I generally like Image Comics’ The Wicked + The Divine, and that series is on its last arc in the various monthly issues as I type this. But there were still some special issues, so why not collect them all in one place?
That leads to the 8th volume, subtitled Old is the New New.
Most of the special issues here are stories of previous incarnations of the gods, particularly a Lucifer. There’s one set in ancient Rome, one during the Black Death, one during the mid 19th century, and a longish tale with some written text sections set in the last incarnation before the present day. And…they’re fine. The first shows what happens to any god that manages to last more than the two years, but beyond that, these seem more like world-building stories that don’t have anything to do with the plot for the main series. Regular readers won’t be too surprised about Ananke’s actions, especially in the murder-mystery setting of the 1920s.
But I don’t necessarily mind special issues like that. The next two are another story. One is a Christmas special for some reason, and the other is a humor special that, well, aside from a Scooby Doo parody wasn’t all that funny to me as it was. The net result is a volume like this may actually hurt the momentum for the reader going into what creators Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie say is the last arc. Gillen wrote most of this book aside from some of the humor stories, and McKelvie drew much of the Christmas special, but frankly, if you’re going to skip one of these should you opt to read the series in trade form once the run is complete, you could probably skip this one. It just felt the most disposable. 6 out of 10 trips to doggie heaven.
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