‘The Wicked + The Divine: Commercial Suicide’ by Kieron Gillen

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Genres: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mythology, Image Comics

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Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act
• The Wicked + The Divine: Fandemonium

Rating: Strongly Recommended Fantasy Graphic Novel

Here’s the TL;DR for my review (SPOILERS!):

• Pros
  • Amazing art. They got a half dozen different quality artists to work on this TP, and together they made something awesome.
  • Stellar Characterization. Not only do the characters look great, but they also are beginning to have actual personalities/direction (which is something the prior two in the series lacked).
• Mixed
  • The pacing was okay. Some of the short stories in this were fun and fast, some were slow and enthralling, but one in particular was slow and boring.
• Cons
  • Plot light. This was an anthology-ish trade paperback, featuring many small vignettes which, when put together, furthered the series’ plot overall. However the TP as a whole had very little cohesive structure connecting the first and last page.

This is my favorite in this graphic novel series so far.

This series is about how gods have returned to earth, reincarnated in human bodies. The gods are slowly being assassinated, and no one knows why.

This TP was character focused. We got to see Amaterasu’s human life, back when she was just Hazel. We got to see how she fully embraced her new status as a god. I liked how the actually Japanese Cassiopeia bounced off of Hazel, providing much-needed commentary about cultural appropriation. The same goes for Minerva and Kerry, and Cameron and Marion (aka Baphomet and the Morrigan). By giving them backstory it makes them seem less innately ridiculous.

Also, the art was just gorgeous. W+D has contained the best art in a graphic novel I have seen thus far, and this graphic novel’s variety of artists really blew me out of the park. They got different artists for different short stories, allowing each god’s backstory to have a different artist. I particularly liked the (I think) watercolors used for Amaterasu’s story and the kinda brutalistic art used in the Sakhmet story. All the art was great, those were just the creme of the crop for me.

I wish the series creators started this series with a book like this, so I got to know the characters first. This was just excellent.