Zeb Larson reviews The Wicked + The Divine #13…
There’s one god missing in our story. It’s time to finally meet Tara, Goddess of God-knows. Also, meet TULA LOTAY (SUPREME: BLUE ROSE) who joins Team WicDiv as the second guest artist in our Eisner Nominated Series. We had to mention the Eisner nom. We are shameless.
Wicked + Divine seems to be using Laura’s death as a temporary break from the main narrative to focus on the pantheon. This issue is about its unhappiest member, Tara, who has received perhaps the least attention of all up until now. Tula Lotay does guest art on this issue and it comes off looking fantastic. Overall, this reads as one of the series’ strongest and deepest issues, complemented by excellent.
Tara is a member of the pantheon who, like all of the other gods, has been blessed (cursed?) to be loved and to be hated. While the others might enjoy being loved, Tara hates it because none of her fans really love her. They love the goddess and her music, but have no interest in the poetry or music that Tara has tried to create. Tara had always been beautiful, in a way that immediately transformed her into an object for other people’s benefit and gratification. Becoming divine just continued this frustration, and her disgust for the whole Pantheon oozes out of her during a dinner with them. Ananke comforts her and tries to dissuade her, but Tara insists that she must carry on as planned. She sings one last time before Ananke kills her, burning the suicide that we readers have been reading this whole time.
This is an extraordinarily bleak issue, yet one that juxtaposes so well with everything that Laura said or thought about godhood. Here, “godhood” is nothing more than the ability to gain people’s adoration or attention, something that Tara had her whole life anyway. But adoration is not respect, and Tara’s fans were far more interested in forcing Tara to wear a mask and adopt a persona that pleased them. Paradoxically, by becoming a celebrity she became even less able to do the things that she wanted: to write and sing the songs that she likes. The other gods can put up with the downsides of divinity because they enjoy the attention; for Tara, it ends up being a death sentence.
Lotay’s art has a strongly dreamlike quality, as the shading leaves some characters partially see-through or indistinct and the colors have a blurry quality. The effect is that everything appears a bit hazy, which really works for a group of deities who defy the rational. I finished the book wishing she could be a regular contributor because I just liked what she brought to this issue so much.
Yet as much as this is an issue about becoming a celebrity and losing the ability to tell your own story, it’s also about sexual entitlement. Tara is nothing more than an object to most people, and years of being treated as nothing more than a sex toy had given her a profoundly jaded outlook. Did she ever have friends? “All motives are ulterior.” Her comments are rape are deeply unsettling to read as well, in part because for her they must have been true. So, with all of this, what’s the message of the comic? Attention and adoration can be toxic? That both celebrities and beautiful women are treated only as objects? Painful, but there’s truth to it.
Overall, this was an excellent issue, and it leaves us with some additional questions even as Tara makes a tragically early exit off stage. Ananke’s destruction of the suicide note raises questions about her ulterior motives. Even though she did genuinely seem to care for Tara, she was also protecting the image of the Pantheon. How would people react if they knew all of this? It couldn’t be good. Next issue is about Woden. What other ugly secrets are we about to learn about Woden?
Rating: 9.5/10
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k_v0cVxqEY
Originally published August 5, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
