By Alex Batts — We return with another installment in The Wicked + The Divine Re-Red Project as today we take a look at The Wicked + The Divine #25, the third issue in The Imperial Phase Part 1 arc. On the whole, The Imperial Phase sets the stage for the second half of the series but this issue in particular highlights some of the key questions and plot threads that will be explored going forward. Let’s get into the solicit…

The Wicked + The Divine #25

Here’s the official solicitation text for The Wicked + The Divine #25 from January 4, 2017:

“IMPERIAL PHASE (I),” Part Three. The comic that says, “What could possibly go wrong?” and then looks at the camera and stares until we all start crying releases another issue.”

This has got to be one of my favorite solicits for the series. I noted early on in these re-reads that the dry wit present in each solicit is one of the many quirks about the series, and as someone who didn’t read this book month to month from the beginning getting to go back and see each solicit has been a nice surprise. This one doesn’t give us any narrative information about the issue, though does it need to? However, it does assure us that things will go plenty wrong. Such is the norm for our Pantheon.

The Cover: Minerva takes off-center stage this time, making it her first cover appearance! Her role in the series only increases from this point on so it makes sense that she would get a cover to herself. As always Jamie McKelvie has captured the essence of the character with apparent effortlessness. Rocking a tie-dye t-shirt mixed with a high fashion owl-inspired jacket. Minerva feels like an adolescent with too much money and power… which is exactly the case.

Matthew Wilson’s colors here are the real star of the show, though. The mesmerizing tie-dye pattern that is carried over to the box on the right with the multicolored feathers is a brilliant touch. The overall mood of the cover is warm, inviting, and innocent. Quite the contrary to what’s going on inside…

The First Page: We pick up immediately where we left off last issue, with Persephone threatening to kill Woden. Urdr is shouting that she won’t cover up another murder and says there’s no way this ends well. Admittedly this first page doesn’t do that much. It’s a big jolt of “Oh sh*t we’re right back into it and Woden might die”, as well as beautifully establishing the location and giving us that wonderful closeup snarl from Persephone at the bottom of the page, thank you, McKelvie and Wilson. The main thing I love about this page is actually what it sets up for the following page…

On-Page Action: I mentioned very early on in these write-ups that one of my favorite things this series does is plant seeds super early on for payoff way down the line. A lot of these seeds are small enough that you might not notice on a first casual read-through. Cracks knuckles. Lucky for you, I’m here. On the first page, Urdr says “There’s no way this ends well, Laura.” To which she replies, “No shit.” And continues on the next page, “But does it really matter? This was never going to be okay.”

Did you catch that? Let’s go all the way back to issue #4, shall we, when Laura is confronting Lucifer in her cell. Before the scene starts the title card shown says “It’s going to be okay.” And in the scene itself, Laura reassures Lucifer of this fact, to which the Devil replies, “No it’s not, Laura. It was never going to be okay.”. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve got chills just typing that out and reading it back again. Over 21 issues, ascension to the Pantheon, an escaped murder attempt, a successful murder under her belt, and more, Laura has done a complete 180 on her outlook of the situation.

She is no longer optimistic, which is saying something because Laura wasn’t exactly the shining example of an optimist at the start of the series. We’ve seen Laura take a complete spiral into where Lucifer presumably fit on the Pantheon before her untimely demise. Laura was our innocent window into this world, now she’s just as corrupted, at least as morally gray, and arguably morally worse than most of the Pantheon. It’s a tremendous accomplishment in character work to have it happen so smoothly while reading but to be able to pinpoint that sharp contrast between then and now if you look for it.

With my preamble about amazing callbacks out of the way let’s get to the meat of this issue's on-page action. In short, Woden reveals the footage showing Persephone murdering Ananke, and the entire Pantheon being complicit in covering it up, is on a timed-release if he doesn’t check in every day. This leads to a bit of posturing from both Woden and Persephone as he thinks she’s bluffing and won’t kill him. While she does eventually concede to not murdering Woden, as the pair go to shake hands Persephone pulls him into the Underground.

The next few pages are both terrifying and cathartic. Persephone verbally destroys Woden while simultaneously sending him falling into an infinite abyss. These pages are stunning, and I’ll gush more about them in the art section, but it’s just another display of how ridiculously powerful Persephone is. She sends Woden to endless dark depths, leaves him there for an undisclosed amount of time, and when she returns to him lying down shaking in trauma, she explains how things are going to be.

Persephone and Woden rejoin Urdr as Woden explains he’s releasing the Valkyries and that he exists solely to serve Urdr and Persephone now. The next couple of pages are some of the most important in the series. The trio begins to ask the important questions. Why is Persephone able to do so much more than the other gods? Is the entire Pantheon really going to die in less than two years? Is there a way out? Was Ananke always bad? What did she need a ritualistic sacrifice for? Is there a “Great Darkness”? All these threads begin to put the full context of this story into focus.

There’s been a mystery at play since the first issue and while we’ve gotten some answers, they almost always lead to more questions. Those questions drive the narrative forward and as I said early on in this read through the impressive thing with this mystery is that every twist and turn is baked into the story from the very beginning. It all wraps up in a neat little bow, we’ve only just now gotten out the ribbon.

The final scene of the issue answers at least one of the proposed questions from a few pages earlier. Persephone, Baal, and Minerva are grouped in the living room watching TV as the news replays footage of Ananke from earlier issues. The trio has fantastic banter, and Minerva again begins to shine more and more, making more compelling interjections. The whole scene is again a testament to how well Kieron Gillen writes all of these characters. The kicker comes when, in the middle of Minerva ranting in front of the TV with her back to the floor-to-ceiling windows, The Great Darkness attacks. “Why am I so sure The Great Darkness exists? Work it out.” Baal snidely remarks as he prepares for battle.

Deeper Meaning: This issue is thoroughly intense while still riding a calm before the storm feeling. The series has now completely reoriented its trajectory and given our characters new avenues to explore and it all happened wildly organically. It will never cease to impress me how much changes throughout the series while feeling completely natural the entire time. No wild plot point feels random or forced, no character motivation is questionable, nothing simply works out for the sake of convenience.

Laura/Persephone is also a major indicator of this overall shift. As mentioned earlier her character has done a complete moral 180 and yet the audience (at least speaking for myself) is still fully on board with her. She has become the epitome of “be careful what you wish for”, and now we can only hope to see her make it out the other side okay.

The Art: Checklist time? Checklist time. Page layouts? Dynamic and varied. Environments? Top-notch. Character expressions? As emotive as ever. Colors? Vibrant and clean. McKelvie and Wilson just absolutely knock every issue out of the park. I genuinely don’t know how they did this. This issue, like every other, is certainly a looker but as promised I want to talk about those Underground pages a bit.

When Persephone first pulls Woden to The Underground the backgrounds of the overall page are still white, but on the very next page that goes away enveloping the story in complete darkness. The blacks, blues, purples, and pinks, in varying intensities, are as brilliant as ever to showcase Persephone’s powers. The afterglow effect given to Woden as he tumbles through never-ending darkness is an absolutely genius decision to show motion and depth on an otherwise blank page. You can feel him falling and you feel the complete emptiness around him. The sequence is stunning and tremendously memorable.

The Wicked + The Divine #25

The Wicked + The Divine #25
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Jamie McKelvie
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
“IMPERIAL PHASE (I),” Part Three. The comic that says, “What could possibly go wrong?” and then looks at the camera and stares until we all start crying releases another issue.
Release Date: January 4, 2017
Buy It Here: The Wicked + The Divine #25

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