MarvelWhen we here at WhatCulture Towers (note: not an actual tower, before local planning permission people start getting their hackles up) compiled our lists of the most overpowered characters in both Marvel and DC Comics, we noticed that we were using phrases such as "god-like" a lot to describe the insane superhuman abilities some of these funnybook folk had at their disposal. We even came across a handful who were, technically, actual gods. Like, the sort that people go to worship at churches on a Sunday, eat the body and drink the blood of, all that fun stuff. Except they wore cool costumes and fought cosmic bad guys, which Jesus hasn't been doing much of lately. the Ten Commandments were pretty clear about not worshipping any other gods or making unto thee any graven images, which is something that comic book creators have just totally ignored for years in favour of spinning the classical pantheon into a comic book-stylee, or even coming up with their own new deities that happen to hang out with Spider-Man every once in a while. Again: we don't think Jesus has ever done that, at least not for a while. Here are just ten of the many, many times literal gods have cropped up in our comic books (for better or for worse).
10. The Cast Of The Wicked + The Divine
Image ComicsThe latest Gillen-McKelvie joint, his new Image series by the creative team behind music-as-magic indie Phonogram and last year's superior Young Avengers run casts divine beings from Shintoism, Ancient Egypt and your garden-variety Bible supporting cast into the sort of positions that people worship these days: specifically, pop stars. Who else do kids today look up to, obsess over, and model themselves on more than the manufactured stars of the Top 40 charts? It makes a crazy kind of sense, we think you'll agree. Or else you should maybe skip onto the next page. In this month's first issue we're introduced initially to the "immortals" of thirties New York, who took the form of Great Gatsby-esque flappers and intellectuals. We also get introduced to the deal of these reincarnated gods: they get two years of superstardom, and god-like powers, before they die. And in a pretty dramatic fashion, too. The story gets picked up in the modern day, where the Japanese goddess Amaterasu is recast as a sort of Florence + The Machine eccentric songstress, Egyptian deity Sakhmet looks a lot like Rihanna, and Luci - short for Lucifer - is a dead ringer for Thin White Duke era David Bowie. And as for the god-like powers, other than being able to sing to the point that people pass out from pure ecstasy, Luci is pretty deft at deflecting bullets which, along with the awesomely gory ability to make people's heads explode by clicking her fingers, makes us think things will just get more crazy as the series goes on...