Sons of Man

[arbre_rieur]

Unsurprisingly for a comic written by Ellis, SUPERGOD was plagued by extreme lateness. Surprisingly for a comic written by Ellis, he actually finished it. SUPERGOD #5 came out two weeks ago.



I was originally only going to post a few pages from that issue, but it occurred to me that the lengthy period in-between #4 and #5 might mean a refresher is in order. So, first, an (re)introduction to our cast of artifical deity-creatures.

The UK's:







India's:









Iran's:







China's:











America's Jerry Craven:

He was an Air Force pilot whose brain was placed in a robot body. Check out those initials.







America's other superhuman:









Russia's Perun:

He's actually a rebuilt version of the country's first such superhuman, who was a brain in a robot like Jerry Craven. J.C. destroyed the earlier guy in Grenada.







For anyone keeping track of page count for legality, the Krishna and Morrigan Lugus scenes are from #1, the Malak pages are a page each from #1-3, Maitreya and Jerry Craven are from #2, and Perun and Dajjal hail from issue #3, except for one page from #4.

And then we have three pages from #5:



America's sent Jerry Craven to kill Krishna.

Comments

[tsunamiwombat]

Ugh, this shit is hard for me to follow, sorry. I mean, i'm not a slave to the stereotypical superhero men in tights formula, but, geese.

[tsunamiwombat]

Also why is Shiva wearing cargopants?

[tsunamiwombat]

Also, so is like..Shiva the 'good guy' here because he's the only one not mindlessly destroying things/with any interest in leaving humanity alive?

[redkingcrab]

I love this, I do, but the thing that's always bothered me about Supergod is that it's never seemed to have anything to do with gods. Sure, the heroes are all patterned after myths, but they could be animals or monsters or giant robots and the story would unfold the same way. I thought this story was going to be about the parallels between the superhero-myth and the messiah-myth, but it's just another story of man being destroyed by his own creations. It's a very good example of its kind - Ellis technobabble is a thing of beauty, and here it's top-notch - but it don't find it nearly as interesting as I'd expected to, and that disappoints me.

[sherkahn]

We make god in our own image......

[glprime]

Really? 'Cuz my god is like the one of Futurama: distant, luminescent, without precise form, and with a great, sonorous voice to offer polite conversation and wisdom.

But you got to get to 'em first.

[misterbug]

'Own image' can have so many definitions. It doesn't necessarily mean 'Like You'; it could refer to your own personal image or idea of what goodness or God looks like.

(I used to envision God as a white-bearded, brown-skinned ascetic in the jewellery of Herge's Rascacapac.)

[leoboiko]

All my problems with this story (and there are many) were washed away by that one kiss <3

Seriously, I totally expected Christ guy to follow the usual “dark Superman” trope. The way it played out surprised me completely and in a good way.

[misterbug]

It's...it's like Watchmen if every character was Doctor Manhattan. On a side note, it's lovely to see Hindu mythology being properly referenced and adhered to - e.g., Krishna as avatar of Vishnu, the god who preserves life despite great destruction.

[karthzon.livejournal.com]

So... what happened in the end? I don't like Ellis enough to buy this online.

[strannik01]

Everybody dies.

More or less.

[karthzon.livejournal.com]

That was obvious, being Ellis and all. Which god won? I'd have wanted to see the blue Indian guy or the bugfuck crazy time-seeing guy win, but it's probably one of the uninspired disgusting ones in the end.

[thokstar]

Does winning even make sense for a group of not even remotely human ridiculously powerful sentient beings? A proper ending would involve the 10 or so Gods combining into a sexual orgy/quantum singularity/big bang/theoretical essence of the universe/thing beyond understanding.

(I've not read the issue, so I don't know what the ending actually is.)

[silicondream]

In a shocking and unexpected turn of events, the victor was the British one that liked to sit around and lecture people.

[sethgray]

So...Jesus Christ and Krishna are lovers? I can dig it.

[wyatt1048]

Ha, nice Quatermass reference in there! Even if it comes with a complementary Ellis-induced masturbation scene.

[eightleggedbeast]

...hot.

[big_daddy_d]

America's Jerry Craven:

He was an Air Force pilot whose brain was placed in a robot body. Check out those initials.

Jerry Craven... J.C.... are you saying that Jerry Craven is suppose to be a weaponized Jesus Christ?

[espanolbot]

Better than a weaponised John Carpenter, I guess. People can only take so much of the Halloween themetune before going nut.

I think that he's meant to be Jesus so much that he's not actively out to change/kill humans, as well as taking the peaceful option as opposed to the violent one when he has the option.

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

Better than a weaponised John Carpenter, I guess.

Or a weaponized Jerry Cornelius, for that matter.

[equinox216]

"John Connah! Come with me if you wahhnt to leev."

[lucky_gamble]

Hm I rather liked the ending. Oddly enough that kiss didn't seem erotic in anyway.

[joasakura]

I loved Supergod.

I'm hoping it comes out in trades so I can read it again in one go. >.>;

[pbalfredo]

Is there any main plot in Supergod? Or it is just a run down of how each nation categorically and systematically fell into every SciFi blunder with their artificial deities? I'm shaking my head at India especially. When you create a super cyborg with machine efficiency and no previous moral grounding, then task it to solve the problems of "we have too many damn humans" and "our country's been polluted by all the damn filthy human", what the hell did they think was going to happen?

Does JC have any specific powers aside from having a sweat robot body?

[jlroberson]

And are these gods, or just monsters?

I mean, they're super-powerful, yes. But why does that make them "gods?" Just because they look like them?

[silicondream]

Or it is just a run down of how each nation categorically and systematically fell into every SciFi blunder with their artificial deities?

Yep, it's pretty much just that.

I'm shaking my head at India especially.

India came off pretty well, actually. It and Russia were the only countries who managed to create gods with priorities other than "Kill all humans," "Kill all other gods," and "Kill myself."

[karthzon.livejournal.com]

Although who the hell knows what Morrigan Lugus' motivation was.

And JC had other motivations too, but then again, he was the least "godlike" of them.

[misterbug]

I thought ML was there to lecture everyone about how terrible they were for being alive and worshipping it. Sort of like Richard Dawkins as a deity.

[nezchan]

"Look, you fools. I don't exist. I don't know how to put it more plainly."

[silicondream]

ML still wanted all humans dead, so he could use them for fertilizer or something. It just took him a while to do it because he's lazy and his primary powers are mild weather control and sexiness.

And yeah, JC was only trying to tear his own face off some of the time.