With the characters, the art, fading panel edges, even the lack of traditional dialogue boxes, everything about this book continues to evoke a very distinctly otherworldly, surreal feeling. Whilst this can feel almost a little too alien at times, it's definitely a very intriguing setting, and the story seems to have decent momentum behind it. The narrative is simple and easy to follow which is certainly not a bad thing, and I'm very interested to see it build. While some aspects haven't quite proven themselves for me yet, it's still early, and this issue certainly sets up some interesting developments that should be exciting to watch advance in the future.

There are a hundred more questions now, and they don't appear to be getting answered soon, as McKelvie is taking a break for the next arc to draw the third volume of Phonogram, and a series of guest artists will be coming on to tackle what appear to be individual character-studies on various of the gods. What's going to happen next? How can this comic even go on without Laura? What the hell is Ananke's game? We might be waiting to find out, but in the meantime, The Wicked + The Divine have given us a truly brilliant issue that won't be forgotten any time soon.

I have to admit, the first time I read this issue I felt like I was lost at sea. I had to read it three times before I felt like I had a grasp on what was happening. If I were judging this book solely on ease of comprehension, I'd have to give it a poor score just by default – luckily, a soft easy read was hardly what Zero was aiming to achieve with this issue. What it was trying to achieve was delivering a complex, meaningful narrative, and boy did it succeed. I may have had to read the issue three times to understand it, but on each read I picked up on a different facet of what was being conveyed. I still have questions, andI expect I'll have to waituntil the last issue this July to have them all answered, but in the meantime it's left me with a lot to think about until then.

Overall, I like the strange, ethereal experience that Zero seems committed to telling now in its final arc, as everything is beginning to come together. I'm beginning to realize that every scene and beat of this story has been deliberate, and has meant something, and I'm expecting the re-read experience once it finishes with issue #18 to be very eye-opening. But I want to make it very clear: this comic is not for everyone. It's not trying to be. Luckily, I like it. But if existential weirdness and meta storytelling is not your thing " and hey, it really doesn't have to be " I'd give this one a miss.

All in all, I'm ready for the next issue to blow me away, because this one felt a little too much like more of the same. I'm still interested in the story and the themes being explored, and I still enjoy watching it all unfold and finally getting some answers to questions posed much earlier, but I'm ready for it to move on.