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A review by adamisrael
God Is Dead #1 by Jonathan Hickman
2.0
This could have been one of my favorite graphic novels. It had all the things I love; old gods risen from obscurity, questions of faith and belief, and science scrambling to make sense of it all. And it burned itself down harder than a ranch in Waco, Tx.
The premise is great. Whether you believe or not, it's impossible not to accept the fact that the gods of old have reappeared on earth, and they're not happy with what we've done with the joint.
Queue worldwide panic and a few loosed nukes. Amidst the chaos, a group of scientists and their "security for hire" guardians launch a plan to birth a god of their own, to try to balance the tide.
If the scientists weren't meant to be caricatures of famous real scientists, well, oops. Thomas Mims, aka Albert Einstein. Henry Rhodes, aka Stephen Hawking, with similar maladies that keep in in a wheelchair, using a computer-generated voice to communicate.
I couldn't pinpoint the other scientists, but given the above I'm inclined to think they were based on similar historical figures as well.
Add to the mix the their protectors, the half-dressed ginger Winona Ryder, along with her dad (which makes for a few uncomfortable moments).
There's a lot going on in these first six issues. Too much. It jumps around wildly, slaughters a lot of humans and gods alike, but none of the scientists act with any real agency.
In the end, the scientists attempt to grow a new god, using blood and tissue harvested from a dead god, doing the kind of science barely possible even in the most advanced of labs, and grow a giant babified...Mammon. Other than a brief mention of Jesus rising once, so maybe he'll show up again, there's very little in the way of Christian mythos so this is way out of left field.
Their god-growing experiment fell with a rifle shot to the head, they go with the next logical step: human trials, on themselves. And where you'd think, cool, now we're going to see some sciency explanation of godhood, once our characters have transformed, they go full out worship-us-or-die-worm. So much for the Gods of Science.
I'm left highly disappointed. I wanted to love this, but it missed the mark by a mile.
The premise is great. Whether you believe or not, it's impossible not to accept the fact that the gods of old have reappeared on earth, and they're not happy with what we've done with the joint.
Queue worldwide panic and a few loosed nukes. Amidst the chaos, a group of scientists and their "security for hire" guardians launch a plan to birth a god of their own, to try to balance the tide.
If the scientists weren't meant to be caricatures of famous real scientists, well, oops. Thomas Mims, aka Albert Einstein. Henry Rhodes, aka Stephen Hawking, with similar maladies that keep in in a wheelchair, using a computer-generated voice to communicate.
I couldn't pinpoint the other scientists, but given the above I'm inclined to think they were based on similar historical figures as well.
Add to the mix the their protectors, the half-dressed ginger Winona Ryder, along with her dad (which makes for a few uncomfortable moments).
There's a lot going on in these first six issues. Too much. It jumps around wildly, slaughters a lot of humans and gods alike, but none of the scientists act with any real agency.
In the end, the scientists attempt to grow a new god, using blood and tissue harvested from a dead god, doing the kind of science barely possible even in the most advanced of labs, and grow a giant babified...Mammon. Other than a brief mention of Jesus rising once, so maybe he'll show up again, there's very little in the way of Christian mythos so this is way out of left field.
Their god-growing experiment fell with a rifle shot to the head, they go with the next logical step: human trials, on themselves. And where you'd think, cool, now we're going to see some sciency explanation of godhood, once our characters have transformed, they go full out worship-us-or-die-worm. So much for the Gods of Science.
I'm left highly disappointed. I wanted to love this, but it missed the mark by a mile.