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Wicked Intervention: The Wicked + The Divine #7

By | January 28th, 2015
Posted in Columns | 2 Comments

Welcome to Wicked Intervention, Multiversity’s monthly annotations for Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson and Claytown Cowles’s “The Wicked + The Divine”. This week, we arrive at Ragnarock, learn about the Prometheus Gambit and drink some of Woden’s haterade. As one might imagine, spoilers ahead.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself – The Cover Gallery

This week’s headshot comes from Woden who is the worst. Just literally the worst. The traditional Woden comes from Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Basically, he’s sort of the prototype that would evolve into Odin. It’s like that scene in The Social Network where Sean Parker tells them to get rid of the “The” in “The Facebook” only with an “O”. Woden didn’t share everything in common with Odin, however. Yes, he may have had Valkyries like he does in WicDiv, but that could have just been a translation for “human sorceress” than for winged guardaisn of Valhalla. If you want to break it down further, just imagine Odin but replace the majesty and heroics of Asgard with the violence of England in the Early Middle Ages.

Woden’s pop connection, meanwhile, comes from Daft Punk – a group you have definitely heard of. The duo consists of two robots who have never taken off their masks no matter how many disappointing Google Images searches you show me. They’ve written and performed dozens of songs that you have definitely heard, including “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” which some people still think Kanye wrote. Their latest hit, “Get Lucky” was the best song ever for five seconds until it showed up in everything. Woden’s design is more inspired by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo who is not nearly as problematic as Woden. Using Guy as inspiration for Woden seems to be for just the aesthetic since Guy and Thomas Bangalter, the other robot in Daft Punk, are fairly unproblematic. They’re just happy robots making cool music.

Woden, meanwhile, is the absolute worst and we’ll be talking about him in detail over the course of this column.

Page 1

Last time on “The Wicked + The Divine”, Laura decided to break her silence over Lucifer after Inanna revealed that the gunmen who started this whole mess were two fans of one of the Pantheon. The two are now at Ragnarock, which is being at the ExCeL London Exhibition Center, a convention hall in London designed by a broken caps lock key. Inanna and Laura, the new BFFs, are sitting on the rooftop looking over the convention goers and Luci’s still trying to snap her fingers to make the cigarette light up again, which may have worked since she’s now taking a drag from it. Or she lit it earlier and the finger snaps have become a nervous tic.

“Weezer, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters… sleeping with alternative rock bands is rough, Laura.”

Page 2

Despite what my ongoing Twitter campaign to fight Chris Hardwick says about me, most fans, especially comic fans which the fans at Ragnarock seems to be the closest parallel to, would. Yet, as we’re going to see later on, the fans of the Pantheon (Fantheon) can be especially zealous. When you combine the star power that makes people lose their mind over One Direction or Taylor Swift with the fantacism of a life beyond this mortal coil that has led to hundreds of wars and countless murders in the name of this or that god, then you could probably find a couple people in Amaterasu t-shirts ready to lock and load.

Page 3

The Front Bottoms are an indie band from New Jersey that sing almost exclusively about how much they hate their ex-girlfriends, their dads, and this town. They’re pretty grungy and sort of conflict with the whole aesthetic of WicDiv so I sort of doubt Gillen named this segment after their song “Awkward Conversations” more than he did for all the awkward conversations that are about to occur, but here’s some lyrics that are going on my post-‘Faust Act’ Laura playlist anyway.

And I love what you’ve done, you cut all ties
You turned and run
You build me up, you take your fall
You led us straight into a wall

And I’ll say, “I personally think it’s too cold to have the windows open,
but you want to smoke your menthol cigarettes.”

You might be leading now but there is no way you could ever win
When you have absolutely no control over any of the situations
That you put yourself in

Continued below

Page 4-5

First of all, an Amateragu Italian restaurant is incredible. Second, this double splash pages shows what I was talking about when it comes to how dedicated the fans are. Lucifer’s been dead for three months, presumably enough time for a convention to change some plans around, but they still have a room set up for Lucifer in spite of the fact that she’s a dead millennial. Not only that, but someone found the vandalized Tara poster from the fifth issue and kept it long enough to display it at a convention. When Laura said that any of these people could be convinced to kill someone for another god, she was absolutely right.

Also, how pissed do you think Woden was when he found out his room was placed right next to the Baal-You-Can-Eat buffet?

