Written by: Jim Zub
Art by: Steve Cummings
Publisher: Image
I think I compared Wayward to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods in almost every comic review I did. It is an apt comparison to be sure, though it also fits nicely into a Tweet, and that’s pretty much what the world has devolved into. Can it be said in a Tweet? Yes? Good. However, I don’t make the comparison lightly, even if it is an easy out; no, American Gods is one of my top-five favorite books. I have the big-production audiobook version of it and try to listen to it at least once a year.
It’s spectacular, and by the process known as the transitive property, that makes Wayward spectacular too!
Both stories revolve around the struggle between old and new gods, though each property takes a different side. American Gods focuses on Shadow and his awkward partnership with a rag-tag army of old deities whose names I can pronounce but not spell, while Wayward sees Rori and her gang of teenagers ascend to godhood as they fight the older deities of Japan.
Both properties revolve around the idea that humans create the mythologies in their lives, and the more we forget those myths, the more they deteriorate. Gods, regardless of location, aren’t as powerful as their stories make them out to be. They are also mortal. To forget is to kill.
The differences between the two stories are quite interesting. In American Gods, there’s a high level of pity for those Shadow finds himself accompanying. These old gods never wanted to come to America in the first place, but settlers dragged them along. They are poor and beaten, and all they can do is cling to their old stories and what little magic is left in the world. The new gods by comparison are all of our society’s negativities: our reliance on pop culture and technology, 24/7 news , and our love/obsession with conspiracy theories.
Wayward, obviously, plants the new gods as heroes. They’re all outcasts, headstrong, bold, and in way over their heads, and it’s impossible to not root for them. They represent breaking free of structure, and setting them in Japan only makes that all the more profound. It is the old gods who are greedy and hungry for power; it is the old gods who are doing their best to keep a status quo that hardly exists anymore, yet should it fail, they will die.
Yet the differences between the two narratives aren’t just those simple black-and-white details. No, what Wayward does better is bring up consequences. American Gods is about the battle between the old and new gods sure, yet that’s almost in the background. Shadow is our hero, and it is his story and his journey that we latch onto. He’s looking for redemption and answers…and to figure out why his wife has come back from the dead.
Yet what the gods are doing in the background is less important, and what the outcome of their actions will be is hardly talked about at all. What happens to society if Media kills off Easter? Nothing. Easter will be dead, and that’s sad, but the true concept of Easter died a long time ago as far as our culture is concerned. Media, on the other hand, gains nothing but a new notch in his metaphorical axe.
Wayward is giving us the opposite. What Rori and her gang do may have profound effects on the world itself. Rori is tied into the Weave, a snarl of fate, and when she makes changes to that, they hit the real world. Right now, the old gods are finding it harder to hide because Rori tampered with the Weave, and on a smaller scale, Ohara no longer has a family because Rori erased that history.
The new god of technology gains nothing but his own personal victory if he wins in American Gods, but that same new god in Wayward is now a social reject of a teenager who throws fits when you touch his stuff. The former wants to stay hidden for the good of himself; the latter is fine with blowing up ATM machines because he can.
Part of it comes back to what I’ve talked before: the ages of the characters make a difference. Giving teenagers untold power is a recipe for disaster. In American Gods, all of the deities are old, and most are even wise. They know what they’re doing. Here, no one knows what they’re doing. It’s chaos first and consequences second.
Which is cool because there are consequences, and not just character deaths either. Ohara, Nikado, and Ayane have already destroyed real-world structures in their effort to topple the old gods, and I’m pretty sure they’ve been labeled as terrorists if I’m reading issue 12 right. That’s big. I don’t actually remember any major structures being destroyed in American Gods at all. Everything the deities do to each other is kept in the background, is subtle. Even the police officers after Shadow are offshoots of the new gods and not real police officers. It’s a war, but it’s contained.
Wayward is the opposite of that, and with control of the Weave being a goal for both sides, well, who the hell knows what damage Rori or the old gods will do to Japan?
