Zeb Larson reviews The Wicked + The Divine #19…
“RISING ACTION,” Part Two Gods of the Underworld, in the Underworld. Perfectly safe now. Definitely. Stuff definitely doesn’t explode. That doesn’t happen.
This issue of The Wicked + The Divine is a deeper read than you might initially give it credit for. I won’t lie that my favorite issues in this book were the deeper explorations of music, poetry, and the creation of art, which might be why the third arc was my favorite. The interpersonal drama of the Pantheon can hold me for a little bit, and Ananke’s end game is a fun mystery to chase (even though there isn’t a lot to go on, and what he get here isn’t much either). Then there are just the punching issues, where the gods decide to have little spats with each other and tear up the scenery. Initially, this issue reads like the latter, but in truth, I think it’s straddling all of them.
Ananke has figured out that Minerva is missing, and Dionysus is lured into meeting with Persephone, Baphomet and Morrigan in the Underworld. Ananke is doing her own work to rally the remaining gods to her side by convincing them that Persephone is an enemy. Using Minerva’s owl, Ananke’s minions wind up in a brawl with those in the Underworld, and before escaping they manage to take Minerva with them. Using her owl, they manage to watch a recording of Ananke talking about a “greater darkness,” the difficulties in maintain the cycle, and her fourth “sacrifice,” Minerva.
So, Ananke has managed to convince her fellow members of the Pantheon that Persephone is some kind of antichrist, the Destroyer. That’s an interesting hook, and it is certainly true that she has a considerable axe to grind, especially now that Laura is “dead.” Still, at face value, parts of this are not especially engaging. If there’s one problem the series has, it’s that the fight scenes never have very much gravity attached to them. Can the gods even kill each other? Or are they just basically play-fighting with special effects? That’s a sort of funny way to look at celebrity feuds (nothing ever really comes of them), but apart from the joke, there’s not much greater depth to them except being fun to look at. I’m ok with this if it’s all a commentary on celebrities and how they interact, but if I finish this series and the fight scenes were actually relevant somehow, I might roll my eyes.
However, there is something else going on here that’s worth paying attention. Why does Ananke need these sacrifices, and why is it harder in the 21st century? It might be tempting to say that it’s because technology demystifies magic and divinity, but I don’t buy that as an explanation. For one thing, Gillen & McKelvie have never set this up any tension between technology and spirituality. No, I think what’s going on is the problem is the difficulty in preserving secrecy and ritual in the 21st century. Technology might feed into that, as social media and everything else allows human beings to continue getting closer to the gods, and in turn piercing their mysteries. We’ve simply gotten too close to the heavens.
As for the sacrifice, there is something to be said in the mystification that celebrity death wields over the public. Obviously, there’s an explanation in the book that is more literal than this, because Ananke wants to do prevent the “great darkness.” Here we’re finally getting close to the central mystery of why these gods can only live for two years: we need them to go away after a while. If they stick around for too long, the mystique fades. We as a public demand the new continually, and yesterday’s stars are doomed to be torn down.
Of course, I’m just speculating here without too much hard evidence in my docket. I’m sort of hoping that this is the case and the authors are bringing in this commentary, because that may be the story that I want. Still, I can’t help but think that this is where we’re headed in the next few issues.
Rating: 8/10
Zeb Larson
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