‘The Wicked + The Divine’ #1 and #2 Review

I want everything you have.

The Wicked + The Divine. The title itself sounds enticing, and one look at just the cover of this series is enough to encourage readers to pick it up. Bright and beautifully drawn, The Wicked + The Divine is powerful, intriguing, and, contrasting with the beautiful art within the pages, it is dark. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie have delivered a series that contrasts with itself in many ways, from the art to the underlying tone, with a cast of characters that make readers wonder what exactly they’re getting into. Perhaps it’s because we’ve all felt like Laura before. When we first meet our main character, she’s burdened with the desire to be someone, something else.

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The premise of The Wicked + The Divine is simple: every ninety years, twelve gods are reincarnated in a young, human form. For two years they are the object of affection: beautiful, wild, dangerous. Everyone wants to either be them or lock them away, and they gather a following in the way that a band would — these gods are, after all, pop stars, and the issue capitalizes on that. People will go to extreme lengths to catch a glimpse of their favorite celebrity. The gods are powerful, able to destroy with the snap of a finger, and for two years, they live life according to their rules, shrouded in a mystery of what they can really do. Can they perform miracles? Do their powers make them benevolent or ruthless? Are they divine or wicked… or both?

And when the two years are up, it’s over.

Behind that is a much deeper narrative, a deep dive into the world of mythology, gods and their followers, humans and their aspirations to reach immortality, their dreams of joining the elusive league of gods that have been selected to return. It’s fascinating, enticing, and possibly one of the most interesting stories that I’ve read over the past couple of years.

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Gods aside, there are humans, and they fall into two categories: believers and nonbelievers. This is where our two human characters come in—Cassandra works off of the facts, with wishes of debunking everything that the gods choose and claim to be. She is unimpressed, unapologetic of her beliefs, and skeptical of it all. Conversely, we have Laura, who has one goal: she wants to be one of them.

And she’ll do anything.

The Wicked + The Divine blew me away, and a huge part of that is because of the art. Everything about the issues are incredible, but the art is absolutely stunning. It’s beautiful, explosive, with colours leaping off the page, providing vibrant details of everything that’s happening, from an appearance by one of the aforementioned gods to a wild display of power. The characters are, after all, gods. It’s only fitting that they should be beautiful and bold, and not in the soap-opera kind of way. Even for the characters who are bound to a powerless life (for now), are given life through gestures, facial expressions, and dialogue.

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It’s stunning, beautiful, and interwoven with music and mythology. The Wicked + The Divine promises to be an incredible story, and I’m really looking forward to what creators Kieron GillenJamie McKelvie, and Matt Wilson have in store for us. With characters that pop off the page and seem to be larger than life, the series is explosive and powerful, both in narrative and artwork. Only two issues in means that you have plenty of time to catch up on this stunning comic. Issues #3 and #4 of The Wicked + The Divine will be available on August 20th and September 17th, respectively.

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