G.O.D.S. Annotations: Issue 1
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G.O.D.S. #1
Written by Jonathan Hickman, art by Valerio Schiti,
inks by Marte Gracia, letters by Travis Lanham
Page 1: Let's talk about Doctor Strange
Stephen Strange first appeared in 1963 in Strange Tales #110, where he was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (although Strange is much more Ditko than Lee, as even Lee admitted). Strange is first called the "Master of Black Magic" before he graduates into becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, Earth's first mystical line of defense. Prior to this, he was an arrogant doctor who injured his hands in a car accident and learned magic in an attempt to heal himself.
And in this first page of this comic, he speaks to a brand new (to us, the reader) character called Wyn and says, "I'm too old for this." Like Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon, Strange has been doing this for too long and is now too old for this shit.
But Wyn says "No. I'm old. You're just tired."
So already we know this: Wyn is older than Strange. Wyn and Strange have known each other for years -- and, if you've read the one page preview from Doctor Strange #6, you know that Wyn even knew Strange during the War of the Seven Spheres, where Strange lived for five thousand years -- so Wyn isn't just old, he's really old.
Page 2: Strange hands a book over to Wyn while lamenting the endless war between good and evil. And Wyn asks if Strange thinks he's good. And Strange answers: "I fight for the light. For causes better than I and for fate, based in forever, and her sisters, hope and life."
Hickman has a particularly fascination with Doctor Strange, especially his insistence on doing anything and everything to stave off extinction and keep the world spinning, up to and including selling his own soul for more power. In Secret Wars (2015), Strange even becomes a servant to a godlike Doctor Doom, since Doom was the sole hope to save even a small piece of the Multiverse. Of course, if there appeared to be a better way, Strange also would try that, too.
Wyn questions his fancy speech and says he didn't answer the question.
Page 3: Strange bluntly says that he is good and turns the question around to Wyn: is he good or evil?
"Stephen, my boy...who can tell the difference anymore?"
One of the big themes of Hickman's work is the fight between idealism and cynicism. In New Avengers, Reed Richards starts off believing that "everything dies," but by the end of Secret Wars, he's changed his mind. "Everything lives." In House of X and Powers of X, the cynical Moira X says that she has to break Professor X of his idealism.
Page 6: The bar is named Brevoort's after Tom Brevoort, Marvel's longest serving editor and the executive editor of this book.
The woman dressed in white at the bar is Aiko Maki, Wyn's wife.
Page 8: Wyn and his companion, Dimitri the Science Boy, are on an assignment. We see Dimitri place a small blinking device on a staircase of a brownstone. We've seen one of these before in the preview page in Moon Knight #26, where it was placed in the room of a comatose man.
Page 9: This is a masquerade, but in addition to the usual commedia del'arte masks, there is a Spider-Man mask, too.
Page 10: Dimitri introduces himself as "a Proxy in service to The-Natural-Order-of-Things and the chained apprentice of the one and only Avatar of the Powers-That-Be."
So immediately we know that while Dimitri works for The-Natural-Order-of-Things, he is the "chained apprentice" of the Avatar of The-Powers-That-Be, of whom there is only one.
Page 11: It is revealed that these two beings are the "Baron and Baroness of Wolverhampton. Lord of the Land and Lady of the Lake." Dimitri calls them "Nimue du Lac" and "the Lion of Wolves." We first saw then in the preview page in Venom #24.
"Nimue du Lac" is a combination of two different names of the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian mythology: Dame du Lac and the name "Nimue." So, really, "Nimue du Lac" just means "Nimue of the Lake" (similar to Lancelot du Lac).
"The Lion of Wolves" is a reference to the Beast of Gévaudan, the historical name for a man-eating animal often thought to be a wolf and used as the basis for many werewolf stories. In the 2001 French film The Brotherhood of the Wolf, the Beast is thought to be a wolf, but it turns out to be a lion in armor.
