By Alex Batts — Last time we dove into an issue for The Wicked + The Divine Re-Read Project the Pantheon made a pivotal decision. The Wicked + The Divine #27 is very much a showcase of them living with that decision. That sounds melodramatic, and it kind of is given that there’s a deadly evil force out to kill a Pantheon of rock star gods, but the issue also has an air of mundanity in its slice-of-life presentation. But enough preamble, let’s jump into the solicit and issue proper…

The Wicked + The Divine #27

Here’s the official solicitation text for The Wicked + The Divine #27 from March 8th, 2017:

"IMPERIAL PHASE (I), Part Five Sex and drugs and rock and roll and sex and drugs and rock and roll and sex and drugs (cont.).”

Now I don’t know about you but I see a pattern here. We know some of the Pantheon have an inclination to lean into their hedonistic tendencies and this solicit sets us up to see a whole lot of that. Something worth noting is the rhythm of the solicit. “Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” is a very common phrase, but the deliberate repetition of “and” here reminds me of the general “1 and 2 and 3 and 4” mental shorthand used for keeping time when playing music, as is also used frequently throughout the book with its “1-2-3-4” motif. The solicit is a bar, and it’s also hilarious.

The Cover: Well, this cover is fiery hot. Literally. Baphomet is rocking a single sleeve leather jacket, sans shirt, goat head chain necklace and belt buckle, jeans, and the perfect accent of accessories. His sunglasses are slightly lowered as he has an eyebrow raised. The image exudes confidence, as is fitting for the Underworld god. The off-center box is full of flames with brilliant variations from orange to yellow. The overall warm tones set the mood for the page but the accents of coolness with Baphomet’s skin tone and blue-ish under glow from the bottom of the page pull everything together.

The First Page: This page is dour, but it also does one of my favorite things. Minerva is flipping through and ripping pages out of, a Pantheon-themed calendar that Persephone bought. The cover image of the calendar is all the symbols of the Pantheon that is displayed at the start of each issue, and one of the monthly images is an Easter egg, being the cover for issue #28, the next in the series. As I said with the magazine issue I love the book acknowledging and embracing that something like a Pantheon-themed calendar would exist, and then also using some of the actual assets used in marketing the book for in-world marketing and product.

The dour part of the page comes in when Minerva explains why she’s ripping these pages out. “Just October to December. Won’t be needing them.” As the final panel shows her Death Day circled in September.

On-Page Action: The second page is some more somber character work for Minerva, as she reflects on how her life experience hasn’t left her an optimist, and that the last two months without Baal (since he joined the Pantheon first) are going to be hard. From there, the scene quickly breaks out into action as The Great Darkness once again attacks. Baal does what Baal does and utterly demolishes it. It's a pretty ruthless encounter that leaves Minerva crying and even more traumatized than she already was, as she asks how often this is going to happen while laying in the fetal position.

The next page is crucial and mysterious. We see Baal atop the Shard, with Valhalla in the distance. “It is what it is. You are what you are. And you’re not afraid.” He says, before teleporting to Valhalla, remaining there for a beat, we see a small explosion, and then he returns to the Shard on the next page. Minerva asks where he’s been, which he promptly ignores, marks a day to confront The Great Darkness on the calendar, and nonchalantly says they need to get to work.

The next section of the issue is a unique approach to storytelling, and if I’m honest I’ve had a tough time figuring out how to break it down. At the start of this piece, I mentioned that this issue has a sort of slice-of-life quality, and that’s where this section comes into play. It’s titled “Phased” in issue and it’s a series of 5 double-page spreads with 16 equal-size panels per spread. The catch, however, is in the way each panel is connected. There’s a colored highlight or afterglow emanating from behind each panel, and this is what links them narratively.

The spreads cover a couple of months, January to February of 2015, as the various members of the Pantheon embark on living life based on each decision they made the last issue. Baal and Minerva are attempting to investigate The Great Darkness and deal with the publicity angle of the Pantheon on the World Stage. Sakhmet, Persephone, The Morrigan, and Baphomet all embrace anarchy. Anarchy in each case varies wildly, as The Morrigan is simply playing chess in the Underworld.

And lastly, Woden, Dio, Amaterasu, Urdr, and The Norns are trying to investigate everything else, oh and also create a performance so powerful it will save the human race. These sections are pure character work, something I’ve said time and again that Kieron Gillen excels at. We get some tinder if toxic, moments between Baal and Persephone. Persephone tries to understand Sakhmet a little more. Urdr and Dio continue to bond uniquely, even as Urdr becomes more frustrated with their lack of progress.

Each member of the Pantheon is coping with their impending doom in different ways and each with varying levels of success. Overall, they aren’t doing well, at all. The Phased sequence comes to an end as we reach “The Cassandra Project”. Cassandra/Urdr has called in David, Pantheon, and Recurrence expert/superfan to help study the Machine that Ananke had planned to use for ritual sacrifice.

Urdr is certain it’s the key to everything, but she doesn’t know how yet. In this sequence comes one of my favorite monologues in the series, when David speaks about the state of the Pantheon going into Year Two throughout history. “Empires are born. Empires reach their peak. Empires contract. Empires die.” It’s all quite ominous, as it should be. Death is looming and the Pantheon seems to be falling apart more than ever.

Deeper Meaning: This issue is all about the mental state of the Pantheon. It’s showing a myriad of ways various personalities cope with impending doom, power, and freedom. Do they have a duty to help others with their power? You would think it’s the right thing to do. But they’re also going to die in less than two years, shouldn’t they do what they want? But what if what they want comes at the harm of others?

Do you wallow in self-pity and anxiety knowing your death is fast approaching? But isn’t death always just around the corner? What makes the appearance of the ticking clock so much worse? Can any of them work together effectively, is there any possible way to fight this? All of this weighs on the Pantheon and all of them handle it in their own way. The common theme though, things are looking bad. 

The Art: Let’s get the usual praise out of the way, shall we? Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson nail everything you’ve come to expect. Action? Check. Character expressions? Check. Colors that pop off the page? Check. Pacing? That’s where this issue is interesting. The pair and I’m not sure Gillen’s exact involvement on specific panel layout on the page but I’ll give him credit if it’s due, manage to make what is essentially 10 identical pages interesting by uniquely connecting them.

Rather than reading in normal order, the panels are broken up into various sections that change on each page turn, creating an interesting and different pace for the reader on each spread. It’s a little thing but it has a huge impact on the reading experience. It also fits perfectly with the loose flow of time happening in the issue as if these events are all happening relatively simultaneously yet still in vaguely chronological order. Playing with time in storytelling is one of my favorite things a creator can do and it’s done excellently here.

The Wicked + The Divine #27

The Wicked + The Divine #27
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Jamie McKelvie
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
IMPERIAL PHASE (I), Part Five: Sex and drugs and rock and roll and sex and drugs and rock and roll and sex and drugs (cont.).
Release Date: March 8, 2017
Buy It Here: Collected in The Wicked + The Divine - Book Three

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