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American Gods (Dark Horse Comics)
American Gods, Vol. 3: The Moment of the Storm
The new and old gods agree to meet in the center of America to exchange the body of the old gods' fallen leader--heading towards to the inevitable god war in this final arc to the bestselling comic series!
The Hugo, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award-winning novel and hit Starz television series by NEIL GAIMAN is adapted as a graphic novel!
Collects American Gods Volume 3: The Moment of the Storm #1-#9.
The Hugo, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award-winning novel and hit Starz television series by NEIL GAIMAN is adapted as a graphic novel!
Collects American Gods Volume 3: The Moment of the Storm #1-#9.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published May 19, 2020
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632 people want to read
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August 21, 2022
This was the 3rd and final volume of the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
Thus, this volume was about what happens after Wednesday has been killed and Shadow is forced to leave Lakeside. I shall not give too much away about the story, just in case somebody here doesn't know it yet, but suffice it to say that the conflict finally erupts and the different factions are all converging for the final confrontation.
The art was everything from "normal" to utterly gorgeous with my two favourite pieces being one of the covers as well as the tree Shadow was hung from (not much of a spoiler):
GR is refusing to show the second one so here is the link to it, sorry: https://i.ibb.co/VwLgNrb/IMG-0501.png
As with the TV show, there were a few changes to the original story, but they were minor compared to the ones on the show. Otherwise, this is the story we know from the novel and no, I don't think that's bad.
It's an alternative delivery method for people not in the mood for the book and a very nice additional visual interpretation to give to fans.
I'm very glad I read this story in all its different formats as every one of them brings something different to the mix. It's one of the great feats of Gaiman's stories that they are so versatile, they can be translated into anything.
So this is the end, which is - as we all know - just another beginning.
Thus, this volume was about what happens after Wednesday has been killed and Shadow is forced to leave Lakeside. I shall not give too much away about the story, just in case somebody here doesn't know it yet, but suffice it to say that the conflict finally erupts and the different factions are all converging for the final confrontation.
The art was everything from "normal" to utterly gorgeous with my two favourite pieces being one of the covers as well as the tree Shadow was hung from (not much of a spoiler):
GR is refusing to show the second one so here is the link to it, sorry: https://i.ibb.co/VwLgNrb/IMG-0501.png
As with the TV show, there were a few changes to the original story, but they were minor compared to the ones on the show. Otherwise, this is the story we know from the novel and no, I don't think that's bad.
It's an alternative delivery method for people not in the mood for the book and a very nice additional visual interpretation to give to fans.
I'm very glad I read this story in all its different formats as every one of them brings something different to the mix. It's one of the great feats of Gaiman's stories that they are so versatile, they can be translated into anything.
So this is the end, which is - as we all know - just another beginning.
February 15, 2024
I never read the novel or watched the show so can't comment on how faithfully this was adapted, but I will say that I wish I'd had the chance to read it in a one-and-done Omnibus format since the divvying up of the story into three parts didn't really work for me.
Also, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't finish this on a Wednesday.
Also, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't finish this on a Wednesday.
August 6, 2023
The first time I read American Gods (the novel) I totally bought into Wednesday’s con. Even after it was revealed, during the climax that came too soon, it still clouded my perceptions. I still couldn’t look past the con Wednesday spun to see the story for what it actually was, and I kept wondering why the book kept on for so long. That’s why I was ambiguous about the book for years.
I eventually got it, saw past the con and understood. That was on my second read through with the outstanding audiobook. But you know what? I’m sure I would have got the point in one reading if my first exposure to the story had been through this graphic novel. Sometimes you just need someone to draw you a picture.
That’s to say, this three volume graphic adaptation of American Gods is good. Really good. The artwork isn’t flashy, but works well with the words. And the overall effect is that it tells the story so well that you could only read the story in this form and that’s all you’d need. It packs the same emotional impact as the book, just maybe a little bit clearer. That’s high praise, and I assure you, it’s deserved.
I eventually got it, saw past the con and understood. That was on my second read through with the outstanding audiobook. But you know what? I’m sure I would have got the point in one reading if my first exposure to the story had been through this graphic novel. Sometimes you just need someone to draw you a picture.