Page 12: And under their masks, the Lion of Wolves appears to have a wolf head and Nimue du Lac has a fish head. Wyn mentions their M.O. is throwing lavish parties for magical pretenders and then eating one of them while the rest are distracted.
Unfortunately, it appears that today they have accidentally summoned a "planar daemon." "Planar" just means "of or pertaining to a plane," like a planar graph, so a "planar daemon" just means "a daemon that's from a plane."
Page 17: So the daemon is actually a "Chaos Daemon. Planar escapee. Subclass: Decadaemon." "Deca" just means means "ten," like decade or decahedron (a ten-sided die). It being a "Chaos Demon" might indicate that it was created or is in some way associated with Lord Chaos.
Page 21: Aiko says that Wyn's full name is actually "Ser Reddwyn. Lord of the Highlands. Root of the World Tree. Salt of the Earth." The World Tree is a motif that comes up in a lot of mythologies, the most apparent one in Marvel being Yggdrasil that holds up the Ten Realms. The roots are what hold up the World Tree, notably, and in Norse mythology the dragon Nidhogg continually gnaws at the root of the World Tree.
"Reddwyn" sounds like a Welsh name, although it apparently isn't a real name at all. "Lord of the Highlands" could indicate that he comes from the Scottish Highlands and, since he's immortal, that would make him, you know, a Highlander.
"Salt of the Earth" comes from the Bible, where Jesus uses the phrase in the Sermon on the Mount. Specifically Matthew 5:13: "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men."
Page 22: Wyn refers to the white outfit as something the "Centivars" where. "Centivar" isn't a real world, but it comes from the combination of "cent" (hundred) and "avatar" (a Sanskrit word referring to an incarnation or personification of a god). So if there is only one Avatar, then there are one hundred Centivar.
Aiko reveals that they offered her the position of "Ninetyseven" and Wyn says that "the last prime of the Centum. That's great." This indicates that, while there are a hundred Centivars, the prime numbers are more important. There are 25 prime numbers between 1 and 100 and, yes, 97 is the last one.
"Centum" is just Latin for "hundred."
Page 26: Dimitri is kindly snapping a pic of the new scar on Wyn's face.
Page 29: Dimitri says a long speech expositing where they have been:
"...gambling in the hidden city of K'un-L'un..." One of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, K'un-L'un is the place where the Iron Fist is chosen by Shou-Lao the Undying.
"...the dead city of Val Mortis..." Val Mortis doesn't appear to be a place previously seen in the Marvel Universe or in the real world mythology, but it's Latin for "Valley of the Dead."
"...some kinda hot springs for mystics in Jotunheim..." Jotunheim is the realm of the Frost Giants in Norse Mythology. It's not exactly a "hot spring," but Jotunheim does have Mímisbrunnr or Mimir's Well, a place where one of the roots of the World Tree crosses and it can give wisdom to those who sacrifice to it. Notably, Odin gave an eye at Mimir's Well for wisdom.
"While I blew off some steam in Sevalith..." Sevalith is one of the Fair Courts in Otherworld, introduced by Hickman and Tini Howard in X of Swords: Creation. It's a kingdom of vampires and we saw Dimitri there in the preview page in Scarlet Witch #7. Wyn shows up to get Dimitri in the preview page in Amazing Spider-Man #32.
Page 30: The Library of Worlds is a massive library that exists outside of the Multiverse. It was originally built by the Beyonders before they abandoned it. It was introduced by Hickman in New Avengers #5.
Page 31: I'm not going to try and identify everyone on this page, but there are a lot of characters, both from the magic and science side of the Marvel Universe. Notably, both Reed Richards and Doctor Doom are there. (Doom, actually, used the Library Worlds before during the lead up to Secret Wars when he was going by the name Rabum Alal.)
