The Wicked + The Divine is totally something I judged by its cover, by which I mean I saw a preview image of the cover for issue number one floating around and decided that I needed to read it.
The premise helped considerably; as I’ve said multiple times, I’m a sucker for mythology of any kind. I’m also a music fan (who isn’t, really?) and I know too well the feeling of being so invested in a band that it becomes an enormous part of your identity. Plus, gorgeous artwork and beautiful colors. There’s nothing not to like.
A brief summary: The Wicked + The Divine follows Laura, a normal human who finds herself entangled in the affairs of the Pantheon and twelve (ish–we meet them over the course of the narrative) people who find themselves to be reincarnated deities. For two years, they live as glorious pop stars, inspiring orgiastic rapture in their fans. Also, drama, power struggles, and puns.
The Wicked + The Divine happened to come out around the time I graduated college and suddenly had time to read things for fun. It’s been a slow swan-dive into comics hell ever since then, and this beautiful, terrible, painful comic is part of the reason I have big heart-eyes constantly for the medium. And no issue sums up the beautiful, terrible, painful nature of the medium than issue eleven of The Wicked + The Divine.
Warning: MAD SPOILERS BEYOND THE CUT. LIKE, ALL THE SPOILERS. AS A PERSON WHO DOESN’T NORMALLY CARE ABOUT SPOILERS, I’M TELLING YOU RIGHT NOW THAT YOU SHOULD REALLY READ THE COMIC BEFORE READING THIS POST BECAUSE THE REVEALS, TWISTS, AND SURPRISES ARE SO GOOD YOU’RE GOING TO WANT TO EXPERIENCE THEM FOR YOURSELF.