by Josh Powell, Editor-at-Large

Been a minute since 2006 when Jonathan Hickman burst on to the scene with his entirely self-made Nightly News for Image.  The six-issue indie was well-regarded and it wasn’t long before Marvel gave him the keys to Secret Warriors, then Fantastic Four, then Avengers, then let him honcho the big Secret Wars crossover that set the background for the next several years of the MU, and by the time he stopped off at the X-books he had pretty much slid into Bendis’ vacated slot as can’t-get-away-from-him czar of the entire line.  Next up is a relaunch of the Ultimates Universe, but in the meantime he now has the starch to do another indie passion project, but this time with all the various goodies of the Marvel toy box to sprinkle in. G.O.D.S. is here.

G.O.D.S. is the debut of his new self-contained mythology with characters and lore that have (now) always existed alongside the main Marvel Universe track, only touching it occasionally.  It is a bit like Secret Warriors for the magic-using set.  The main character is a mysterious rogue named Sir Redwynn, Wyn for short, who looks well, rather quite a lot like the author of the piece (oh well- Starlin got away with it) and who has, Sentry-like, Always Been There, though this is the first time Constant Readers have been treated to a view of him.  When the book opens, he is chatting with Dr. Strange about the latest special-effects disaster to be seen erupting out of midtown Manhattan, and effortlessly manages to outdo the on-again, off-again Master of the Mystic Arts in world-weary disaffection.

How did Wyn get so weary and disaffected?  Turns out that he is “the one and only Avatar of the Powers-That-Be” (presumably not the ones you are familiar with from Angel, but then again maybe so) and has been in service for over 1000 years.  However the first 990+ of that went, the last 10 have really sucked since, wouldn’t you know it, the mortal he was in love with got a job with the opposition (and snappily dressed) Natural-Order-Of-Things, a career move that was hard on their relationship generally and his brain pan especially.

Cut to the present and Wyn’s feeling better, albeit a bit worse for the wear, although that is largely limited to a cool Cable-esque eye scar and even cooler hair blanching.  Just in time too, because the world is about to really, seriously, we mean it this time, end, like, END-end, due to the machinations of new villain Cubisk Core.  Although he is totally over it and hates the meeting place and most of the people involved and plus his ex will be there, Wyn deigns to attend the conclave where most of the mystic heavy hitters of the MU and several of the techno guys have met to try and head it off.  While Clea, Brother Voodoo, Mr. Fantastic, the Hulk, Dr. Doom(?) and pretty much everybody who wanted to come mount a frontal assault on the “proto-mage” and his evil works, Wyn (along with his twink sidekick) slips out the back to do the real day-saving work as only he can. 

Hickman is a richly creative writer, as his prodigious output and numerous Eisner nominations attest.  Reportedly, all of this has been fermenting in his fecund imagination for a number of years, so there’s a wealth of detail and backstory to be imparted, especially as the series gets underway.  Hickman deals with this by means of lengthy flashbacks involving characters who are fond of exposition, and the aforementioned sidekick who carries around a kind of Rubik’s-calculator-mystic-Wiki-Junior-Woodchuck’s-Guidebook kind of deal that explains what’s going on as necessary, making him basically a young (appearing), blond version of Al and Ziggy from the old Quantum Leap series.  

Artist Valerio Schiti is probably best known for having worked with Bendis on his Guardians of the Galaxy run, and colorist Marte Gracia is a Hickman veteran, having paired up with him most recently to do a lot of the work on Dawn of X and associated books.  Their styles blend well together and are probably a good choice for the this book, imparting a kind of luxuriousness to all the mystical strangeness going on, while maintaining clarity.  Crucially, their character work is good, allowing Hickman to call on them frequently to convey a lot of humor and personality through expressions and reaction shots.

But the tone of the book needs work.  Hickman customarily tries to have it both ways, setting up a lot of elevated language and grandeur and then turning around and undercutting it almost immediately for whatever humor is to be had.  “Jus’ foolin'” winking at characters and situations to show that no one on the creative team, and certainly not the characters themselves, are taking this too seriously, is a dominant mode in comics today, probably because it was used to good effect in the early years of the MCU.  But it’s a delicate trick to pull off because once you let the air out of a thing for a laugh, you can’t necessarily get it back in, especially when it happens continually.  Hickman goes to it way too frequently, having characters wind up high-flown speeches for no real reason except to be punctured by a quip at the end.  Dmitri, the sidekick, besides being an exposition machine, is basically nothing but this trope, existing entirely to give explanations for things in a rascally way that serves to make long-suffering Wyn more irritated than he already was.  That scamp.

Wyn, for his part, needs no assistance being annoyed, because he is way, way too cool for school, the school district, and the concept of school itself.  I can understand the idea of one of these immortal characters crawling all over the MU feeling the weight of his years (and his unending service to some principle or power that is decidedly not Lawful Good- shades of The Keep) but it begins to seem one-note starting out the book, the series, and every interaction therein (except for his initially breezy attitude toward his wife) just completely Over It and please-don’t-bother-me.  It seems like a childish pose, of the type adopted by a certain kind of kid contemplating how they might act as adults facing the unbearable ennui of the endless birthdays rolling by to no purpose after they’re old enough to smoke, drink, and rent a car.  Serially playing the Elders of the Universe until he can trade up to the artifact that allows to let the villain screw himself (as they so often do) is clever and amusing to watch play out, but in context it just seems like he’s even bored with the plot of his own book.

All in all, this is quite a flex by a guy at the top of the industry.  I understand everyone gets to look real good in their own book, and traditional wisdom holds it’s important to start things off with something really big, if a title is going to make it past the first few issues, but elder statesman Tom Brevoort should have suggested some ways for Hickman to leaven what is basically a self-insert fan pic where his stand-in condescends to save everyone even though he’s tired of it and could easily find better things to do, because everyone else in the Marvel Universe wasn’t up to snuff.  But I understand Tom; the book will surely sell, and you don’t piss off the franchise.  Besides, you got the club named after you.

It’s definitely worth giving it few more issues to see who else gets shot with those diamond glove/guns and find out more about the nature of the entities backing this latest shadow war between vast powers.  And why does Dmitri’s get-up look so much like Aiko’s?  What’s up with the number theory fetish of the Centum?  Where did the other Primes go?  Are they that much better than the compound number agents?  Is Primus, The One and The Prime the only entity who outranks Dr. Cercle?  Holy shit, that would be awesome!  Why is G.O.D.S. an acronym?  For what?  Will the Lord of the Highlands and Root of the World Tree, etc., get kissed again so he can stop moaning about literally everything?

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives G.O.D.S. #1 3.5 out of 5 reasons to sign the divorce papers already, Wyn.

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