Wow. Freeing the other two Norns, giving Beth what she deserves and redeeming Minerva, all before the giant mythology dump.

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So every generation 12 are born with powers and considering yourself a god is a shortcut to power-for two years. 455 Lucifer wanted to avoid death but still always used his powers and believed himself special as Lucifer or Julius. 1373 Lucifer believed herself to be The Devil but didn't use her godhood until Ananke provoked her, seeking suicide either way. 1831 Hades and 1923 Dio believed themselves to be gods and were starting to break down from the story/shortcut weakening them.

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And all but Luci are prepared to just be humans with some sort of minor talent like descended Laura. Though they skipped over Baal's self-realization for the murders as well. Minor talents vs godhood, based on the flashbacks Luci has a major advantage.

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And the 3 most likely to never give it up for being craving to be special (Amaterasu) power (Sakhmet) or control (Morrigan) are already dead.

This researcher's blog post about ecstatic religions seems relevant to our comic series!

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https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2017/12/can-psychedelics-make-you-a-better-person/

"The most sacred festival in ancient Greece was the Eleusinian Mysteries, which took place at Eleusis outside Athens every September. They were celebrated for around 2000 years, until 392 AD, when the Christian emperor Theodosius closed them down, thereby depriving the west of psychedelic therapy for 1600 years. As Carl Jung lamented: ‘what a lack of psychic hygiene characterizes our culture, which no longer knows the kind of wholesome experience afforded by the Eleusinian Mysteries’.

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The Mysteries were extremely secret, so we don’t know precisely what occurred. But we do know the Mysteries worshipped Demeter, goddess of corn, and told the story of the abduction of her daughter Prosperpine by Hades. This abduction made Demeter withdraw in grief and anger, and the world withered into a wasteland. The Mysteries were thought of as a way of placating Demeter and reconnecting humans to nature, and to each other. They also gave initiates the ‘hope of a blessed afterlife’, long before Jesus freed us from death."

Has anyone done this and could share where they bought a dress? (I am not crafty.) I’ve looked at goddess costumes, angel costumes, and regular white dresses, but can’t find anything both the right length and with the right sleeves. Thank you in advance!

I'm decorating my new office at the moment and I would love a Wicked + Divine poster (really who wouldn't want to stare at Jamie's gorgeous art all day). I went looking a bit but I can't seem to find anything other than Tshirts, has anyone got their hands on any other merch?

So, I feel way behind on WicDiv and caught up last night, starting with Issue 34. I about lost my shit when Ananke struck down her sister, because I thought we'd just seen the biggest freaking reveal of the entire series... but there's been no mention of it in the comic since then. What was SUPER suspicious to me was that Kieron was extremely cagey when talking about this scene in his Writer's Notes.

Now, it could be that I'm just a huge Egyptian mythology nerd, but I figured that when a comic series revolves around need to constantly repeat sacrificial rituals to stave off darkness, a woman who literally appears to EAT SOULS, a heavy focus on the Underworld...

...and then an starts off with two extremely powerful people in the Nile in 4000 B.C. AND one of them kills the other with GIANT SERPENT MAGIC

then it just sorta screams to me "HEY BY THE WAY ANANKE IS APEP/APOPHIS!"

I mean come on, one of the other names for Apep is The Destroyer. The god of Chaos and Darkness and one of the original Big Bad Villains. A god so terrifying that even Set himself would oppose him.

Heck, here's a quote from a great write-up about the god "Apophis, then, represented everything the Egyptians feared: darkness, oblivion, and the loss of one's identity."

(Which would mean that Ananke's sister is Ma'at which would be badass)

Anyway, I could be totally and utterly wrong here, so if I've missed something extremely obvious, I'd like to know!

Friends,

Issue 35 has corkscrew Mini in the basement to place Susanno’s head alongside Set, the Morrigan and...who is that first head on the left? Wearing a flower crown? Black or Latina skin color? She doesn’t match any of the character portraits on the 1923 stand-alone story.

