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.

Review: Doctor Who: A Matter of Life and Death by George Mann and Emma Vieceli

Every morning over breakfast, I read a single issue of a comic book. If I have one to hand, that's a hard copy comic. (Usually of late, that would be from my reading through of all of DC's post-Golden Age Earth-Two/JSA comics.) When I don't, I read a digital comic, usually from a Humble Bundle; these days, I'm reading Titan's Doctor Who comics in publication order. Things have worked out recently such that I've been reading a lot of those, and I am a bit behind on reviewing them. So starting today I catch up! If you are not interested, come back on June 28 when I review, er, a Doctor Who prose novel, or July 12 when I review, ah, um, a different Doctor Who comic. But after that things should finally get more diverse again... if you count Transformers as diverse! (Of course my Friday posts will continue their usual eclectic selection of topics.)

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2015-16
Acquired: September 2018
Read: March 2021

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor, Vol 1: A Matter of Life and Death

Writer: George Mann
Artist: Emma Vieceli
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

The first (and so far only) volume of Titan's eighth Doctor range is another slice of perfectly adequate Doctor Who comics from Titan. George Mann has written worse stuff, and Emma Vieceli proves excellent on the artwork. A lot of the plots were decent Doctor Who ideas, but rushed or poorly implemented. Art comes to life in the first story, but so quickly we barely see its effects; in the second story we're asked to believe the best match for a race of living crystal is a race of sentient cats; the idea of a weird dimensional portal in the third seems over before it's even used; and so on. Titan's Eleventh Doctor series has done done-in-one tales much more successfully. On the other hand, I liked Mann's emphasis on the Doctor as a man trying to find peace in conflict, and Vieceli brings both Doctor and companion to life in a way utterly suited to the bouncing, emotional eighth Doctor. If there are more eighth Doctor comics (seems unlikely), get someone else to write them, but bring her back.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Tenth Doctor: Arena of Fear

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XXXIV: Dead Boy Detectives: Ghost Snow

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2014-15)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2016

Dead Boy Detectives, Volume 2: Ghost Snow

Writer – story: Toby Litt

Penciller – layouts – story: Mark Buckingham
Finishers: Ryan Kelly, Al Davison, Emma Vieceli, Victor Santos
Colorist: Lee Loughridge

Letterer: Todd Klein

The second (or fourth, depending on how you count) and final volume of Dead Boy Detectives pays off some plot threads left dangling from the previous volume. Dead boy Charles Rowland meets the half-sister he never knew he had, a Buddhist monk with a rationalist daughter. His sister tells him his father may have directly caused the dead of his mother, so it's up to the Dead Boy Detectives to investigate with the help of new friend Crystal Palace. At the same time, Crystal's comatose childhood friend Rosa is trapped in the dimension of the half-dead, the Neitherlands, along with another one of her friends, Hana, where a mysterious power is amassing to invade our reality. But Rosa's parents are read to pull the plug on her life support, which could doom both her and the universe.

There's a lot going on in this book, apparently.
from Dead Boy Detectives #8 (art by Mark Buckingham & Ryan Kelly)

I kind of like this set-up for the Dead Boy Detectives. Crystal Palace is great, as is Charles's skeptical rationalist niece, and the two cats that are each half a philosopher are fun. I'm less into the Buddhist sister, though at least Litt stops her from being a serene cliche. But I'd rather see the dead boys out in the world solving supernatural mysteries, not plunging the depths of their own backstories: I don't think we gain anything from Charles's family being anything other than an ordinary human family. Their deaths should have been an entry point into a weird world after banal yet horrifying lives, and involving Charles's family so much with ghosts and murder plots and mystical meditations undercuts that; it's like how Steven Moffat Doctor Who companions all have these complicated backstories where they're splintered across time or grow up near cracks in reality when Russell T Davies showed us all they really need is a life boring enough to want to leave it behind. This is a good set-up, but it's only being used to generate insular stories.