The Wicked + The Divine, Vols. 7–9 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, et al.

The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 7, Mothering Invention
The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 8, Old Is the New New
The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 9, "Okay"

Collection published: 2018
Contents published: 2018
Acquired: June 2020
Read: October 2022

Collection published: 2019
Contents published: 2016-18
Acquired: June 2020
Read: November 2022

Collection published: 2019
Contents published: 2018-19
Acquired and previously read: June 2020
Reread: November 2022

Writers: Kieron Gillen, Lizz Lunney, Chip Zdarsky, Chrissy Williams, Romesh Ranganathan, Hamish Steele, Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris, Kate Leth

Artists: Jamie McKelvie, André Araújo, Ryan Kelly, Stephanie Hans, Aud Koch, Kris Anka & Jen Bartel, Rachel Stott, Chynna Clugston Flores, Emma Vieceli, Carla Speed McNeil, Erica Henderson, Lizz Lunney, Chip Zdarsky, Clayton Cowles, Julia Madrigal, Hamish Steele, Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris, Margaux Saltel

Colourists: Matthew Wilson, Tamra Bonvillain, Erica Henderson, Dee Cunniffe

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

Flatters: Dee Cunniffe, Ludwig Olimba, Brandon Daniels, Fernando Argüello, Juan Castro, Becka Kinzie

I read the last three volumes of The Wicked + The Divine pretty much in a row. The first two were new to me; the final was a reread, since I read it on its own and was baffled when voting in the 2020 Hugo Awards. (The publisher very kindly provided all nine volumes at the time, but I did not have the time to actually read them all.)

The first, Mothering Invention, brings the series closer to its complicated endgame, explaining much of the series's backstory and incorporating a variety of plot twists. Quite frankly, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie are often too clever for their own good. One issues, for example, is entirely made of up six-panel pages, where each panel is ninety years after the previous, showing Ananke killing some member of the Pantheon, from 3862 B.C. to 2014 A. D. Is anyone really reading this issue panel by panel? Seems doubtful. In another, there are ten pages of all-black nine-panel grids, showing how a character is dead for all ninety years between Pantheons! Okay, I guess they are playing with the conventions of what comics can do... but shouldn't it also be interesting to actually read? As always, my ability to invest in the plot is dampened by the fact that I feel like I ought to care about the characters more than I actually do.

The second, Old Is the New New, collects a series of one-shots and side stories: stories about historical Pantheons, ones about the current Pantheon set before (or early in) the series, and noncanonical gags. There are lots of talented guest artists and writers here, but boy do I wish I cared about this series more.

When I originally read the last, "Okay", on its own, I wrote:

It's not this book's fault per se, but there was really no way I could enjoy reading the last six issues of a 45-issue comic book series on their own. I tried at first to work out who all the characters were from the chart in the front, but there were too many of them in too many guises and it wasn't really helping me enjoy it. Maybe someday I will have time to read them all, but not now!

Perhaps it is the book's fault, because now I've read the preceding 39 issues and I guess I understood it but I didn't care that I understood it. And now I hated the epilogue, which was unnecessarily indulgent even by the standards of these things.

I've complained about it in earlier reviews, but I can't help but feel there's a much more interesting version of The Wicked + The Divine out there somewhere, one that works with the actual premise of pop stars as deities that this one largely used as scene setting for uninteresting characters in an overly convoluted plot.