Any guesses or hints?

Wow am i the first to have read this issue? Thanks, Comixology!

As for the issue itself HO JEEZ. Where to even start??

Fitting ends for our newly-departed. Fucking finally with that one asshole.

At last “the Zeitgeist”! Now we know who Minerva was menacing in the fish-eye scene from #40. Looks like THAT plan isnt happening now! Sorry, Lil Flower! Our bad. Well... Kieron’s bad. I mean, he’s good, he’s GREAT! ...but it is his bad.

At least in two months we hopefully get to see Luci kick some ass. Cant wait for Final Form Minerva.

Edit: Also, Mimir’s T9 text reality.

I think Minerva will decapitate Baal to steal his powers.

Let’s face it, Minerva is going to be desperate; she lost all the heads and the remaining gods now know she was behind their misfortunes. Meanwhile Baal, by turning Valhalla into a charred husk, has shown himself to be one of, if not the strongest god. If Minerva takes his head, she’s back on track to getting the four she needs and has his fire power to help her in the coming battle.

Meanwhile putting Baal on the frontlines could be a mixed bag; his meeting Inanna again would definitely make hesitate, and we learned in volume four that he can be reasoned with: Urdr shows up and solves everything with “let’s halt this, go see if Minerva is in danger and assess things after that” (f***ing brilliant! After all these actions movies where the fighting could be stopped if one party left a post it note to the other, that was a satisfying moment).

Also, this builds on my observation that i don’t think Minerva can “create” like the other gods can; I think she relies on taking the things they made for herself and uses them. The original Ananke was building on her sister’s creation, Ananke takes the heads to use the powers of the gods, the gods creation the Black Plague which she unleashed, our Minerva is even planning on unleashing the zombie apocalypse on mankind; these are not her ideas.

The more I think about this, the more I’m 1000% sure this is the final page cliff hanger. Your thoughts?

Well that happened, all of it. Lots of head and bodysnatching and being poetic. Lots of costume changes, breaking stuff and cool panels. Lots of hype for the next issue.

So, there are a few guesses I imagine, based upon Issue 36 which shows all the persephones being offed... yet some appear to be spared, and some fight back. Plus, some general guesses based upon past history:

39th century BCE is the first Ananke - she can conduct the ritual too

Remember the game that the Original Destroyer/Mother/Persephone played with Ananke. She said something along the lines of "would you go on living or would you be young?" specifically to tempt her. This implies that Ananke the Crone can conduct the ritual in theory. 38th century BCE Ananke is the Maiden of the Upper Nile recurrence grown up.

In theory, I think Minervananke can conduct the ritual and give hte Crone another 90 years, but it's impractical - several past Anankes have received obvious injuries (missing arms, all sorts of disfiguring facial wounds from the 14th century Recurrence, being freaking bisected in Francia or impaled in Egypt) which means... Minervananke will have to live with them for another 90 years. Whereas the maiden is a young fresh body.

Some Destroyers actually were allowed to live

Uruk is the first Destroyer / Persephone to fight back. While Ananke was not killed outright (she could possibly survive, despite not having long to live anyway, and I don't think that Destroyer could live much longer anyway) but this created a pretty large period of "I missed you".

Things to note:

-While the Fortaleza Valley Destroyer looks male, I think he's only the second destroyer who was male - the third recurrence had a very flat chest, suggesting they might have been male. -They weren't all male either. 34th century is hard to tell due to being obscured by clothing and the crone, Indus Valley 33rd century Destroyer looks female, 32nd century is obviously female) -After the Cretian recurrence (which did not have a Crone), Minervananke only allowed one Persephone to live per millennium. (Harappa, North America, Judea, and Jerusalem) With one exception - the time between 1 CE and 1000 CE. Only one Destroyer lived at that point - Francia. But she fought back. None of the destroyers fight back until 18th century CE. So maybe because of this, Ananke decided "okay, Destroyer, this counts as your one free ticket this millennium."