That’s to say, this three volume graphic adaptation of American Gods is good. Really good. The artwork isn’t flashy, but works well with the words. And the overall effect is that it tells the story so well that you could only read the story in this form and that’s all you’d need. It packs the same emotional impact as the book, just maybe a little bit clearer. That’s high praise, and I assure you, it’s deserved.
December 27, 2020
Circa 2003, I probably read the American Gods novel in a few days, at most a couple of weeks. This time, I've been waiting for months to be reminded of the same ending - since the summer, when I watched series 1-2 of the TV show (which is structured differently from the novel), and September, when I read volumes 1-2 of the comic (which follows the novel).
It turned out to be surprisingly exhilarating, and I can once again understand why I used to count the novel as one of my favourite books. I'd been expecting another dutiful read to finish the comics series, but I was engrossed, and it felt like it went by so fast.
Yet the scene which I love most is now - as a lot of nearly-twenty-year-old works were by the late 2010s - if not problematic, at least complicated representationally. Shadow's mystical journey on the tree whilst keeping vigil for Wednesday has its power because of Neil Gaiman's words; all the art had to do was not get in the way. (The Norns' hair was a bit odd, but that doesn't matter much.) It's the inner experience of it that's meaningful, how the length of time and gradations of pain and breakthrough are told.
Shadow was written as an everyman, not something a character can be in the same way now the readership is more switched on to racial justice. So, politically … on the one hand it's showing that a mixed-race American guy can be part of a pagan European religion (in direct contradiction of the white-nationalist strand of Norse paganism) … yet on the other hand it's a man who, especially because of the TV series, is read as black (in the novel he's more ambiguous and at various points, people ask him if he's Hispanic, Gypsy, Black or [Native] Indian). With the comic written and read after the TV show started, this is a scene where a black man decides to hang from a tree in a ritual connected to a European religion. The political significance of this scene seems to be in the eye of the beholder: some may find it tone-deaf because of lynching (though lynching was already addressed twice earlier in the story), yet it can also be seen as unconstrained by that particular evil of American history, as many traditional religions from all continents have ordeal rituals and shamanic-type journeys. I don't think an American writer could have written it; an American wouldn't have thought outside the symbolism of lynching.
The art by Scott Hampson, is, as ever throughout the series, inoffensive and serviceable. And considering what a lot of comics art I find ugly, that's perhaps more of a compliment than it sounds, or even than it feels like to give. It always stands in contrast to the fabulous covers by Glenn Fabry for the single issues. Goodness knows why some of them aren't used for the covers of the trades - but then as I'm finding with Hellblazer, often the images chosen for the covers of trades aren't my favourites, so maybe I just don't get the taste of those who choose them.
In the background material at the end of this volume, Hampson says that he started drawing the characters as he read the novel for the first time, without knowing the endings, and this affected the look of some characters, especially Hinzelmann. I thought his portrayal of Hinzelmann was particularly convincing of the character's place in the community, so I think this was a good strategy.
The art was occasionally hilarious in the second half of this volume. Two male characters spend a lot of time naked, and are drawn in some very silly and unlikely postures, to hide their dicks. There's an awful lot of turning to the side in conversation whilst mid-stride, walking and talking, although the conversation partner stands still.
In some details, it continues to be redolent of the late 90s to 2000, even if it occasionally surprised me by being ahead of its time - I had to look back at the novel to see if Sam Black Crow's sexuality and gender identification was any different (it wasn't). Sometimes these old features are interesting but essentially uncontroversial, such as the changing look of Technical Boy between the comic (an obsese, awkward, pasty youth in boring casual clothes) and the TV series (an aggressive, aggressively fashionable spoilt young man who seems to be a convergence of the arrogant tech bro and EDM-driven hipsters of the mid 2010s). But some points will be less popular with a vocal part of Gaiman's audience and I'm surprised that younger, more radical fans haven't criticised this decision not to modify some things for the comic. However, I gave up looking at Twitter months ago, so for all I know, they ranted about it on there. It's there in details that look a bit clumsy now like Baron Samedi being in the body of a (white) goth girl, and without commenting on it. Or an ostensibly 'wise' sentence that now instead seems redolent of the comfortable, complacent Blair-Clinton years, "This isn't about what it is. It's about what people think it is. That's why it's important. People can only fight over imaginary things." The wars that Britain and the US had been hearing most about in the preceding years were in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda: wars about ethnicity, a social construct. The sentence might also mean wars about ideologies, like in Vietnam. The next round of conflicts involving Western countries, after 9/11, would be related to religion, and whilst the New Atheists would have classified Islam of all stripes as 'imaginary things', there was a seriousness to the clashes that the phrase 'imaginary things' from Gaiman himself doesn't quite fit. Then, into the 2010s, there started to be more respect for religion as part of the social justice movement, and respect for people's self-definitions even if they were social constructs. Gaiman has always been a bit more respectful and ambiguous about people's beliefs than the New Atheists were anyway. The deities in American Gods describe themselves as " the dream humanity creates to make sense of shadows on the cave wall" but there is also a hammering home that, within the world of the story, they are real entities too.) Back in 2000, resource wars, wars which are about concrete things, and the prospect of more of them driven by climate change, no doubt seemed distant to the Anglo-American imagination. Now, they are here already; Syria seems to have been a water war disguised as a political war.
