Zeb Larson reviews The Wicket + The Divine #21…
This is a throw-down issue of The Wicked + The Divine, pure and simple. We do learn more about Ananke’s plans and endgame in sacrificing Minerva, but it makes up a relatively small portion of this issue. Most of it is a good old-fashioned brawl between the two factions of the Pantheon, and while it may not be one of the high-concept issues that I do love in this series, if nothing else, it’s fun to look at. As the penultimate issue in the arc and one that’s filled with violence, it’s also bound to set the stage for even more violence in what’s to come. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers from here on out.
Persephone, Baphomet, Morrigan and Dionysus head to the compound to try and rescue Minerva, but are met by an angry Baal and Sakhmet. Both refuse to listen to reason, and a visually stunning battle takes place as Woden calls in his Valkyries as reinforcements. Inside, Woden’s machine is made ready, and when Minerva’s parents even hint at interfering, Ananke vaporizes them. Amaterasu only barely manages to flee as the battle turns against Persephone’s friends, and Ananke prepares to kill Minerva.
Now that Minerva is finally on the altar, the poetic quality of her sacrifice has sunk in. Maybe it’s her youth and the way that young stars rarely transition to adulthood gracefully, or maybe it’s the last panel, which shows Ananke holding a sacrificial knife (with delicious primeval overtones). Her plans here are a bit more fleshed out: by killing Minerva, she hopes to absorb her power and use it to wipe out the rest of the pantheon. She views this latest incarnation as a disaster, and hopes to start over from scratch.
That part intrigued me, because what does it say about Ananke, creativity, and fame? She’s the one who bestowed all of this divinity, with the hope of keeping away “darkness.” It’s supposed to be for the benefit of the rest of the human race. How then has the pantheon failed? Implicit in that question is what constitutes failure, which is at least a complicated answer when you’re talking about art. If you want to get really meta with it, what can we say about Ananke’s need to periodically destroy her deity-charges?
On the other side of things, the fight scenes were kind of a snooze. I know that I’m probably in the minority on this one, but this series’ fight scenes have never been a strong draw for me. I’m all for a good knock-down, drag-out brawl, but it helps when you can understand what your protagonists and antagonists are capable of. The characters here have no clearly-defined limits, and that’s a problem. Limits create dramatic tension, whereas the fights here show the characters batting each other around with apparently no real consequences. The fight is certainly gorgeous to look at, but it never really rises above the level of play-fighting. Is that intentional? I kind of hope so.
Well, for what it’s worth, my rating is relatively high this month in spite of the Pantheon’s free-for-all. I’m curious to see what comes next and have faith that it will be interesting and thought-provoking.
Rating: 8/10
Zeb Larson
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Originally published July 14, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
