I Never Can Say Goodbye

SPOILERS FOLLOW (AND ABOUND)

Tim: I’m aware there are all sorts of conspiracy theories pinballing around the blogosphere (boy, it’s been a while since anyone used that word, huh?) about Dionysus’ final fate, but assuming the icons in the title page are any kind of reliable narrator, it looks like we lost two members of the pantheon in issue #32. The storm that has been threatening to break throughout Imperial Phase has finally broken, and we’ve got the bodycount to prove it.

There’s an odd kind of symmetry to the departures in this issue, not least because they see my favourite and least favourite members of the Pantheon shuffled off this immortal coil.

Uncomplicated and kind-hearted jelly doughnut that I am, I was immediately drawn to Dio following his introduction; the nicest, most outwardly selfless member of the Pantheon with a profound connection to the dancefloor and a troubled relationship with sleep? How could I not love Dio?

As for Sakhmet, I’ve written before about how she’s a character I’ve really struggled to get on board with. I understand the reasons for her emotional distance, her apathy and her cold-heartedness, but that doesn’t stop me from instinctively bouncing off them when it comes to liking the character. Plus, even with the layers of trauma she’s living with, you can’t really say she’s not in control of her actions, which makes her a pretty unrepentant killer of many, many people, all the way up to her death.

Their opposing places in my heart and more-or-less simultaneous departures aren’t the only thing that connect their deaths. Up until the end of Rising Action, all of gods departed in the same way: a quick snap from Ananke and off comes their head in a ball of light, gory and somehow clean at the same time. If we discount Ananke, who stood apart from the Pantheon anyway, that was true all the way up to issue #31.

Now, with Sakhmet’s murder of Amaterasu and Woden’s ill-advised attempt at supervillainy, the gloves are off when it comes to god-on-god violence, and with the gods adopting “No quarter given, and none asked!” as their new motto, it’s given rise to some more varied and, in a way, poetic, deaths.

Dio, who never stopped moving, can’t quite close the distance he needs to. Dio, who lived for the crowd, is beaten and broken by a horde of strangers and a gang of heavies. Dio, who spread his essence out between anyone who asked, ends up trapped, braindead in his own body.

As for Sakhmet, after so long treating sex as a disposable pleasure, she is undone by the one relationship that actually seemed to matter to her. After so long as the ultimate threat among the Pantheon, she’s taken down by the member all the others have worked to protect. And after so long glorifying in her own capacity for flawless violence, she is killed in brutal, clumsy fashion.

In some ways, issue #32 serves as a little Greatest Hits package for both departing gods. Sakhmet once again reminds us of her ferocity and her agility, that while she doesn’t care about anything, we should be extremely wary of her. Meanwhile, Dio is there, dancing among the crowd, the 1-2-3-4 beat driving him, as he sacrifices everything so that normal people can be free.

Dionysus and Sakhmet, two very different characters, dying as they lived.