As I and others have mentioned before, Gaiman's idea of America as a bad place for gods doesn't pass muster these days with indigenous activists and their supporters. At one point in this volume (which takes its text from the novel) he was probably just meaning to have a dig at the Midwest as it is now (at least to bohemians, liberals and Americans who identify with the East & West Coast cultures) - making the very centre of the country into a neutral, depowering place, "A place of negative sacredness, where they can build no temples … All of America has it a little." But not only does that neglect Native religions and the cultural genocide that means more isn't known of them, as when he says in the novel that they only have culture heroes surviving, not gods (a shaky definition to say the least, in the novel: ""We do the same shit gods do, we just screw up more and nobody worships us. They tell stories about us, but they tell the ones that make us look bad along with the ones where we came out fairly okay.") This idea of the Midwest even ignores a major feature of the culture it is mocking for conservative blandness: the popularity of Evangelical and Protestant Christianity. (A rewrite would have been a good opportunity to show some of the Jesus variants beloved of Evangelicals.)
However, as regards indigenous religion, the eventual revelation of a spirit of the land isn't too bad, though the manifestation as a buffalo perhaps should be regional rather than implicitly national.
The inconsistency about 'coming to America' stories continues. Sometimes Gaiman adheres to widely-accepted history, as with the story of the people travelling over the land bridge 14 000 years ago, at others, as here, he goes with mythical and esoteric accounts, saying that the Welsh god/culture hero Gwydion arrived in the 7th century, or the Egyptians 3500 years ago.
One of the reasons for the enduring popularity of American Gods, aside from Gaiman's storytelling skill, a sort of magic in itself, is probably the artful ambiguity about the gods, in which they could be taken as products of the human imagination, as characters in a fantasy universe, or as real; it's framed in a way that could be enjoyed by readers of many belief systems: atheists and agnostics, liberal monotheists, and polytheists and pagans. The gods are sympathetic anti-heroes yet the story does not shy away from the brutality associated with some ancient cults. Most notably, in this volume, Czernobog stops at Cherryville, Kansas (Cherryvale in the novel and IRL, one of the fairly frequent misspellings in the comic), a site where, he says, a hundred years ago, people made blood sacrifices to him and raised great power. This was where a family of serial killers, the Benders (thought to have been German rather than Slavic) murdered about twenty people over two years, with their weapon of choice, and Czernobog's, hammers. i.e. some pre-Christian religions are equated with modern serial killers. (This kind of info wasn't even available online when I first read the novel, and you just had to let references like this go.)
As I've said previously, I prefer the bad-girl version of Laura in the TV series and think it's more consistent with the circumstances of her demise at the start. She's been quite bland through the comic, as she was in the novel, but in this volume her badass side at last manifests. Ian McShane makes Wednesday more magnetic than he was in this comic - that way a great actor adds a mysterious alchemy to a role. Here in the comic there was little sense that a person would hang out with him unless they had to, because, like Shadow they were broke with few job options. The tension in the series between Wednesday as a compelling presence that would suck a lot of people in (necessary for an effective movie conman) and the pissed off, sceptical Shadow, was more alive, I thought.
