Zeb Larson reviews The Wicked + The Divine #10…
Ragnarock is finally here. The show to end all shows promises to be a lovely experience for all the gods…wait. Oh noes! Jamie and Matt have drawn Baphomet drenched in blood on the cover. What a hilarious internal communication error. I’m sure it’s a mistake and nothing to do with the story whatsoever.
Damn, this was a good issue of Wicked + Divine. All of the gods are gathering for Ragnarock, while Baphomet is waiting in the wings with an evil scheme of his own. Now that the pantheon has been fully gathered and all the background has been set up, I feel like the real story can actually get going, and we’ve got a good future direction to go in. I will be avoiding spoilers in this review, so read on without concern.
Baphomet is sitting in the darkness with Marian and explains that he wants to be something “more,” and he has sinister plans for the future. Laura explains her disappointment about not being the twelfth god to Innana, who takes her to Ragnarock. Cassandra has some revelations for us about the people that attacked Lucifer in the first issue, and their identity is a surprising one indeed. Cassandra makes her on-stage debut as a Norn, though little bits of Cassandra’s skepticism are still leaking through her façade.
Honestly, this issue was badly needed after a story-arc of Laura wandering around and meeting the last missing members of the Pantheon. From a narrative perspective, it’s nice to not spend the issue doing introductions. Laura also has some interesting and worthwhile character development in this issue as she acknowledges that divinity was never in the cards for her because she has “nothing to say.” It does affirm that to be a creative god, one does have to have a desire to create something, which Laura has not evinced as of yet.
Also, so much of the tension between creator and critic is coming to a head in this issue. Laura meets with the academic she argued with a few years prior to the comic, who apologizes about his behavior. He acknowledges that the attacks on Luci will be fodder for academic discussion for decades to come. That’s what academics do after all, right? We’re presented with things and left discussing them, trying to understand the things that other people create. It’s unsurprising that Luci doesn’t want to be one and doesn’t respond when the academic says she could be one.
The pacing, the information on the attempted assassination on Luci, and the revelation of Baphomet’s plans all make for a good read. We’ve got another couple of issues before this arc comes to a close, and I’m expecting to actually see some blood spilt in that time.
Zeb Larson
https://youtu.be/pnc360pUDRI?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
