Die #17 Review

Writer: Kieron Gillen / Artist: Stephanie Hans / Image Die is in its final arc, and that is such a weird sentence to be processing. Since the first issue way back in 2018, Die has been one of the best dark fantasy offerings on any shelf, comic or otherwise, and the TTRPG-inspired narrative has since revealed itself to be a much more sprawling story that delves into literary fiction and canon, the power of imagination, and the complicated relationships that can exist between people who have experienced shared trauma. Die has remained the top of my reading list whenever it releases, which is why I also feel weird when I say that the first half of Die #17 didn’t quite hit the same way for me. Although, there is a very satisfying catharsis that quickly course corrects. Die #17’s first half mostly deals with the party dealing with H.P. Lovecraft, which is a perfectly sensible addition to the story that has featured Charlotte Bronte and H.G. Wells, especially considering the iconic mythos of Lovecraft. And the proxy that exists within Die serves a very specific role as a harbinger for things to come, but I also am not entirely sure how well the text in the comic interrogates the totality of Lovecraft, particularly some of his more abhorrent viewpoints. In the pages of the comic, there is simply a passing comment on Lovecraft’s racist beliefs. In the back matter, Gillen makes a much more coherent examination of Lovecraft that I don’t think quite translated on the narrative page for …