Plus, Baphomet, Morrigan, and Tara didn’t show up for this convention because two of them are too chill for this type of thing and the other is Fucking Tara.

Page 6

The only thing uglier than the way Minerva’s parents treat her is her mother’s vest. All kidding aside, this ties into one of the running ideas in “WicDiv” about parents and children. That relationship is vital for certain characters like Laura who have a strong family to fall back on while Luci’s parents were absent for the rise and fall of her rockstar career. And here, we have parents actively leeching off their child’s fame and inevitable premature death to make hella cash. It’s hard to say this doesn’t happen in the real world.

Page 7

For full authenticity, this press lounge needs an overpriced hot dog stand and sweaty comic book journalists clumped together across various scattered tables yelling live updates from a nearby The Walking Dead panel into a laptop.

“Oh my god, you talked to Phil Coulson?”

Nah but really, that’s David Blake AKA the sourpuss who talked at length last issues about how millenials don’t deserve a Pantheon. I’m sure he is great at parties and will only bring a delightful sense of levity and fun in further issues of WicDiv.

The Prometheus Gambit is no doubt going to be a huge plot device, moving forward. It’s a myth that if you kill one of the Pantheon, you gain one of their powers. The Gambit is named after Prometheus, a Titan who tried to steal fire from the gods of Olympus so he could give it to humanity. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well with him. Though there’s no proof of the Prometheus Gambit being real in WicDiv, it’s been proven historically by the hero from Ancient Greek mythology known as Kratos. Also, the Prometheus Gambit is exactly the type of thing you’d tell two fans about to off one of your fellow Pantheon for you.

I’ve never felt more discriminated against.

Page 8

Hey a new character! I don’t have much to say about Beth so far, aside from how sort of mentioning a character in the first few issues of something and then properly introducing them later is always awesome. Plus, she adds more depths to Cassandra’s world which, considering she’s the best character, could always use more fleshing out.

Page 9

Speaking of new characters who were previously mentioned, here we meet Brunhilde who was briefly discussed last issue as one of Woden’s ex-Valkyries. Brunhilde, in Norse mythology, was one of the more well-known Valkyries and is what you’re thinking about when you imagine an opera singer in a Viking helmet. The phrase “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings” comes from Brunhilde’s role in Twilight of the Gods where she sings for twenty minutes which leads directly into the play’s ending. As for the other two people on the panel, I’ve got no clue who they are but I have a feeling the guy with the white hair will be important somehow.

Page 10-12

And here’s Mr. Problematic himself who is exhuming alarming levels of abusive boyfriend material in this sequence. In a comic that has featured numerous deaths, shootings, and Baphomet’s wordplay, this might be the most uncomfortable sequence of all, especially when you consider how quickly Brunhilde went from ready to speak out against Woden back to submitting to his whims. It’s also pretty weird to consider how revered his god is compared to some of the more demonic members of the Pantheon who are far more chill. In “The Wicked + The Divine”, the type of power you’re granted doesn’t define you but what you do with that power absolutely does.

Continued below

Page 13

I know Baal’s just trying to be cute but what if your crush showed up and made a quip about your recently deceased best friend? You’d walk out too, right?

After that brief interaction, Laura begins to question Woden who turns her down because she’s not over 5’8″ and Asian which is pretty damn racist.

Woden, you’re an abusive weirdo with a “Yellow Fever feitsh” who hurts people in public. Don’t you dare ruin the great aesthetic meme for me, too.

Page 14

Here, Woden ascends to new levels of assery by saying being a nice guy doesn’t work. I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t tip a neon fedora towards Laura. “M’inerva!”

Page 15

Woden’s motivations for his awfulness are interesting compared to the rest of the Pantheon. While everyone else gets to be a beloved rockstar, he has to be the producer making other people the like the Valkyries stars, which places his relationship with them in an even sketchier light. And it seems that when he tried to use his powers to grant himself powers, he ended up injuring his body which is why he wears the full body suit. Or he’s wearing the suit so no one can see he’s just a regular looking guy underneath it all. Considering how important holding power over the Valkyries is to him, I would not be surprised to see that he’s trying to make himself seem more powerful by self-imposing that type of mystique on himself. And his mention of wanting “what Luci had” implies that he’s not able to be totally intimate with any of his Valkyries due to the suit. Oh my god. Is Woden a never nude?