It's a curious story, because set out as a series of points it could feel like a miserable or flat ending, and the prospect of this whole volume absent a major character was unappealing - yet something about it, about Gaiman's storytelling probably (of which the comic is basically the skeleton plus images) made the reading of it more transcendent than the two earlier volumes, emblematised by Czernobog suspecting he is also Bielobog and by Shadow's shamanic-type experience on the tree pulling it together in a mystical synthesis. I hadn't been looking forward to reading it yet I found it the best of the lot.
All in all the comic was a good way to revisit the novel, and if not writing as much about each volume as I have, it's a very quick way to do so.
(December 2020)
It turned out to be surprisingly exhilarating, and I can once again understand why I used to count the novel as one of my favourite books. I'd been expecting another dutiful read to finish the comics series, but I was engrossed, and it felt like it went by so fast.
Yet the scene which I love most is now - as a lot of nearly-twenty-year-old works were by the late 2010s - if not problematic, at least complicated representationally. Shadow's mystical journey on the tree whilst keeping vigil for Wednesday has its power because of Neil Gaiman's words; all the art had to do was not get in the way. (The Norns' hair was a bit odd, but that doesn't matter much.) It's the inner experience of it that's meaningful, how the length of time and gradations of pain and breakthrough are told.
Shadow was written as an everyman, not something a character can be in the same way now the readership is more switched on to racial justice. So, politically … on the one hand it's showing that a mixed-race American guy can be part of a pagan European religion (in direct contradiction of the white-nationalist strand of Norse paganism) … yet on the other hand it's a man who, especially because of the TV series, is read as black (in the novel he's more ambiguous and at various points, people ask him if he's Hispanic, Gypsy, Black or [Native] Indian). With the comic written and read after the TV show started, this is a scene where a black man decides to hang from a tree in a ritual connected to a European religion. The political significance of this scene seems to be in the eye of the beholder: some may find it tone-deaf because of lynching (though lynching was already addressed twice earlier in the story), yet it can also be seen as unconstrained by that particular evil of American history, as many traditional religions from all continents have ordeal rituals and shamanic-type journeys. I don't think an American writer could have written it; an American wouldn't have thought outside the symbolism of lynching.
The art by Scott Hampson, is, as ever throughout the series, inoffensive and serviceable. And considering what a lot of comics art I find ugly, that's perhaps more of a compliment than it sounds, or even than it feels like to give. It always stands in contrast to the fabulous covers by Glenn Fabry for the single issues. Goodness knows why some of them aren't used for the covers of the trades - but then as I'm finding with Hellblazer, often the images chosen for the covers of trades aren't my favourites, so maybe I just don't get the taste of those who choose them.
In the background material at the end of this volume, Hampson says that he started drawing the characters as he read the novel for the first time, without knowing the endings, and this affected the look of some characters, especially Hinzelmann. I thought his portrayal of Hinzelmann was particularly convincing of the character's place in the community, so I think this was a good strategy.
The art was occasionally hilarious in the second half of this volume. Two male characters spend a lot of time naked, and are drawn in some very silly and unlikely postures, to hide their dicks. There's an awful lot of turning to the side in conversation whilst mid-stride, walking and talking, although the conversation partner stands still.
In some details, it continues to be redolent of the late 90s to 2000, even if it occasionally surprised me by being ahead of its time - I had to look back at the novel to see if Sam Black Crow's sexuality and gender identification was any different (it wasn't). Sometimes these old features are interesting but essentially uncontroversial, such as the changing look of Technical Boy between the comic (an obsese, awkward, pasty youth in boring casual clothes) and the TV series (an aggressive, aggressively fashionable spoilt young man who seems to be a convergence of the arrogant tech bro and EDM-driven hipsters of the mid 2010s). But some points will be less popular with a vocal part of Gaiman's audience and I'm surprised that younger, more radical fans haven't criticised this decision not to modify some things for the comic. However, I gave up looking at Twitter months ago, so for all I know, they ranted about it on there. It's there in details that look a bit clumsy now like Baron Samedi being in the body of a (white) goth girl, and without commenting on it. Or an ostensibly 'wise' sentence that now instead seems redolent of the comfortable, complacent Blair-Clinton years, "This isn't about what it is. It's about what people think it is. That's why it's important. People can only fight over imaginary things." The wars that Britain and the US had been hearing most about in the preceding years were in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda: wars about ethnicity, a social construct. The sentence might also mean wars about ideologies, like in Vietnam. The next round of conflicts involving Western countries, after 9/11, would be related to religion, and whilst the New Atheists would have classified Islam of all stripes as 'imaginary things', there was a seriousness to the clashes that the phrase 'imaginary things' from Gaiman himself doesn't quite fit. Then, into the 2010s, there started to be more respect for religion as part of the social justice movement, and respect for people's self-definitions even if they were social constructs. Gaiman has always been a bit more respectful and ambiguous about people's beliefs than the New Atheists were anyway. The deities in American Gods describe themselves as " the dream humanity creates to make sense of shadows on the cave wall" but there is also a hammering home that, within the world of the story, they are real entities too.) Back in 2000, resource wars, wars which are about concrete things, and the prospect of more of them driven by climate change, no doubt seemed distant to the Anglo-American imagination. Now, they are here already; Syria seems to have been a water war disguised as a political war.
