The Wicked + The Divine Vol 3: Commercial Suicide by Keiron Gillen

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 3: Commercial Suicide written by Keiron Gillen has art by several different artists (a different one each issue) rather than the usual Jamie McKelvie (although he does make an appearance). It collects issues #12–17 and continues the ongoing story of the series.

Every ninety years twelve gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead. It’s happening now. It’s happening again.

Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson (Phonogram, Young Avengers) continue their modern fantasy where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods.

The continuing story in The Wicked + The Divine continues to be interesting, but this was probably my least favourite volume to date. It wasn't terrible, but there are a few clear reasons I didn't enjoy it as much. The first was the changing art between issues. I understand this was somewhat out of the creators' hands (the need for alternate artists), but I didn't like the sudden changes. That's not to say the art was bad in this issue, I just prefer the continuity of a single artist (I mean, it annoys me when Marvel does it too). Among other things, it makes it easier to keep track of characters.

The other thing I didn't love was that I found this volume a bit harder to follow the story of. This is partly related to the art, I think, but also to the large number of flashbacks. I got slightly confused as to what was the present and what wasn't, and wait is that the same person as that? On the other hand, I do think that if I'd reread the first two volumes immediately before reading this one, I would have been less confused. This is a series I would like to read all in one go once it's finished, I think. In the meantime, I will continue reading volume-by-volume.

Those criticisms aside, this is basically what you expect from The Wicked + The Divine, if you've read up to this point. The book has a non-zero mortality rate, the plot progresses, ulterior motives are exposed (to the reader) and back stories are developed further. My favourite thing in this volume was learning more about Tara, the most mysterious of the gods until now (much debate over which Tara god she is, with someone in Vol 1, I think, suggesting that she could even be Tara from Buffy, a favourite line of mine).

If you've enjoyed the series to this point, definitely keep reading. I personally will definitely be picking up Volume 4 when it eventually comes out. I quite like this series and I recommend it to all fantasy/gods among us fans. It is pretty great.

4 / 5 stars

First published: February 2016, Image Comics
Series: The Wicked + The Divine Vol 3 of ongoing series, collecting issues #12–17
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley (but I also intend to buy the trade)

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 2: Fandemonium by Kieron Gillen

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 2: Fandemonium written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie is the second collected volume of comics in the ongoing series. You can read my review of the first volume here. This review (and the blurb) contains spoilers for Volume 1.

The second volume of the award-winning urban fantasy series where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. Following the tragic and unjust death of Lucifer, it takes a revelation from Inanna to draw Laura back into the worlds of Gods and Superstardom to try and discover the truth behind a conspiracy to subvert divinity.

This volume picks up where the first left off, with Laura trying to deal with Luci's sudden death. She's determined to find out exactly what happened and throws herself more deeply into the world of the gods in the meantime. There are parties, late nights (that last two days), drugs and smoking. Ordinary teenage rebellions which take on a divine light when the gods are involved.

Apart from Laura, the story also continues to follow the rise of the gods. The last two gods are revealed and it seems that the stage is set for whatever it is they are supposed to do. But... what are they supposed to do? I suppose we'll find out later on. (But we do learn some more of their history in this volume.)

The ending of Fandemonium is intense and left me thinking "Wow, did that really just happen? ... But what will happen NEXT?!" Some bold storytelling choices, which I won't spoil.

If you enjoyed the first volume of The Wicked + The Divine, then you should definitely get your hands on this one if you can. It continues the same story and ups the ante. I really want to find out what happens next! (Looks like I'll only have to wait until December, whoo!)

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2015, Image Comics
Series: Yes. Vol 2 of ongoing series, containing issues #6–11
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Non-Amazon-owned online book shop

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 1: The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 1: The Faust Act, written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, is a comic about a variety of gods incarnating as teenagers for a limited time. This first volume in an ongoing series collects issues #1–5.

Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. The team behind critical tongue-attractors like Young Avengers and PHONOGRAM reunite to create a world where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. But remember: just because you’re immortal, doesn’t mean you’re going to live forever.

This comic series is less... obvious... or predictable than the blurb makes it seem. It's set in a world where every ninety years the gods reincarnate into teenagers, are pop stars (or the period equivalent) and then die within two years. The last time this happened was the 1920s. It's happening again now.

The story is told from the point of view of Laura, a normal teenager who is a fan of the god music stars and wants to see them all live in concert. Then, when she passes out at a concert, she becomes more mixed up with them than she anticipated. In particular, she finds an affinity for Luci (-fer), who quickly also finds herself in trouble. In her quest to help, Laura gets mixed up with even more of the gods (I particularly liked the Morrigan, for whom I have a bit of a soft spot) and a journalist who has a Masters on the recurrence and a lot of god-directed anger.

I enjoyed The Wicked + The Divine a lot. It was a consistently entertaining read that had a diverse cast and was fairly irreverent towards the gods. It is especially fairly liberal towards who gets to be which god, with a few gender (and ethnicity) switches in the mix. For example Lucifer is female, Inanna is male and Woden looks like he (?) just stepped out of Tron for some reason. The gods all have some aspects of their traditional powers/identities but less literally than many interpretations will have it. I also enjoyed that it was set in London rather than New York or LA, because non-US settings are always refreshing.

This first volume contains a section of story which, although it's self-contained for one character, is obviously part of a bigger story. I can't wait to read more. The second volume has just recently come out, but it was sold out at our local store, sadface.

