Matthew Wilson

***SPOILERS****

I generally try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. Since this is the final volume for the super popular The Wicked + The Divine, however, a little more detail will need to be discussed.

Partly, I think the appeal of WicDiv is never quite knowing exactly where the story is going. More so than normal comic structures, WicDiv often creates a sense of “what the hell is going on?” while maintaining a sexy and seductive feel from the fantastic art of Jamie McKelvie and gorgeous colors from Matt Wilson.

The United States built a border around the entire lower 48 states and sealed themselves off from the world. No one has seen or heard anything from them until now. Thirty years have passed and a message has been sent out to the world’s governments inviting them to come in, offering a cure for a worldwide disease that threatens to exterminate all of humanity not within the US within six months. A team is dispatched to investigate and they are immediately stranded with a wild world that feels a bit Mad Max-ian. They are on their own to survive and find their way to the cure for the world.

This particular volume is a collection of one shots that was put out over time, as explained in the foreword. While the title is coming to a close, with one final volume to be released, this acts as a nice palate cleanser before finishing out the story. In some ways, this volume might act as an introduction to WicDiv that could be given to someone to tempt them into reading the series. All of these stories stand on their own and there really is no need to have much foreknowledge going in.

The Wicked + The Divine is at times an exercise in madness. Not the bad kind, and not necessarily the good kind. Just madness. Whenever I read a volume of WicDiv, I walk away with a sense of, “What the hell just happened?” combined with a sense of, “Wow, that was gorgeous to look at and I know this is going somewhere and I am here for the ride.”