Baphomet Revisited

Alex: One of the very first things I wrote under the TWATD umbrella, back in August 2014, with only three issues of The Wicked + The Divine in existence, was a piece entitled ‘The Baphomet Problem’. It was essentially a diss track aimed straight at his None-More-Gothness, he of (p)unholy worship, the self-appointed King of the Underground.

Now, with both WicDiv and TWATD nearing their end, it seemed like a good time for… not quite an apology. Just… a letter, maybe. A letter that contains spoilers right up to the last page of issue #42.

Baphomet,
Nergal,
Cameron,

I had you all wrong. Did I?

You turned up in a bluster of flame and bad jokes, the sneer and the tacky jewellery and the leather jacket on bare abs reminding me of kids in bands I used to get drunk with but was never necessarily friends with. You seemed to represent all the worst excesses of music I’d turned my back on – al that rock’n’roll swagger and guitar-as-expensive-penis-substitute stuff. And then you tried to kill Urðr and Inanna.

What was it you said? “Some people deserve to be annoyed”? Well, then, I must have really deserved it.

But, look: it’s possible I mistook the mask for the man.

All of the Pantheon wear masks, in one way or another. But yours was especially ugly. Like one of those masks that look like someone melted Richard Nixon’s face, that people in movies wear to rob banks in. That ugly.

What else was it you said? “Being a man is lying. I’m lying about everything”.

Issue #16 started to show what was underneath the mask. The wounded kid, drawn so beautifully by Leila del Duca – but it was still hard to like someone who fucked around on Marian, and who again stole the stage that was supposed to be hers. (She might get the covers, but you’re always there, aren’t you, ready to step into her limelight?)

I started to understand that all the swagger wasn’t actually you – it was a defence mechanism.

(I’m not going to lie, it helped a lot finding out you didn’t actually kill Inanna. Although, again with the fucking around.)

And it turned out there was something else you were hiding, behind the mask of those mirrored shades. A relationship we’d always known was toxic, but… I’d kind of suspected you were the source of the poison. I’m sorry.

Looking back now, I realise you’ve probably had the closest thing to a traditional character arc in all of WicDiv. Slowly working through the flaws you were introduced with, as we increasingly understand where they come from. Making mistakes and learning from them, until you were capable of doing something truly selfless. That’s the journey of a hero.

The last few times we’ve seen you, there’s been no mask at all. You were presented in the nine-panel grid, close-up enough that we could see every thought and hesitation, rendered with career-best clarity by Jamie McKelvie.

There’s a real honesty to these final soliloquies (they’re monologues, really, even the one where Laura was present). Not just in the words – in the way McKelvie allows you to be ugly, capturing the moments between his usual perfect polaroid expressions. There’s no hiding behind shades – where the mirrors used to be, there’s direct eye contact – or empty one-liners.

And in the interests of honesty: your final sacrifice is something I might’ve expected to celebrate. One of my favourite characters, traded off for… well, for you. But, no, it felt so raw, so real – I mean, I’ve spent the last 500 words addressing you like someone I know – that it actually hurt.

What was it you said? You weren’t good company, but you were good bad company?

I’m sorry,
Thank you,
Alex

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