I highly recommend The Wicked + The Divine to fans of mythology. Kind of any mythology. A rather wide swath of cultures make an appearance. It's an engaging and interesting story that makes good use of the comic format.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2014, Image Comics
Series: The Wicked + The Divine Volume 1 of ongoing series (vol 2 just came out). Collects issues #1–5
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Comic book shop in Melbourne

Young Avengers Vol 2: Alternative Culture and Vol 3: Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space by Kieron Gillen

Young Avengers Vol 2: Alternative Culture and Vol 3:  Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie and Kate Brown is the second volume in the latest iteration of Young Avengers. I have previously reviewed Vol 1: Style > Substance. (As a side note, yay for Young Avengers having better blurbs than most Marvel paperbacks!)

Ever wonder what the super hero equivalent of a terrible soul-sucking, talent-wasting temp job is? Wonder what Tommy (aka Speed) has been up to? Wonder why mutant David Alleyne (aka Prodigy) hasn't been even in the background in any one of the eight thousand X-books? Discover answers herein! Then: existential horror turns cosmic horror as something emerges from the shadows of the past...and it seems that the Young Avengers have one more thing to worry about. The team races desperately across the multi verse in pursuit of their missing friend, but their road trip goes crazy as it reaches its desti nati on. Because its desti nati on is mainly excitement and heartbreak. Several Young Avengers decide what to do next. The question is, whether they stay Young Avengers! Plus: Are you ready for Mother's Day?They say you can never go home. For the Young Avengers, that's not true. They can go home — it's just that if they do, the universe may end. The team takes on the gig to save reality, but is Kate Bishop an enemy in waiting? Will Noh-Varr get an arrow through the head? And is this the end of the loveable/strangle-able Kid Loki? As the Young Avengers take on "the Young Avengers," Loki's scheme reaches its final twist — and the Young Avengers' jaws hit the floor. Then, the team gathers in a nightclub for a string of connected and overlapping stories illustrated by an all-star cast of people we really like. And as the New Year looms, the Young Avengers get a resolution — and so do you. Plus: Kissing! Drama! Conflict! Kissing!

Young Avengers continues to be a fun series to read. These two volumes dealt with the problem set up in the first volume and also introduced a new problem for them to deal with. Character-wise it also added Prodigy, whose superpower is, loosely speaking, being smart.

Young Avengers keeps playing with art style throughout these two volumes, just like it did with the first. I particularly liked the credits pages, which were very creative and different each issue. The way the different dimensions were represented, similarly to the first volume, continued to be pretty cool. I like the meta of comic book characters looking at comic books.

The characters continue to be awesome and these two volumes are probably more character driven than the first. Where the first volume set up a big bad, these two have room for more sass and lovers quarrels and other drama. There's also a lot of queer representation, which is nice to see, especially in a comic aimed at teen readers.

Young Avengers was a fun read overall and I would definitely recommend this series to anyone with an interest in comics or superheroes. If you've read and enjoyed the first volume, I definitely recommend continuing. If you're new to the series, I suggest starting from the beginning.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2014, Marvel
Series: Young Avengers Vol 2 and 3 of 3. Containing issues #6-15
Format read: Digital
Source: Marvel Unlimited

Young Avengers Vol 1: Style > Substance by Kieron Gillen

Young Avengers Vol 1: Style > Substance written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton collects issues #1-5 of the Young Avengers ongoing series. It is not, in case you were wondering, about the Avengers in their youth but about a group of teens(ish) who have superpowers and form their own world-saving gang. Even if the big bad in this volume is accidentally of their own making.

Legacy isn't a dirty word...but it's an irrelevant one. It's not important what our parents did. It matters what WE do. Someone has to save the world. You're someone. Do the math. The critically acclaimed team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie reinvent the teen super hero comic for the 21st century, uniting Wiccan, Hulkling and Kate "Hawkeye" Bishop with Kid Loki, Marvel Boy and Ms. America. No pressure, right? As a figure from Loki's past emerges, Wiccan makes a horrible mistake that comes back to bite everyone on their communal posteriors. Fight scenes! Fake IDs! And plentiful feels! (aka "meaningful emotional character beats" for people who aren't on tumblr.) Young Avengers is as NOW! as the air in your lungs, and twice as vital. Hyperbole is the BEST! THING! EVER!

This comic had a very YA feel to it, much like Ms Marvel, but unlike any other comic series I've read so far. And really, the fact that the blurb mentions Tumblr should probably be a hint of the demographic they're aiming at. So if YA and teen stories are your thing, this is probably the comic for you. Although I'm not sure how old some of the characters are... I'd guess early 20s for some of them?

So basically this is the story of a group of super-powered teens getting back together as an evil-fighting team. The arc starts with Kid Loki trying to convince them all to come back to avenging, and ends with a crisis pulling them all together. And there's some "whoops I screwed up and now the world is in danger" in the middle there.

The presentation style of the comic is very up-beat and modern as well. The vocabulary is very now (well, Marvel-Earth-now, anyway, with StarkPads instead of iPads for example) and the creators have done some interesting things with layout. Some of the pages were quite experimental/unconventional in how they told the story and I think this fitted in well with the overall modern tone of the whole comic.

Young Avengers was a fun and entertaining read about a character set I mostly didn't know anything about before picking it up. (Obviously I know who Loki is and I'd also heard of Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, but that's it.) Recommended for anyone wanting to bring some YA and youthful fun to their comics reading experience.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2013, Marvel
Series: Young Avengers, ongoing series, Volume 1 containing issues #1-5
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Gift from a friend