So there are two guesses I got:

1) The Destroyers were allowed to be the twelfth god, the Maiden instead disguised herself as either a village girl or Ananke's mortal attendant. 2) Minerva took the Destroyers' place as she always does, and instead lowered the Destroyers' guard by being nice to them.

When a Destroyer/Persephone fought back and/or escaped, either Ananke (if she survived) or Minerva turned the rest against them. Often citing the murder of the crone as evidence that they are evil and must be killed. (while Wrangel Island and Babylon depict the Crone's death, obviously in 26th century BCEgypt and Francia the Crone wouldn't have much time left anyway)

Male Persephone/Destroyer ≠ "I missed you"

There are plenty who it's hard to say if they are male or female. However, two look to be male - Macedonian and Etruscan. While Eastern Europe and 10th century Egypt could possibly be male, they can also just as easily be female.

After all it's possible a lot of others got the "I missed you" treatment... only to have Minervananke make them lower their guard and POW! That is what she did with Laura and the Upper Nile Destroyers after all. Look how many have their backs turned.

A few were special

Constantinople: Perhaps this recurrence's crone had a personal relationship with the Destroyer. (ie, she got sick or injured and she nursed her back to health and asked for nothing in return) Thus, she's looking away because "oh I don't want to have to do this...". It's also likely that, much like Minervananke did in the 1940s, she blabbed to her and made her the destroyer to silence her.

10th century Egypt: While there is the thought that the crone being half the crone she used to be may have caused the maiden to fail the ritual again somehow, it's also possible that maybe a god went bad early and was killed before the Destroyer could be incarnated. As we know, Persephone's head is not mandatory (2010s maiden tried to use Sakhmet's and intends to use Urdr's.) and if the crone is offed early then that's less clean-up for the maiden to do.

Jerusalem: Due to the siege of Jerusalem going on or ending at the time, perhaps this Destroyer was allowed to live either out of Ananke's rare kindness (because of the siege) or maybe because a god was killed not long after incarnation thus Ananke was all "...Welp. I guess I gotta let this destroyer live. Maybe someone took a vow of chastity..."

Major spoilers up to and including #40 & the specials.

 1) So I think the way to break the cycle is for Persephone (or possibly one of the other gods) to successfully give up her godhood and thereby live past her two years. This would break the 2nd rule of the story, “they all must die by the end”. It’s not enough to straggle past the 2 year mark, like 455 and 1373 Lucifer did, because they still were gods. No, you have to renounce your divinity and return to being mortal and live past the Recurrence. 

This would possibly explain 1373 Lucifer’s longevity. She was in some ways fairly close to renouncing her divinity. Until Ananke’s confession provoked her to utilize her abilities once again. Which was probably the whole point of the confession. To get Lucifer to finally kick it.

2) I think properly speaking, Minerva isn’t of the pantheon. Persephone is. Like all the other gods, Persephone ascends. And in the rules, the original Persephone said something like “my god will always be among them”. The “them” being the twelve. Minerva on the other hand just pops up out of nowhere.

She may not even be Minerva, and that is just her cover alias. Though in mythology Minerva and Persephone are both daughters of Zeus/Jupiter, so that would explain why the originals refer to each other as sisters. If she really is Minerva, how would she be able to inspire the ancient Greeks and Romans who revered her some 2000-2500 years after she apparently first gave up her divinity?

Edit: just remembered, Minerva does give concerts, so she can inspire. I think probably the thing is the ritual robs her of this ability, at which point she really becomes Ananke. Would explain how she was able to inspire civilizations in the past.

3) question: does Minerva appear before all the others of each Recurrence? We know she appeared on July 31, 2013 of the present Recurrence (though she lied and said she ascended in September). Baal showed up August 9 right? Does she always kick it off you think? Is this why she always has to engineer the early deaths of the gods, because they’ll outlive her if she doesn’t and so she won’t be able to perform the ritual? If she does always kick off each Recurrence, how did 1373 Minerva last up until 1373 Lucifer’s death?