After a year of being referenced, “The Wicked + The Divine” #13 properly introduces us to Tara. In a timely and unexpectedly emotional issue, we get a mirror held up to the way we interact with the celebrities we idolize. Be warned, this review, in order to really get into what Gillen and Lotay do here, will have major spoilers.
Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated Tula Lotay, Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson
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.
“Fucking Tara” is a character who’s been talked about only in a negative way since the series began. We’ve seen glimpses of her but we have never properly met her and “The Wicked + The Divine” #13 gives us an introduction and a whole lot more. When we first see Tara, she’s on stage performing for a huge audience. In her glamorous outfit and make up, she commands the audience. What we learn is that when she has the audience wrapped around her finger, she puts on her mask and tries to perform slower, acoustic songs or even recite poetry. However, on this night the crowd doesn’t allow it and they erupt into a riotous frenzy forcing her to go back into “god mode”.
Growing up, Tara has always been beautiful and no one ever lets her forget this. Her musical talents and intelligence were never the first thing people paid attention to and when she met Ananke it only got worse. See, all the Gods were meant to be Gods so Tara was never going to be free from this. As she got more famous, she became more hated because people, including fellow members of the Pantheon, only saw her looks and when she wouldn’t be what they wanted, they got angry. What we find out is that Tara has hit her limit and this entire issue’s narration is her suicide note. After reading horrid comments made about her on Twitter, Tara lets Ananke kill her and we’re down yet another member of the Pantheon.
“The Wicked + The Divine” #13 is the perfect example of what modern comic books can be. The world, in general, is changing through social media. We’re more aware of challenges facing certain groups but we’ve also grown more cruel. Gillen and Lotay do not stop the story being told in this series to preach to us about bullying. They seamlessly weave this story into the bigger narrative and it’s part of why this might just be the best single issue of the entire year. Big claim, yes, but it’s completely warranted.
This issue hurts in ways that almost every single person can understand and even if you don’t read this series, the story of Tara will speak to you. Gillen and Lotay are holding a mirror up to us, the active internet users, through Tara. Tara is representative of the victims of internet harassment and bullying. In a time where Gamergaters revealed home addresses and threaten horrifically violent acts against women, “The Wicked + The Divine” could not be more timely. Tara isn’t Anita Sarkeesian but her story isn’t unheard of. If you look at the Twitter feeds for major celebrities, comic book commentators and even vocal female fans, you’ll see the kind of stuff we’re shown in this issue. Social media allows people to eat other up through cruel comments. Disagree with someone? You can tell them to kill themselves because they might be on the other side of the world and you can tell yourself you hold no responsibility for it. It happens way too often and each time it’s wrong and it needs to stop.
Tara is also the first of the Gods to really fall victim to the perils of fame in the internet age. The abusive tweets she faces are normal for women with her level of fame. Women are often faced with sexist remarks about their bodies online and for famous women, this is magnified even more. They hit the red carpet and the questions are about their clothing and the camera angles highlight their bodies, not what they’re saying. The comments online are cruel because the person making the comments just sees them as too famous to read their comments. Gillen, no stranger to writing about music and fame, really gets into the mystique of celebrity. We, yes all of us, can get lost in idolizing them and we don’t typically see them as people. They have fame and money but these tweets still hurt. Tara was an artist who wanted to be loved for who she was and instead spent her time in this world being what everyone else wanted. She fell victim not to drugs or an accident, she fell victim to cruelty like so many others in the world have.
Continued belowGillen’s script is touching and Tara’s desperation comes right through every panel. That desperation is thanks to the excellent work that Tula Lotay does on art. As a fan of “The Wicked + The Divine”, I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve been spoiled by Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson. They are a stellar team but Lotay steps in and delivers an issue that rivals what they do month in and month out. The opening stage show is stunning with a very expressive audience that allows you as a reader to almost hear the crowd chanting. Tara’s design isn’t really a full riff on anyone that actually exists. Her outfit is very sexy and revealing but she never feels like an object. We are immediately drawn to her personality thanks to the way Lotay draws her expressions. Tara isn’t scared but in the eyes you can see something else is going on because it’s in her eyes. It gets magnified more when the crowd begins the frenzy and even through her mask, you can see how all this has gotten to her. The hidden pain under the mask she wears is something Lotay does throughout the issue and it never ceases to be amazing.
Lotay perfectly captures the mix between fear and disappointment every time Tara is approached by men who only give her attention for less that savory reasons. This is something almost every woman has experienced once and Lotay does a nice job framing it from her perspective and avoids giving us even worse imagery. It’s uncomfortable to look at but I don’t think it ever becomes unbearable as a comic book experience. The tiny, dingy room that Tara plays guitar in is heartbreaking in appearance because Lotay again provides so much more context that Gillen’s script can’t. The room is empty aside from two older men and it speaks to the fact that no one has ever appreciated Tara outside of superficial reasons. There’s a lot of sadness and pain in this sequence and only a capable artist would capture this correctly. Lotay’s colors have a certain dreamlike quality at times when Tara exhibits her power. The clothing on all the Gods is gorgeously drawn and colored with each one capturing a different genre and style entirely.
“The Wicked + The Divine” #13 leaves us with a very simple request: “Try to be kinder. You have no idea what people are going through”. Tara is gone and it’s because of people not so different from what we see in real life. Words hurt and they can cause more harm than we can often imagine. It’s not about political correctness or being overly sensitive – it’s about being a decent human being. No one should ever be put in a place where they want to end their life and Tara teaches us that no one is excused from pain. “The Wicked + The Divine” #13 is poignant, important and extremely painful to get through but it’s a perfect demonstration of how high comics can reach.
Final Verdict: 10.0 – With beautiful artwork, “The Wicked + The Divine” #13 tells the most important story in comic books.
