By: Kieron Gillen (story), Jamie McKelvie (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)
The Story: Baphomet and the Morrigan prove that sex and rage go hand-in-hand with religion.
The Review: Religion as reality TV seems to be the throughline of this series, and I’ll be very interested to see the point Gillen’s trying to make with that. The simplistic theory is religion is mere entertainment for the masses, vacuous and prone to unnecessary conflict. The squabbles among the different gods are motivated by competition for attention, to obtain the largest number of fans/believers, all of which seems pointless when the gods are doomed to disappear in a couple years anyway.
It’s easy to sign onto this theory as you watch the Morrigan and Baphomet confront each other in the Underground. After a romp in the sack a few days earlier (thus providing him with an alibi for Luci’s frame-up), they now bring their darkest powers to bear against each other simply because Baphomet tried to usurp the Morrigan’s chosen venue. Their blowout is pure overgrown drama, the toxic, juvenile stuff of Jersey Shore‘s worst nightmares.
“Lighten up,” protests Baph. “I just gave them excellent head. Who doesn’t like excellent head.”
“Silence!” screams the Morrigan (in the form of Badb). “You will cum blood before the night is over. When you’re dead, I’ll see if there’s any part that takes Badb’s fancy. Shinbone is of more use to Babd than candle-skinned needledick. Every inch is not enough for chasm-cunted Badb.”*
Engrossing, rather than entertaining; hardly what you call inspiring. But this is par for the course. Thus far, the Pantheon has yielded little good by their presence, only panic and hysteria. When Baphomet instructs the Morrigan to “do what we do best,” he clarifies, “Let’s none-more-Goth this hole into the ground.” Let’s be clear on this: this isn’t a collaborative destruction. They just want to off each other, paying little heed to the casualties of their faithful.
And as Luci’s briefs on each of her fellow divinities attests, none of them seem all that concerned with their followers’ wellbeing either. What are they concerned with? Doing the nasty, mostly. Whether this is Gillen making the point that most religions are strangely obsessed with sex, or him just giddy with the sexual freedom Image provides, nearly all of Luci’s knowledge about her fellows is erotic: Inanna (“[H]e even tired me out.”), Sakhmet (“I don’t think [she] held anything against me. Except her body that time. Times.”), Wotan (“…inappropriate thoughts about Asian girls, of course.”), etc.
Not that there’s any need for the Pantheon to do much to inspire belief. Skeptics like Cassandra can skewer the fan worship and mob hysteria, but the spontaneous immolation and healing/raising of the dead are much harder to deny. Perhaps this is why the gods’ time on Earth is so short. Two years is more than enough time for them to keep the faith until their next appearance, and if they stayed any longer, the chaos they produce may get completely out of control.
It strikes me that comics have the hardest time competing with TV and movies in the special effects department, but McKelvie somehow works his way around that little obstacle every time. The Morrigan’s transforms into Babd vis-à-vis a flock of crows who fly across two pages, raking across the scattered panels of bystanders as they do so, tricking your eye into seeing a longer length of confusion and panic than a picture usually allows. Wilson makes the most of every miracle the gods come up with, casting ghastly yellows as Baphomet summons the spirits of the subway dead, and radiating bewildering greens and reds as a copper bursts into flame.
Conclusion: There may be a deeper message on the nature of religion here, or it could all just be drama. Entertaining, either way.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * She’s the mess in this gang, clearly.
– I’m going to get real sick of the word “hater” by the time this is all over. I just know it.
Grade
Conclusion