"A Babylon Event has begun." Prior to the release of this issue, Marvel released an "encyclopedia" explaining several terms, including what a "Babylon event" was: "An apocalyptic event triggered by a disruption from one of the Marvel Universe's major Gods, which then leads to a dark period of upheavel, death, and loss of knowledge."
Page 32: "Last night, there was a bleed on the plains of Mercator..." Mercator is another one of the Fair Courts of Otherworld, this one ruled over by the Omega-level mutant Absalom Mercator, also known as Mister M. For a long time, nobody knew what was inside Mercator, as it was shrouded in darkness, but in Knights of X, it was eventually revealed that Mercator was a giant version of the Siege Perilous.
"He now has the Staff of the Living Tribunal." The Living Tribunal is a cosmic entity representing universal balance. The Staff of the Living Tribunal was originally an item that Mordo wielded in the 2016 film Doctor Strange.
Page 34: "It was a containment facility for long-dormant former H.E.L.L. technology." H.E.L.L. stands for Human Engineering Life Laboratories, which was founded by Professor Phillip Prometheus, who built the Prometheus Pit, a gateway to the Microverse. He first shows up in Micronauts #4 by Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden.
Presumably, since the original Prometheus Pit acted as a gateway from Earth to the Microverse, it could also be used as a gateway to other dimensions.
Page 36: Apparently, the Pit was used to access a "dying universe," which is what fed Cubisk Core's spell.
Page 37: "A John Wilkes Booth penny." John Wilkes Booth is the assassin who killed Abraham Lincoln, the President who is usually on the penny.
Page 39: The man to the right of Reed Richards is the Night Machine, a.k.a. Nikola Tesla, from Hickman's S.H.I.E.L.D. series.
Page 40: The Collector is Tanaleer Tivan, one of the Elders of the Universe. The Elders of the Universe are some of the oldest living beings in the universe, each one the last of their species, each one having attained cosmic power by specializing in something specific. In the Collector's case, it's, well, collecting stuff.
Page 41: "Lost in the great collapse--" A rather oblique reference to the events of Secret Wars (2015).
"This clock has six hands." The Collector originally gained this six-handed clock in the preview page in Guardians of the Galaxy #5.
If you notice, the book Wyn is now holding is the same book that Strange hands to him in the second page.
PAge 43: "The Contemplator's Garden." The Contemplator, or Tath Ki, is another one of the Elders of the Universe. He has dedicated himself to be in complete harmony with the universe.
Page 45: "The Possessor's Vault." The Possessor, or Kamo Tharnn, is another of the Elders of the Universe. He has dedicated himself to intense study and research into all things. So intense, in fact, that he went insane.
"The Buchcub was written one word at a time over a hundred years by the Grigori." The Grigori are a sect of watcher angels mentioned in the Second Book of Enoch and have appeared in the Marvel Universe as part of Christopher Golden's Punisher run, where the Punisher died and was resurrected with demon-killing guns.
Yes, really.
"Don't worry about it." Okay.
Page 49: "The Grand Bizarre of the Trader." The Trader, or Cort Zo Tinnus, is another of the Elders of the Universe. His specialty, apparently, is being the master of "the art of the deal."
Eldrac the Door is an Inhuman first introduced by Hickman in Fantastic Four #577. When he went through Terrigenisis, he was transformed into an enormous door that could transport people anywhere they wanted. For a long time, he was installed as the heart of Attilan, but teleported away when Attilan fell.
Page 53: The thing that has trapped Dimitri is apparently a "chaoslopods," which is like a cephalopid, but with chaos, I guess.
Page 56: And we're back to the beginning.
Page 60: "And if it costs their soul, then so be it." Strange knows somethig about what Wyn is saying, as he tried to sell his soul for the power to stop the Incursions during Hickman's New Avengers. However, there wasn't enough of his soul that he still owned left, so it didn't help.
Page 63: The cover for the next issue features Mia the Magic Girl who, like Dimitri, will be the chained apprentice to Aiko Maki.
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