Laura, as she interacts with the Pantheon. This being the 21st century, the new incarnations of the gods are pop stars and Internet celebrities. This being a Gillen/McKelvie joint, they're British pop stars and Internet celebrities.

It's all very brilliant.

See, one of my favorite novels is American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It mixes mythology with modernity and is quite wonderful. I like that sort of thing- taking old things and juxtaposing them with the new. WicDiv (as Gillen and we fans abbreviate it) has a taste of that, but not much- the gods themselves aren't their mythological selves. Lucifer isn't the goddess of evil and lies- those are part of her powers, but she's also still partly the person she was before. The people aren't overwritten by the gods- they just become more themselves, with greater powers. Still, it does sort of inhabit that same realm of contemporary fantasy.

It also has a dash of superhero comics to it- the gods have "costumes". They have powers and new identities. Some of their powers (like Baal's and Baphomet's) work better for fighting, while others have more passive powers (like Dionysus and Tara). Each of them has huge, outsize personalities. They are sort of a team, but they fight and argue amongst themselves. It all feels very familiar to me as a superhero fan.

It's very much an artifact of today's culture- Amaterasu has a huge Twitter presence and is using to start ShinTwo, a new form of Shinto. Tara is the world's biggest pop star. Woden dresses like a member of Daft Punk and embraces his Internet ready perversions with his Valkyries. They grant interviews to magazines and websites and documentarians follow them around. That's exactly what would happen in our world if twelve young people suddenly got powers for two years- they'd become the world's biggest celebrities. They'd have huge social media presences. If they were so inclined, they would be musicians and tour. People would make movies about them.

There's a secret to the whole thing, too- the why. Why has this happened? Why are these being reborn ever ninety years? What is their purpose? The only character who knows, Ananke, isn't telling. She's the one that has spent millennia gathering them for a secret purpose and plays a rather large role in the whole thing. Even now, with only another year of the comic left, we don't have the answers to the question of why and things are reaching a terminal end for some of the gods- their two years are almost up. Some of them have already been killed.

I love it for all of these reasons. It keeps me coming back with it's mysteries and I just love the characters. Imagine if you were given tremendous power with a death sentence attached? How would you react? What would you do? The gods party and fight and fuck. It's all pretty true to reality. I know what I'd be doing if I was a god in my early twenties for just two years.

WicDiv is contemporary fantasy with an emphasis on the contemporary. It works so well because of that. Gillen captures the zeitgeist rather well... or at least what a Gen Xer sees as the zeitgeist, and it makes the comic work. None of the characters are stereotypical millennials. It's not a highly cynical work where older people make younger people look all vapid, because let's be real- you give anyone godlike power with a death sentence and they'd try and become famous. They'd fight and fuck and act out. This comic captures something real about people, much like (but completely different from) Phonogram- fame is a drug. Be careful with it.

WicDiv doesn't resonate with me the same way Phonogram does. Phonogram is about what art does to us and what we do with it. WicDiv is about the people who create, the artists and what that act does to them. That's still a powerful story and one that reads rather well. Plus, just like Phonogram, Gillen and McKelvie kill it. Gillen's characters speak and interact in a realistic fashion and he isn't afraid of diversity or representation- most of the characters are bisexual and of varying cultures. The dialogue is sharp and funny. McKelvie's art is never anything less than gorgeous. I've read that a lot of people don't like his style, that he has a case of "same face", but I don't think that's the case. It's just the way his linework is- if you look at it, you can see the differences. I love his art and could look at it all day. For a tale of fame gone crazy, it's perfect.

WicDiv isn't for everyone, but for those of us who it is for, we're all about it. It's one of my favorite books every month and I'm going back and buying all the issues I've missed, even though I own all the trades, because I want to own all of it. I never got the chance with The Sandman- by the time I got into it, it was already over and most of the early issues were so expensive I didn't really have a chance to get them. I eventually did get the first ten issues, but I had to sell them because I needed the money. With WicDiv, I can get all the issues because the book isn't that old. I already have the first four and I didn't pay very much for them (technically, because my comic store gives me back issue credit for every ten dollars I spend, I didn't pay anything for them except for like two bucks when I ran out of credits, which is a bonus). Hell, I even got a rare variant cover edition of the first one. I may not have got in on the ground floor but I'm close enough to it.

So, if you had to ask me, I would definitely recommend it. I mean, shit, it's an Image book, so you can get the first volume for 9.99. Give it a try. There's only one more issue before it goes on hiatus for a few months, so we're nearing a perfect jumping on point. Give it a go. What do you have to lose but ten bucks?

Next Issue: So, this was a short one and, if I'm honest, I'm not really sure what the next one is going to be about. However, there will be a next one. Maybe I'll re-read Squadron Supreme and talk about that. It's pretty fucking badass. Or maybe I'll just do a grab bag of different subjects. To find out, join us next time on....


Beyond The Panels!!!!!!!!!!!!