God Is Dead (comics)

Last updated
God Is Dead
Publication information
Publisher Avatar Press
ScheduleMonthly
Format Ongoing series
GenreMythology
Publication dateSeptember 2013
Creative team
Written by Jonathan Hickman Issues 1–6, Mike Costa 1–, Alan Moore & Simon Spurrier Acts of God
Artist(s) Di Amorim Issues 1–6, Jillian Figari Issues 7–9, German Erramouspe Issues 10–12, Omar Francia Issues 13–15, Emiliano Urdinola Issues 16–

God Is Dead is a comic book series created by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Costa, published by American company Avatar Press. It deals with ancient gods and goddesses from mythologies around the world coming to Earth to lay claim to the world of man. [1] The subplot deals with a group of people named the Collective, who resist the ancient gods.

Contents

Publication history

God is Dead began as a six-issue limited series in September 2013, with Hickman and Costa as co-writers. Once the initial six-issue story arc concluded, the comic became an ongoing series with Costa as the only writer. [2] In August 2014, Alan Moore and Simon Spurrier contributed to the first issue of a new story arc entitled God Is Dead: The Book of Acts. [3] The series concluded in 2016 with its 48th issue.

Cover art

The cover art of the comics typically featured five different covers. The initial one would be a solid color with a religious symbol. The other styles of covers were "Enchanted", "Iconic", "Carnage", and "End of Days".

Plot

In 2015, a man claiming to be Zeus, the ancient Greek god of thunder, arrives in Vatican City and claims the Earth as his domain. This event becomes known as the Second Coming. In subsequent months, several other figures claiming to be gods and goddesses emerge as if from nowhere, and begin to divide the Earth into different territories. Fighting between the various gods breaks out, and drags the Earth into war.

Unknown to the gods, an underground society known as the Collective suspects that the gods are not who they appear to be, and seek to create their own new gods to rival those of the ancient pantheons. [4] The Collective is eventually destroyed by the gods, but one member, Gaby, survives, and a generation later has risen to take the identity of the Earth Mother, Gaia.

As Gaia, Gaby rules over the world virtually unchallenged by the gods that still remain. One of her followers, Tansy, travels to Australia, which has been abandoned since the events of the Second Coming. Once there, she meets a man named Albert Spencer, who survived the Second Coming and has been residing in the Dreamtime with a ragtag group of humans. Together, they use a device to go to Heaven and find the Judeo-Christian God with his head blown off. Albert then decides to unite the remnants of Earth's pantheons to lead an assault on Gaia.

As Albert attempts to form alliances, at Gaia's palace, her servants begin to question her motives and her divinity after she kills multiple members of the community that worship her. Hephaestus forms his own alliance among Gaia and Baldr, and organizes a counterattack against the lesser gods, which is successful, until the lesser gods attack. Hephaestus then descends into the bowels of a nearby mountain, and releases the Titans to do battle. Meanwhile, Lily, Gaia's high priestess who discovers the Collective's hideout, flies with a massive dragon, carrying a nuclear weapon. A final battle is waged between the Titans and the remnants of the gods, ending with Lily dropping a nuclear weapon and killing Gaia. In doing so, the Earth begins to dry and shrivel, until Jesus, dressed as a normal human man, emerges in a flash of light.

Soon after, Albert shoots Jesus in the head, saying he has had enough of Saviors and gods. However, he soon discovers the world dissolving, including the Dreamtime. Jesus shows up in Australia and resurrects not only the Earth, but the population as well. Albert rushes home and finds his family alive and well. As they explore the city, they are attacked by a group of thugs, and his family is attacked and seemingly killed. But he discovers they are alive, although maimed. He goes and confronts Jesus, Dionysus, and Tansy as they celebrate. Jesus and Tansy escape, but Dionysus is torn apart. Across the world in Greece, Hephaestus, who has escaped from the Underworld with Apollo, arrives in Olympus, and to his shock finds Zeus alive and well, having been resurrected by Jesus's powers.

Accused of treachery by the other Olympian gods, Hephaestus is imprisoned, and soon after it is revealed that Jesus's resurrection magic worked not only on the Olympian pantheon, but all the other Pantheons as well as the Norse Gods arrive led by Odin to lead an assault on Olympus. The attack results in every Olympian being massacred, with Zeus being sent to the Underworld underneath his brother Hades. In the Underworld, it is revealed that there is a tentative alliance between Hades and Satan, who is having relations with Hades' wife, Persephone. A city is founded called Apollonia, named after the sun god Apollo, which only allows the most perfect physical specimens of mankind into its walls. In Australia, in order to stop the suffering of all the people in the world who cannot die from their horrific wounds, Tansy releases the dragon Baphomet who bites Jesus in half and kills him, enabling people on Earth to die again.