As I and others have mentioned before, Gaiman's idea of America as a bad place for gods doesn't pass muster these days with indigenous activists and their supporters. At one point in this volume (which takes its text from the novel) he was probably just meaning to have a dig at the Midwest as it is now (at least to bohemians, liberals and Americans who identify with the East & West Coast cultures) - making the very centre of the country into a neutral, depowering place, "A place of negative sacredness, where they can build no temples … All of America has it a little." But not only does that neglect Native religions and the cultural genocide that means more isn't known of them, as when he says in the novel that they only have culture heroes surviving, not gods (a shaky definition to say the least, in the novel: ""We do the same shit gods do, we just screw up more and nobody worships us. They tell stories about us, but they tell the ones that make us look bad along with the ones where we came out fairly okay.") This idea of the Midwest even ignores a major feature of the culture it is mocking for conservative blandness: the popularity of Evangelical and Protestant Christianity. (A rewrite would have been a good opportunity to show some of the Jesus variants beloved of Evangelicals.)
However, as regards indigenous religion, the eventual revelation of a spirit of the land isn't too bad, though the manifestation as a buffalo perhaps should be regional rather than implicitly national.
The inconsistency about 'coming to America' stories continues. Sometimes Gaiman adheres to widely-accepted history, as with the story of the people travelling over the land bridge 14 000 years ago, at others, as here, he goes with mythical and esoteric accounts, saying that the Welsh god/culture hero Gwydion arrived in the 7th century, or the Egyptians 3500 years ago.
One of the reasons for the enduring popularity of American Gods, aside from Gaiman's storytelling skill, a sort of magic in itself, is probably the artful ambiguity about the gods, in which they could be taken as products of the human imagination, as characters in a fantasy universe, or as real; it's framed in a way that could be enjoyed by readers of many belief systems: atheists and agnostics, liberal monotheists, and polytheists and pagans. The gods are sympathetic anti-heroes yet the story does not shy away from the brutality associated with some ancient cults. Most notably, in this volume, Czernobog stops at Cherryville, Kansas (Cherryvale in the novel and IRL, one of the fairly frequent misspellings in the comic), a site where, he says, a hundred years ago, people made blood sacrifices to him and raised great power. This was where a family of serial killers, the Benders (thought to have been German rather than Slavic) murdered about twenty people over two years, with their weapon of choice, and Czernobog's, hammers. i.e. some pre-Christian religions are equated with modern serial killers. (This kind of info wasn't even available online when I first read the novel, and you just had to let references like this go.)
As I've said previously, I prefer the bad-girl version of Laura in the TV series and think it's more consistent with the circumstances of her demise at the start. She's been quite bland through the comic, as she was in the novel, but in this volume her badass side at last manifests. Ian McShane makes Wednesday more magnetic than he was in this comic - that way a great actor adds a mysterious alchemy to a role. Here in the comic there was little sense that a person would hang out with him unless they had to, because, like Shadow they were broke with few job options. The tension in the series between Wednesday as a compelling presence that would suck a lot of people in (necessary for an effective movie conman) and the pissed off, sceptical Shadow, was more alive, I thought.
It's a curious story, because set out as a series of points it could feel like a miserable or flat ending, and the prospect of this whole volume absent a major character was unappealing - yet something about it, about Gaiman's storytelling probably (of which the comic is basically the skeleton plus images) made the reading of it more transcendent than the two earlier volumes, emblematised by Czernobog suspecting he is also Bielobog and by Shadow's shamanic-type experience on the tree pulling it together in a mystical synthesis. I hadn't been looking forward to reading it yet I found it the best of the lot.
