Wicked and Divine #26 Featured Reviews 

“The Wicked + The Divine” #26

By | February 10th, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

“You’re lying. You know more than that.” First with a god-powered throw-down, then with a high-pressure negotiation, “The Wicked + the Divine” #26 keeps up the momentum. Ever since Persephone exploded Ananke, the series has been let loose, rushing ever-faster to an unknown destination. Probably somewhere bad. As the stakes are made more clear and new factions form, it’s looking less and less likely that the Pantheon is going to live out their final year on Earth.

Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated by Jamie McKelvie

‘IMPERIAL PHASE (I),’ Part Four-Once more we return to the polling booth. One god, one vote. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Democracy always works, right?

The first half of “The Wicked + the Divine #26” follows up immediately on last issue’s arrival of The Great Darkness; Baal is ready to thunder-punch the threat into oblivion, but Persephone just looks annoyed. Maybe she’s mad that her night with her new found family is being cut short, maybe she’s mad that Ananke was telling the truth about something, either way she needs to call Amaterasu to join the fight.

As the first two gods awakened, Baal and Amaterasu seem to be a little more in the know than everyone else. This isn’t their first time fighting The Great Darkness. We get a wonderful look at Ammy’s home life, which seems to involve watching The Walking Dead with her mum and drinking wine. The team does a great job at making Ammy look as dumb as she is formidable (“’I’ve just realized!” She tells Persephone, “The humans are the Walking Dead!”)

From there, it’s a whole scrum. We meet Baal’s family for the first time (what’s left of them), learn his real name, and Amaterasu gets to blast shadow monsters with eye beams like she’s Cyclops. The sequence gives Jamie McKelvie an opportunity to do high drama. Every eyebrow is furrowed, every mouth open and screaming. McKelvie makes everyone look like sexy Disney princes and princesses screaming their way through an over-the-top anime battle. He, and colorist Matt Wilson, draw a visual feast of a fight, with awesome staging and fun character beats. Kieron Gillen even manages to squeeze in some relevant song lyrics (“All I do is win,” Baal says, and boy does he).

The rest of the issue brings the entire pantheon together (well, what’s left of them) to vote on an essential question. Do they take the fight to The Great Darkness or should they be more meticulous, studying their enemy before they strike? Sakhmet rejects this dichotomy. With only one year to live, she wants to spend it having crazy sex and eating human flesh. She suggests a third choice, anarchy. With three options and nine gods, there is of course a tie, and of course it falls on Persephone, who may or may not be an official member of the Pantheon, to break it.

A dozen pages of nine-panel grids in a mostly black room could get boring pretty fast, but the creative team never lets it. Seeing the whole cast together is a treat in and of itself, and everyone gets character moments to shine, or revelations about their past. Questions are asked that were certainly on my mind (what’s the deal with those other two Norns!?).

Every issue of a Gillen/McKelvie collaboration always has at least one page that breaks away from convention, and this issue in no exception. The moment Persephone casts her deciding vote is the moment the nine-panel grid format is broken up by an enormous and gorgeous full page shot of Persephone’s face, her hair blowing over and obscuring the rest of the characters. After being minimized for most of the issue, all the power is suddenly in her hands, and the formatting reflects that in a way that’s simultaneously subtle and screaming in your face.

So was this a perfect issue? Very nearly. If there’s one flaw WicDiv has, it’s knowing when to be subtle. There are times when the cultural references are so obvious, you feel beaten over the head with them, and there are other times you finish a scene impressed by the beauty of the images and the words, but not entirely sure what just happened. There’s a panel right before Persephone’s deciding vote where Amaterasu needs to spell out an earlier plot point that may have been too arcane for the average reader (it was for me). You can almost see editor Chrissy Williams telling Gillen that nobody is going to follow the ever changing rules of magic, and Gillen sighing and having the dumbest character state what to him, is the obvious.

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Still, it’s hard to really hold that against the issue. It moves the plot forward, finds time for acidic wit and character drama and ends with a discussion on sexual identity for two characters who up until now, have been outside the focus of the Pantheon’s ongoing bacchanalia (pun intended). Both revelations were huge surprises for me.

Sartorially speaking, is there any artist who has more fun drawing clothes than Jamie McKelvie? Persephone’s braids at the beginning of the issue make for one of the coolest haircuts in comics. My personal favorite outfit went to Amaterasu, who apparently wears the most expensive and magical looking pajamas of all time when she watches the telly with her mum. Persephone gets a cool new hooded jacket that wouldn’t be out of place on a pilot in a Star Wars movie. Even characters who wear the same thing every issue, like Woden and Urdr manage to look striking, depending on the lighting of where they are.

Last, but definitely not least, props have to be given to Matt Wilson. A lot of the issue takes place in a black room full of different colored glowing lines, and he makes that look great. All of the colors are so much more vibrant and intentional than in almost any other comic. The words tell a story, the images tell a story, and the colors and the lighting tell a story of their own.

Final Verdict: 9.0 – Team WicDiv make fabulous pacing and comic book storytelling look easy.


Jaina Hill

Jaina is from New York. She currently lives in Ohio. Ask her, and she'll swear she's one of those people who loves both Star Wars and Star Trek equally. Say hi to her on twitter @Rambling_Moose!

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