Issue 34

Creative Team

Issue Information

Release Date

7 March 2018

Volume

Mothering Invention

Issue Order
Preceded by	Followed by
Issue 33	Issue 35

"Forever makes liars of us all"

—Ananke's sister

Issue 34 of The Wicked + The Divine was released on 7 March 2018. It is the first part of Mothering Invention.

Solicitation[]

It's around 6,000 years ago. It's never happened before. Let's talk about that.^[1]

Plot[]

The issue opens 6000 years ago during the original Recurrence. An old woman walks across the desert, helped along by her grandson. Despite his protests, she decides to stop, choosing this place as the site of her coming death. She encourages him to leave her before he is killed by her sister, who approaches in the distance. He flees, and her sister's identity is revealed as she draws nearer. It is Ananke, covered in blood.

Ananke reveals the load she is carrying: a sack full of the severed heads of various gods, their mouths sewn shut. Ananke and her sister have orchestrated the Recurrence together, but Ananke has warped her sister's plans. However, the sister claims she has "tattooed [her] work into reality", and therefore Ananke cannot fundamentally alter it. They agree to decide on further rules for the Recurrence "according to the dance of desire and necessity". The first rule, established by Ananke, lays out the roles of the two women: Ananke as maiden, the sister as mother, and Ananke as crone. The second rule, established by the sister, is that there must be twelve gods, and they all must be gone by the end of the Recurrence, including Ananke. The third rule, established by Ananke, is that she gets to choose which gods make an appearance. The sister agrees, but requires that her god is always among them. Ananke responds that this god will awaken last. With the terms seemingly established, Ananke kills her sister, but not before the sister croaks out "And...four...".

Back in the present, Skuld and Verdandi are debating which members of Destiny's Child they correspond to, when they find they are suddenly transformed back into their ordinary, pre-godhood selves.

I Missed You, 9 March 2015[]

Still stuck in Woden's lair, Laura has returned to the role of narrator and claims to have a secret. As she muses about what happened to Jon's body, she had a sudden realisation: Lucifer is still alive and has also become a talking head. Jon confirms her suspicions and reveals the same thing happened to Inanna and Tara. They speculate about why Ananke had a machine that did nothing, and why she tied Minerva to it, which leads Laura to suspect that they can't trust Minerva any more. Jon continues to drop truth bombs, explaining that Ananke killed the judge and Woden purposely misled Urdr so she would believe it was Lucifer. He also tells them that Ananke wanted four heads, though he doesn't know why. Skuld and Verdandi find them and attempt to let them out of the prison. Jon wonders why Woden hasn't seen them on his cameras.

Ten minutes earlier, Woden is in the camera room, examining footage from the gods' trinkets. Using video from Baal's necklace, he freeze frames the moment of Sakhmet's death at Minerva's hands, and notices something peculiar. He compares it to Lucifer's "death" and, seeing the effects are identical, is hit with a realisation. The issue ends on a title card that reads "The Grace of Loving Machines, 9 March 2015".