By Alex Batts — We’re back for another installment of The Wicked + The Divine Re-Read Project, this week taking a look at issue #7. This issue continues to deepen the mystery and gives us a bigger introduction to another member of the Pantheon. With that said, let’s get into it!

The Wicked + The Divine #7

Here’s the official solicitation text for the seventh issue from January 21st, 2015:

Last year, before The Recurrence, fans gathered from their lonely worlds at RAGNAROCK to wonder whether the gods were really about to return or not. Now, as the next RAGNAROCK approaches, everyone knows things are different. What’s more, there are two gods still to emerge. Will anyone there get “lucky?” Look at us whistle, shuffle feet, and avoid eye contact.

A bit of a longer solicit text than normal, but it sets the stage for the issue well. I like to call this issue the “convention issue” as it takes place almost entirely at (what I assume to be) London’s biggest convention. There’s a bit of meta-humor still present in the text, too, as I see how I act at conventions with that very last line, given my introverted nature.

The Cover: The cover portrait for this issue sees Woden take center stage in all his Tron-like glory. He’s bright, futuristic, and distinctly inhuman. His helmet leaves him completely devoid of any recognizable human features, except maybe ears, but even those aren’t normal looking ears. This cover looks silky smooth, though. With McKelvie’s base art showcasing clean lines and Wilson’s colors infusing the image with a buttery vibrance. The cover pops.

The First Page: This first page is quite a contrast to the last issue in a few ways. As opposed to the silent page of issue #6 this opening page has quite a lot of text, but it all flows extremely naturally and gives a great back and forth between Inanna and Laura. Gillen’s writing is superb throughout the series and one of his strengths is the ability to build character’s personalities through every line of dialogue they have. Every interaction serves to strengthen our understanding of that character.

The other main difference between this opening page and the previous issue’s is that it bucks the trend of having the cover image appear somewhere on the page. It’s not a red flag or anything, but something I feel is worth noting given that I’ve been keeping track of that sort of thing. This issue does do something else really interesting with covers appearing on interior pages, but I’ll get to that later.

On-Page Action: As I mentioned in the intro this issue takes place mostly during a convention, London Fantheon, to be exact. This convention happens to have over 100,000 fans attend across the weekend, all in celebration of the gods and the Recurrence. The date of the weekend is April 12th, 2014, three months after Lucifer has been killed. Laura has achieved celebrity status among the fandom and has multiple signings and appearances planned throughout the weekend, and of course, has VIP access.

Maybe my favorite page of the issue is a double-page spread that shows the layout of the convention and has annotations on the map from Laura, but I’ll dive more into that in the art section. The main meat and bones of the story come from Laura’s experience over the weekend. Her temper is constantly on the rise and her opinions of humanity are consistently on the downswing. She sees Minerva’s parents using her fame for cash, either uncaring that their daughter will be dead in less than two years or fully aware but hoping to get every penny they can out of her in the meantime.

As has become the trend in the series, we get a great conversation between Cassandra and Laura in the press lounge, as they try to discern who it was that shot at Lucifer all those months ago (see issue #1). They’ve narrowed it down to two angry white men in the fandom, two of which would now be missing from this convention (because they’re dead), talk about a needle in a haystack.

The working theory is that they wanted some kind of pay-off similar to what Lucifer promised Laura, godly powers. Or, as Cassandra points out, they may have been attempting the Prometheus gambit. The Prometheus gambit, which has been brought up in passing, is the idea that you walk up to a god, say “Prometheus”, and kill them which results in their powers passing to you, like taking fire from the gods.

The main panel that Laura will be at is a “Life after a near-god experience” showcase, which will feature her, Brunhilde (an ex-valkyrie), and a few others that were close to gods. It’s an excuse for fans to gawk at the unfortunate and hear gossip about the gods. Brunhilde absorbs the spotlight, though. Taking every second to trash Woden, who eventually shows up to shut her up. He does so in the most calculated, cruel way possible. He brings a Valkyrie suit for her, offers her a chance to become one again, and all she has to do is admit everything she’s been spouting was lies and she did it for attention. She does so, of course, and then Woden destroys the armor in front of her.

This is our first big interaction with Woden, and it sets the tone for his character well. Immediately following this we get an exchange between him and Laura that garners even more insight into his mentality. Woden doesn’t get the same type of powers as the other members of the Pantheon, he gives others powers (the Valkyries) and he’s beyond bitter about it. He notes that he’s a god, not a saint and that he tried being the nice guy once and it got him nowhere, so he’s not going to spend his last two years caring about others. Again there is an extreme amount of character work built into just two pages and it gives you an almost complete understanding of who Woden is.

As he goes to leave the VIP area though, he’s greeted by Brunhilde pointing a gun in his face saying, “Prometheus”. Before she can pull the trigger, though, she’s rocketed into a wall as Minerva saves Woden. The child says she didn’t mean to hurt her that much and Baal immediately goes to comfort her. Woden proceeds to call Brunhilde stupid and explains that the Prometheus gamble doesn’t work, because if it did he’d be killing gods himself.

The last act of the issue sees Laura bonding with Baphomet and The Morrigan in the Underground. Baphomet lies to get her down there, and on the journey downward we get more internal reflection from Laura as she realizes that she might love the bad company of the underworld gods. It’s a small scene but it speaks volumes to the company Laura prefers. On her return to the surface, she’s handed a flyer for a weekend party being put on by the eleventh god, Dionysus, with the flyer itself serving as the final portrait image of the issue (hint, you might see this image again very soon).

Deeper Meaning: This issue continues to home in on the wish to be famous versus the reality of the situation. From the beginning of the series, Laura wanted fame but as she’s gotten it it’s been abundantly clear that the fame has done nothing to help, and has possibly even hurt, her mental state. We get glimpses at the toxic side of fandom and the art shows the staggering scale of conventions of this magnitude. It highlights the “herd” mentality that people have, and on more than one occasion notes that the term “fan” itself is derived from “fanatic”.

The Art: As is usually the case the art throughout the issue is splendid, but there are a few major visual flairs that I’d like to touch on. The first is the aforementioned spread of the convention floor. It’s a double-page spread that shows the convention as if you’re looking at a map of it, complete with a table of contents highlighting each area. The spread deepens the level of realism for the convention as it’s something anyone who’s been to a large gathering would recognize as a typical handout by employees. It helps flesh the world out and gives our characters a tangible place that these events are taking place in. It’s also a cool visual break from the traditional look of comic pages, and the annotations from Laura even add some character moments to it.

The other major visual standout of the issue is that every time large crowds are shown on-page, the crowds themselves are muted and not rendered in full detail. They seem almost like ghosts or shadows, with our main character standing out in striking fully rendered detail and color to contrast. It’s a powerful visual tool and helps emphasize the sea of people and sort of “they’re all the same” motif that the issue touches on. One particularly inventive beat has Cassandra appearing as one of the shadows in the crowd when she first speaks to Laura, who after a moment recognizes her and she then becomes fully rendered. Touches like these are just a few of the things that put this book above and beyond.

The Wicked + The Divine #7

Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Jamie McKelvie
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics

Click here to read past installments of the Wic + Div Re-Read.

Alex Batts is from Texas. A lifelong comic book enthusiast and movie lover, if he’s not talking about comics, he’s probably not talking. You can find him on Twitter by following @BatmanFiles