For those keeping score at home, the Arrested Development/WicDiv fan casting so far has Ananke as Lucille Bluth, Woden as Tobias Fünke, Sakhmet as Lindsey, Minerva as George Michael, Lucifer as GOB, Laura as Michael, Inanna as Buster, Morrigan as Maeby, and Baphomet as Steve Holt. Steve Holt!

Before Woden can scream “THERE’S DOZENS OF US!”, Brunhilde (or Kerry) arrives with a gun to enact the Prometheus Gambit by pointing a gun and saying “Prometheus”. I have no idea if that’s actually how the Gambit works but it does make for a cool visual.

Page 16

Since Kerry did not plan this assassination throughly, she’s struck down by Minerva who seemingly has powers of wind.

Minerva seems to be a tough kid and I’d hate to underestimate her or anything but wow I wish she didn’t have to go through with any of this. At least Baal is way more supportive than he initially let on.

Page 17

Woden should really stop talking because every single thing he says is just more evidence against him. Back in issue #4 he said he could have given anyone the capability to blow up the judge and here he said he would try the Prometheus Gambit if he knew it worked. Considering how ill-defined the Gambit is, it would make sense for him to arrange Luci’s demise under the name of several henchmen so he could gain her power. And if that didn’t work, I can imagine him angrily ranting about how it doesn’t. Of course, it could have worked and gone into Laura, who you may remember has been playing with fire quite a bit.

And even though I’ve spent the entire column hating on Woden, I have to admit that the Bifrost boom tumb is fresh as hell. It looks like the screens that show up when you’re trying to fix your PC’s resolution on Windows ’98.

Page 19

This has been your monthly reminder that Baphomet is my everything.

Page 20

Another descending sequence like back in issue #2. These really deliver on the idea that Bpahomet and The Morrigan are more removed from the rest of the world than the other Pantheon. They’re not pop stars, they’re underground darlings. Literally.

Page 21-22

Badb is singing “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance, one of the few bands from your middle school years that actually aged pretty damn well. Now that Gerard Way is canon in the WicDiv universe, does he know about the 12 year old girl with godly wind powers running around dressed as him? I feel like he’d utterly be delighted by that.

Continued below

Baphomet’s such an asshole locked up in his pesona that he only knows how to console Laura by being cocky about it. I know he’s the type of character who just last issue was screaming “NONE MORE GOTH!” while hosting a zombie dandy party and is made of 70% puns but I could definitely stand to see more of his caring side.

Laura thinking of what her therapist told her in this scene is also kind of comforting(?) Even in a book full of broken characters like “The Wicked + The Divine”, you don’t see many characters who actively talk about their mental health in a way that isn’t inherently self-destructive. Seeing a character actually work through her emotions like in that panel with the caption all over Laura’s face is something that just doesn’t happen a lot in comics. Though I doubt Laura’s therapist would recommend the Jack.

page 23

There’s an eleventh god, hiding in the shadows like Baphomet was. Unlike our punny pal though, this new god is more or less opening a coming out party for himself. It’s strange that Baphomet and Morrigan didn’t tell Laura about him considering they were just on “good bad company” terms but that, and the fact they are literally slinking back into the shadows, shows they’re not to be completely trusted.

Page 24-25

And now, our penultimate god: Dionysus!

Dionysus is the ancient Greek god of wine, fertility, and theatre which is to say that he is amazing at parties. “The Dancefloor That Walks Like A Man” is the perfect way to describe him in mythology and I’m sure the same will hold true here. The laurel around his head is a reference to the Festival of Dionysus which was an annual theatre festival where the best playwright would win a laurel just like Dionysus’s tattoo here. Yes, I am a theatre student why do you ask?

Also, be sure to sign up for Dionysus’s newsletter at tinyletter.com/DionysianKiss. I signed up last week but I haven’t received anything yet.

And with that, there’s only one spot left on the Pantheon’s Wheel which means time’s almost up for Laura. If she doesn’t make it as the next god, she’s presumably out of the cycle. Dionysus may be a cool dude, but I doubt Laura’s going to be happy about what his presence means for him. Unfortunately, we won’t find out what her actual reaction is until next time on Wicked Intervention.


//TAGS | Wicked Intervention

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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