American G.O.D.S.

"Whom do you worship and to what lengths will you go to appease your god?"

These are the most significant questions asked in Jonathan Hickman's G.O.D.S., which is less a Marvel mini-series or event and more a collection of eight stories that are intricately linked.  Other reviews have lamented how the story is just a "sandbox playground" for Hickman's "vanity project" and I can see why: the multiple plots seeded throughout; self-referential world-building; worst of all, the inconclusive catastrophe-of-the-week that serves as the catalyst for the first issue, but is resolved off-screen somewhere between issues Seven and Eight.  Yet I think that this perceived narrative weakness is in spite of the story, not because of any lack of story.

What readers expect of limited series like G.O.D.S. is an event: the status-quo-upset seeded in the beginning, with the threat building up and escalating through the ensuing issues, and then fully realized and either averted or serving to springboard into another series.  G.O.D.S. delivers none of these, instead shoving that comfortable outline into the background and using it as a framing devise for the real story: the estranged romance of Reddwyn and Aiko (and to a lesser extent, the goals of their respective sidekicks Dimitri and Mia).  This romance in turn asks the questions "Whom/what do you worship" and "to what lengths will you go to either appease your god or to achieve your own ends?"

The source of Wyn and Aiko's estrangement is their allegiance to two different divinities of the Marvel pantheon.  But those loyalties are only surface level; Wyn's real allegiance is to Aiko, while her allegiance is to herself.  This plays out through the eight chapters as Wyn and Dimitri, Aiko and Mia each grapple with the overt stakes of various cosmic adventures, while indirectly dealing with the consequences of their own motivations.  On the surface, Aiko's machiavellian actions render great rewards: she is affluent and influential, always standing at the shoulder of the most important person in the room or else first through the breach to conquer some new frontier.  Wyn's actions, or inactions, seem to have the opposite result: he's a cosmic fixer in the tradition of Dr. Who, jovially relying on wits and intuition when resources are not readily available.  

But the facade is exposed in the details.  Aiko is a ranking member of an ancient and powerful illuminati and goes surrounded by people and resources, operating from a private cubicle in a glitzy and pristine workspace, but she is entirely friendless; in the only scene showing her interact with others of her organization, they curse her out for her laze-fair distain for the god that she really doesn't reverence.  As the story progresses, the only friendship she does develop ends in tragedy.  Wyn, meanwhile, blundering about like an eldritch hobo, knows everyone by name, easily befriends newcomers, and demonstrates genuine empathy.  Though sometimes expressing nihilistic anxieties, he places a premium on truthfulness and decency, virtues that Aiko flippantly regards as tools in her arsenal.  It's a shakespearean tragedy that leaves readers rooting for Wyn, admonishing and pitying Aiko, and shedding a tear for the ruination that comes of hubris.  Even the time skip in the eighth chapter, which suggests that some things have been set right, really only serves to show the brokenness of everything; that even with repentance, the consequences are lasting.

I suppose those are the final questions that Hickman broaches: what place has repentance in the Greek tragedy; what place has forgiveness?  And if you could go back and do it all again, would you?