I’ve seen some vague mentionings of a comic “The Wicked and The Divine” because of some tv show in the works, and normally I’m all over modern mythology. I've been considering picking up the comic but there are some things from glossing over google that make me go (????) And I was wondering if anyone who has read can tell me what's up with any of this. Mostly so that I don't read it and inevitably disappoint myself. I'm tentatively hopeful due to surprising racial diversity but I've had my hopes slammed before, hence the thread. I personally don't care about spoilers, so hit me with it if needed. Spoiler: Just in case anyone else cares about spoilers even though this is just from me off of google My first beef is that the Shinto goddess Amaterasu is white. Seriously, what's up with that? After doing some searching I found this from one of the authors on the comic which still leaves me feeling skeeved. "We're aware of the implications but we did it anyway" is what I got out of the answer. Honestly one of the only ways I could accept what they've done here is if that's literally just somebody else PRETENDING to be Amaterasu who is in fact somewhere else/something happened to her. Bastet apparently acts like a literal cat. I'm going to reserve judgement on that, but can someone please tell me whether or not this is played for sexualization? I always get such hard second hand embarrassment when that happens. Which is pretty much every time. My last thing which has me hesitating is that Inanna isn’t a woman. Considering her prominence as a female deity this had me raising my eyebrows as well. tldr, am I thinking too hard about this?
Well. It's one of my favorite comics and I've been following it for the past several months. It's really really good, and I have friends ( like @Totally David K ) who agree with me, and they're people with exceptionally good taste in fiction. re: racial diversity, you're going to be fine. as for the rest: Spoiler: response to spoilers I can't quite remember about Amaterasu, but I'll dig out the comics and see what I can find because I think there was a justification but I can't remember what it was. Yes, Bastet's catness is sexualized. Sorry. I believe it happens only in one issue though, so it doesn't last too long. Inanna isn't a woman, but gender/sex of the person isn't really as tied to the god. Lucifer is female and (I can't remember if Athena or Minerva) is male, iirc. And I'm probably forgetting someone. There's also at least one trans character. Yes, I think you're thinking too hard about it, but that may just be me. I tend to think everyone thinks too hard about everything. You raise valid points. But on the other hand, the art is amazing so even if you read it for just that, you should read it. It'll almost definitely be worth it.
I'm not caught up on WicDiv (think I've only read up to...#9 or #10? I'm not sure, life happened.) But imo from those issues that I read, I think the shallow/imperfect representation of the gods is kind of the point. They're pop stars, they're not perfect incarnations of gods. And basically, you're not required (even in-universe) to believe that the "gods" are who they claim to be. In fact, I think you're encouraged not to. It's the opposite of a situation like in Sandman, for example, where characters like Death are established by the narrative. Re. McKelvie's response to the tumblr q: I don't think he's only saying "We're aware of the implications but we did it anyway", I think he's saying "We're aware of the implications but we did it anyway because the implications are important to the narrative." As a side note: Gillen/McKelvie seem to be good peoples in terms of listening to their fans' concerns & doing their best not to hurt people. If you like the look of it, I'd recommend reading the comic to find out if it's your thing. I think you might be disappointed, depending on what you're looking for in "modern mythology". But it's entertaining and pretty and not holy-satan's-asshole-offensive. (ETA: the reason I think you might be disappointed by the modern mythology, which is also part of the reason that I don't find the portrayal of the gods offensive, is because the story is much more about the people who claim to be these gods than it is about the gods whom these people claim to be.)
Yeah, it seems to me that the comic's text is explicitly aware of the "white girl cosplaying a shinto goddess" thing, which makes me think they are thinking about it and it is part of the story. I picked up the first issue or so, I liked it, I will probably get whatever else is out next time I think of it and am near the image comics site.
Thanks for the replies everyone! Huh, I knew that there was a reincarnation thing going on, but I didn't know about the identity mismatch up thing @EulersBidentity described. That was one of the things that threw me off as well with Inanna tbh - if Inanna was a woman before, than no matter what her new body, she should still in fact be a woman, right? But since the situation is as you described, I can see where the divergence comes from. The last thing I read with reincarnated gods as humans was Tui T. Sutherland's Avatars series, I think. Since everyone seems to be reviewing this so positively and it does seem different I think I'll at least give the first issue a try and see from there. I still feel critical about the choice with Amaterasu though. Whitewashing as a narrative choice is still sort of whitewashing, even though they are focusing on the people rather than the gods anyway. Granted since they are aware of the implications it's possible that they're going somewhere with this that is justifiable. I guess I'll just post back here once I've tried it, either way.