As people now find that they are able to die again, an assault is led on the Titans to stop them from destroying the Earth. In a final desperate attempt, Atlas calls upon Gaia, Mother Earth, herself to avenge him and his brethren. She resurrects and begins to destroy the Earth and the heavens, even going so far as to devour the moon. The only who can stop her is Gaby, who is still human in this resurrected timeline. In order to stop Gaia, she chooses to take the concoction that made her Gaia, and emerges as a stone encrusted female figure. She attacks Gaia, but the resulting attack succeeds in destroying the Earth and opening a black hole. Satan reveals this was the plan all along, even though it will result in his destruction. He is consumed by Baphomet and the Earth vanishes, along with the deities, into a black hole.

In a limbo, all the deities have been resurrected and are constantly fighting under the eyes of the death deities of various Pantheons. The Hindu Pantheon receive a visitor in the form of a nude woman who calls herself Siddharta and the Buddha, and that she is here to spread learning and knowledge to the Pantheons. It is revealed that she has actually come from another universe where there is no belief in gods, where she sought enlightenment and ended up travelling between dimensions to the limbo where the deities are. As she travels to visit the various gods to collect artifacts, the death gods become curious as to where the portal she came through leads. One of them, the African deity Ogbunabali, decides to investigate and falls into a void to land in Siddharta's mortal body on the other side. Crazed with the ability to feel life, he goes on a murderous rampage.

Elsewhere, the mention in the world of the name Zeus summons the Greek deity from limbo to this world. Once there, he goes about establishing himself by bringing Hermes with him and having sex with multiple women to bring his bastards into the world. Sensing new territory, the Egyptian pantheon follows suit, and soon are engaged into another battle with the Greek deities. The Aztecs are soon called upon to fight for this world, but all the Pantheons are shocked when God is resurrected.

Flashing forward, churches are being constructed. Siddharta seeks asylum in the realm of the Japanese Kami, as the other Pantheons are attacked by the angels of God. She makes an alliance with the Kami and travels to the trickster Gods, asking them for help in retrieving her body. With the help of them and the Kami, she is able to take control of her body and banish Ogbunabali from it. As Siddharta recovers, Satan leads the remainder of the Norse gods to Heaven and begins an assault on it, while Loki on a mission to start Ragnarok obtains two god killers, who are able to end the lives of gods permanently. He is betrayed by Ogbunabali, who kills Loki and takes control of the god killers. Satan kills God and takes control of heaven as Siddharta takes control of the global news network.

In the final conflict, Ogbunabali is killed by Amaterasu, and this leads the two god killers to go on a rampage, killing all the members of every Pantheon on Earth. With all the deities destroyed, Siddharta kills herself, appearing in spirit form before the god killing brothers, and summons them to an eternal paradise as the world has no more need of deities. Years later, society has rebuilt, but in a final shot, the skull Siddharta drew can be seen on a wall in an alleyway.

Pantheons

The comic features the members of many of the Pantheons of the Ancient world. The following have made appearances in the series:

The Aboriginal Pantheon

The Ashanti Pantheon

The Aztec Pantheon

The Babylonian Pantheon

Brazilian Folklore

Buddhism

The Canaanite Pantheon

The Celtic Pantheon

The Egyptian Pantheon

The Greek Pantheon

The Hindu Pantheon

The Igbo Pantheon

The Japanese Pantheon

The Judeo-Christian Pantheon

The Norse Pantheon

The Polynesian Pantheon

The Slavic Pantheon

The Sumerian Pantheon

The Titans

The Arabic Pantheon

Native American Pantheon

Reception

The series has received mostly negative reviews. Hugh Armitage of Digital Spy said that the series is an old concept, and that the characters are too one-dimensional. Armitage went on to say that the portrayal of the Hindu gods would be offensive to modern Hindus. [5] Cheryl CS of The Pulp praised the art and fight scenes, but called the main story "cheesy" and "confusing." [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hades</span> God of the underworld in Greek mythology

Hades, in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hephaestus</span> Greek god of blacksmiths

Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persephone</span> Greek goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by and marriage to her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tartarus</span> Place and deity in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's Gorgias, souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. In Hesiod's Theogony, Tartarus is described as one of the earliest beings to exist, alongside Chaos, Gaia (Earth) and Eros (Love).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dionysus</span> Ancient Greek god of winemaking and wine

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherios, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dying-and-rising deity</span> Religious motif in which a deity dies and is resurrected

A dying-and-rising, death-rebirth, or resurrection deity is a religious motif in which a god or goddess dies and is resurrected. Examples of gods who die and later return to life are most often cited from the religions of the ancient Near East. The traditions influenced by them include the Greco-Roman mythology. The concept of a dying-and-rising god was first proposed in comparative mythology by James Frazer's seminal The Golden Bough (1890). Frazer associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation. Frazer cited the examples of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Zagreus, Dionysus, and Jesus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twelve Olympians</span> Major deities of the Greek pantheon

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called Olympians because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olympians (Marvel Comics)</span> Fictional comic book species

The Olympians are a fictional species appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. These characters are based on the Twelve Olympians/Dii Consentes and other deities of Classical mythology. During the beginning of the 1960s, the exploits of the Asgardians Thor and his evil brother Loki demonstrated that an updating of ancient myths could again win readers. In 1965, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Olympians in Journey into Mystery Annual #1.

In Greek mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses. These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.

The Olympian Gods are characters based upon Classical mythology who appear primarily in Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel and Aquaman comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titans of Myth (comics)</span>

The Titans of Myth are mythological deities who appear in the Teen Titans and Wonder Woman comic book series by DC Comics.

Athena is a fictional deity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is based on the Greek Goddess of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hera (Marvel Comics)</span> Comics character

Hera is a fictional deity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is based on the Greek Goddess of the same name. Hera first appeared in the pages of Thor #129, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amatsu-Mikaboshi (character)</span> Comics character

Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the Chaos King, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as a supervillain and demonic god of evil who is best known as an enemy of Hercules and Thor. He is based on the Mikaboshi of Japanese mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaia</span> Greek primordial deity, the personification of the Earth

In Greek mythology, Gaia, also spelled Gaea, is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus, from whose sexual union she bore the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Giants; as well as of Pontus, from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.

Characters of <i>God of War</i> List of fictional characters from the God of War video game franchise

The characters of the God of War video game franchise belong to a fictional universe based on Greek mythology and Norse mythology. As such, the series features a range of traditional figures, including those from Greek mythology, such as the Olympian Gods, Titans, and Greek heroes, and those from Norse mythology, including the Æsir and Vanir gods and other beings. A number of original characters have also been created to supplement storylines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liminal deity</span> Gods of boundaries or transitions

A liminal deity is a god or goddess in mythology who presides over thresholds, gates, or doorways; "a crosser of boundaries". These gods are believed to oversee a state of transition of some kind; such as, the old to the new, the unconscious to the conscious state, the familiar to the unknown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hades in popular culture</span>

The mythological Greek deity Hades often appears in popular culture. In spite of his present neutrality and lack of bad deeds, he is often portrayed as a villain due to his association with death and the underworld.

<i>Warriors Orochi 4</i> 2018 video game

Warriors Orochi 4, released as Musou Orochi 3 in Japan, is a 2018 hack and slash video game developed by Koei Tecmo and Omega Force for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. First announced in March 2018, it is the fifth installment of the crossover series Warriors Orochi, a combination of the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series. The game was released in Japan on September 27, 2018, in North America on October 16, 2018, and in Europe on October 19, 2018.

References

  1. Zach Smith (4 September 2013). "GOD IS DEAD… and Jonathan Hickman and Mike Costa Killed Him". Newsarama. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  2. Cheryl Cottrell-Smith (23 July 2014). "Costa adds depth to Hickman's vision in 'God is Dead' (Review)". The Pulp Press. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  3. Hannah Shannon (9 June 2014). "Mike Costa's Master Plan Detective Story For God Is Dead: Alpha With Alan Moore And Simon Spurrier". Bleeding Cool. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  4. Jennifer Cheng (6 September 2013). "God Is Dead #1 (Review)". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  5. Armitage, Hugh (July 15, 2014). "Jonathan Hickman's God Is Dead - review". Digital Spy.
  6. "Costa adds depth to Hickman's vision in 'God is Dead' (Review) [SPOILERS]". July 23, 2014.