This is one of those rare items that immediately captured my attention and I fell head over heels in love with it. Know that before continuing with this review. I am biased and I believe this book is fantastic. The series caught my eye at the comic book store we frequent. I am one of those sods who do in fact judge books by their cover. The covers for these have been beautiful. Each single issue’s cover is a portrait of one of the characters with the title in bold white letters from top to bottom. They are dramatic, colorful, and in my opinion, can tell their own story. Because of this, I ended up buying issues 1-3 immediately (issue one was a second printing, btw) and fell in love.

The story is interesting enough- 12 Ancient Gods come to life every 90 years as teenagers to inspire the world and then die two years later. A fan girl gets involved with their lives and drama. Hijinks ensue. I think what got me was the art as well as the use of gods that I have never heard of. I thought I fancied myself someone who enjoys ancient mythology, but I might have recognized maybe three of the gods. That gave it a sense of mystery and wonder. Even though I could look up these gods and find out their history, I chose not to. I let the pages determine if I should. So far, I haven’t felt the need to.

One thing that really stuck out for me was the sadness that the characters had. All of the gods know they only have two years. Imagine that- knowing what your shelf life would be. What would you do? How would you act? Would you be reckless? Would you be inspirational? How the characters deal with this knowledge and how it shapes them added depth to the story and got me hooked immediately.

The art is the real selling point of this book. When you’re dealing with gods who are supposed to inspire, the art should be inspirational. It should be emotionally evocative. Fortunately, they deliver. I couldn’t wait for the next issue. I wanted to see these characters again. I wanted to watch them interact. I wanted to see what new flair a god would bring when they were introduced. All of them had their own look and it was clearly defined. I was in heaven. When issue five came out, I waited until Saturday to get it. By the time I got to the comic book store, it was sold out. I was enraged because it had only been three days! I went to an online store and had to purchase it that way. It cost more in shipping than it did for the comic but it was worth it.

If you’re not into comics, but you’re thinking of trying out the medium, this would be a good starting point. I look forward to reading more from these two and am eagerly anticipating the next comic. I am also more and more impressed with what Image is doing as a company. I have read multiple graphic novels by them and I find them to be great. I highly recommend them.