Once again, we return… to Wicked Intervention, your best source for deep dives into “The Wicked + the Divine.” As we near the final arc of the series, we’re going to take a look at all the major characters, what they’ve been up to, and some of the ideas that went into making them (so FULL SPOILERS ahead!!). We’re also going to celebrate some amazing work from one of the best cosplay communities of all time. Then we are going to scrutinize the final few issues in exhaustive obsessive detail as the series comes to a close. It was never going to be OK.
Inanna
aka Zahid
The Story So Far: Before getting his god powers, Zahid was a big shy nerd. He was a fan of the Pantheon, both as a concept and then individuals. Then he received divine powers, and with his powers came confidence, and with confidence came sexiness. Inanna was initially in a relationship with Baal, but he hooked up with Luci and drove Baal to extreme jealousy.
After Luci’s death, Inanna became genuine friends with Laura Wilson. The two of them were big time Pantheon nerds, and had actually met at a convention before the recurrence. At the Ragnarock music festival, Inanna was attacked by Baphomet, who wanted to steal a few extra years of life. They stopped their fight when they both realized they were being manipulated by Ananke. Under their new truce, they rushed to save Laura from Ananke, but were too late to save Laura’s family. In the resulting skirmish, Ananke killed Inanna…
Or did she? Inanna’s decapitated head is being held for some sort of dark ritual by Ananke. His head is alive, and maintains the power of speech (though the only people he has to talk to are Luci, Tara, and Ananke, so YMMV).
The God: Inanna is one of the oldest gods we still remember today. She’s the Mesopotamian goddess of love, sex, fertility, and power. She was kicking around when Gilgamesh was a little kid. As with lots of gods and goddesses, she went through a transformation with the rise and fall of civilizations and most famously became Ishtar and added the concept of mysteries to her purview.
There are more surviving myths of Inanna/Ishtar than any other god of the era. In her stories, she’s a fun trickster figure, though she often has a temper problem (but what god doesn’t?). She famously stormed the underworld to take it from her shady sister. She meted out wrathful justice on rapists and murderers, and tried to bone down with Gilgamesh. When he wasn’t into it, she unleashed the Bull of Heaven, which subsequently killed Gilgamesh’s best friend Enkidu.
The worship of Inanna/Ishtar is closely associated with sex. A lot of those images you have of sacred prostitutes working in ancient temples probably come from Inanna worship. It is believed that male priests of Ishtar dressed as ladies in the line of worship. You can see how all of this informed the Inanna of the comic.
The Icon: Inanna’s not your woman. Not your man. He is something that you’ll never understand. Because he’s Prince. He’s clearly based on Prince. So much so that in one of his first comic appearances, he turns the raindrops around him purple.
Prince was uniquely flamboyant on stage, but listen to an interview with him and he’s surprisingly softspoken. For such a symbol of sexual virility, Prince had a reputation for being gentle and more than a little bit kooky. One can see parallel arcs in Prince and Inanna. Both have inauspicious origins, but the moment they seize their power, each of them became a dynamo of sex and self expression. Prince was unapologetically weird (famously changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol), but despite his excesses you never hear stories about Prince being cruel. Maybe inconsiderate. Maybe a little bit selfish. But never cruel. Upon his death, it was discovered that he had been a generous but quiet philanthropist his entire life. That sounds a lot like Inanna. He follows his heart, maybe hurting people in his personal life, but he wants to do as much good as he can while he is on this Earth.
Continued below
The Playlist: “I Wanna Be Your Lover” by Prince. Right?
Tara
aka Aruna, aka Fucking Tara
The Story So Far: Tara only really appeared in one issue of the entire series. Typical Tara. She’s mostly seen through the eyes of everyone around her, who are constantly slut shaming her and calling her an attention whore.
As it turns out, that’s not really Tara at all. She was objectified and harassed her entire life, and preferred to perform wearing a mask even before receiving her god powers. Once elevated to superstardom, she was harshly criticized for being such a weirdo (and for being a woman, and for being Indian, and for anything and everything) though she had no problems filling up huge arenas. Tara finally became so overwhelmed by the unrelenting abuse that she asked Ananke to kill her. Ananke complied, but framed Baphomet for the murder.
Of course, you can’t trust Ananke to do a simple murder. She stole Tara’s head, to be used in a future dark ritual. Tara’s head rests alongside Luci and Inanna, able to speak, but not much else.
The God: As the name is phonetically pretty simple, there have been lots of gods named Tara all over the world. Even within the story, Tara is unsure which god she’s supposed to be. The most famous Tara is a Hindu goddess who was associated with the planet Jupiter (but not the god). She was married to Brihaspati, the god of prayers and propriety. He tried to cover it up when Tara was kidnapped and made pregnant by Soma, the god of booze (and/or Candra, the god of the moon). When Tara gave birth to Soma/Chandra’s son, she named him Budha, but Brihaspati sent him to go be the planet Mercury.
But not that Buddha! There’s a whole different Tara associated with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. This Tara is also called the “mother of liberation” (badass) and achieved enlightenment through one of a variety of paths. Most schools of Buddhism agree that Tara was radically kind, and a superstar when it came to meditation. In 1989, the Dali Lama endorsed Tara as a cool icon for aspiring Buddhist feminists.
There’s also a Tara of the sea, who is an Oceanic goddess who rescues lost sailors. And there’s Taranis, the Celtic god of thunder. And Thataka, an Indian demon who bit the tops off of mountains and spit them at people until Rama mutilated her and shot her with an arrow. Which one of these is the Tara of the comic? It doesn’t really matter. She never identified with any of them. They were just another image placed on her.
The Icon: If there’s a female talent who is hated for just being herself, there’s a little bit of Tara in her. The most obvious inspirations are Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. However you feel about Taylor, it’s impossible to deny that everything she does is scrutinized to levels that her male contemporaries will never have to worry about. And just think about Lady Gaga’s public persona. In a desperate attempt to control the inevitable narrative that springs up around any pretty, female singer, Lady Gaga covers herself in glitter, inch long fake eyelashes, monster imagery and meat. But any Gaga fan knows that when she’s not playing an arena, Mother Monster loves to do quiet intimate shows with a simple piano accompaniment. If Tara starred in the WicDiv version of A Star Is Born, I wonder who’d take the part of male lead. I want it to be Baal, but it’d probably be Woden.
The Playlist: “Pagan Poetry” by Bjork? “Like a Prayer” by Madonna? “Modern Girl” by Sleater Kinney? There are so many sides to Tara that all of these fit, and yet none of them do. Kieron Gillen has said that “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga is Tara’s theme song, so that’s pretty compelling. But what about “I Blame Myself” by Sky Ferreira? Yeah. That feels right. Fucking Tara.