All in all the comic was a good way to revisit the novel, and if not writing as much about each volume as I have, it's a very quick way to do so.
(December 2020)
March 26, 2021
The third act of American Gods. Wednesday is dead, all the gods are gathering while Shadow holds vigil. I won't get into any more details than that in case you haven't read the novel in the past.
P. Craig Russell does a fantastic job of breaking this up into a comic, keeping Gaiman's prose while turning this into a true comic that flows from panel to panel. If you've read any other prose to graphic novel adaptations, that is not an easy thing to do. It's a shame Scott Hampton's art is so basic and pedestrian at times. It's frustrating to me because at times it looks great, while others it looks like an unfinished sketch.
P. Craig Russell does a fantastic job of breaking this up into a comic, keeping Gaiman's prose while turning this into a true comic that flows from panel to panel. If you've read any other prose to graphic novel adaptations, that is not an easy thing to do. It's a shame Scott Hampton's art is so basic and pedestrian at times. It's frustrating to me because at times it looks great, while others it looks like an unfinished sketch.
September 22, 2020
You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.
So often we find ourselves unable to understand the world around us. Fear of the unknown has led us to seek answers in supernatural forces and it is through a strong belief in their existence that we find some respite, enough to move forward with a newfound conviction, one envisioned as a safe haven where our lives might be in goods hands. Completing their comic book adaptation is the creative team of Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell, and Scott Hampton, who return for the final chapter where Shadow has to come to terms with what he has to do before the god war begins. While his investment in the cause was inexistent from the beginning, he has always been a pawn to a greater scheme. As he journeys through America and meets strange individuals who turned out to be forgotten gods, he quickly grasped his role in the upcoming war. But what could a mere mortal do in the middle of such powerful individuals? The answer lies in his trip to a land between life and death as he figures out what needs to be said and done for these deities to finally decide between peace and war.
What is American Gods: The Moment of the Storm about? Picking up where the story was left off in American Gods: My Ainsel, the war between the New and Old Gods is now knocking on everyone's door as the inevitable confrontation that will determine the faith of humanity becomes Shadow's reality. Mysteriously drawn into the intergenerational conflict of mythological ideals by Wednesday when Shadow had hit rock bottom in his life, the latter is now condemned to a destiny where his actions will set in motion the ultimate climax to this god war. In a trek to the center of America for a sacred exchange that will lead him to his life-changing spiritual journey, Shadow will discover the only resolution that was planned from the very beginning by known acquaintances. Although the faith of humanity lies in his hands, his final moments will also determine what he will become through a quest for identity and purpose.
This third and final volume adapting the critically-acclaimed and award-winning novel of the same name by writer Neil Gaiman brilliantly captures the final act of the novel as Shadow embarks on his spiritual journey towards uncovering his purpose in this war. While the previous volume deliberately and greatly slowed down the pace with little peripeteia to work with, this chapter looks to tie up loose ends and to properly explore the premise of the novel while also interlooping the protagonist's personal odyssey towards discovering his purpose in life. It is through the exploration of dreams, traditions, and mythologies, often jumbled together in erratically, that writer Neil Gaiman's ideas find their essence. His story finally exposes an idea infused with a reflection on society's wavering beliefs in divine entities while also relativizing their immortality. While the novel gave the reader the chance to draw parallels with immigration, this comic book adaptation seemed to focus much more on divinity in today's society.
The story loyally translates the novel and offers no additional twists to the original novel, but it is the artwork by Scott Hampton that remains the main attraction and serves as a fantastic visual treat, a unique style that you've likely never seen before. Ideally read back-to-back with the previous two volumes, after having consumed the novel as well, this comic book adaptation is a stellar and artistically-authentic companion to the novel that offers us an otherworldly experience where the artwork is nothing more than a gateway towards understanding theological concepts introduced in the novel. At first glance, there are many design flaws that deter from fully appreciating the style, from ugly facial designs to rough outlining with little details, but the artwork works in its depiction of a surreal world filled with cosmic deities and supernatural beings who interact on a plain field outside of their religious nature. In fact, more often than not, you will be invited to go a dreamlike escapade where nothing will feel real but the words exchanged between these characters. With brief pauses in-between chapters to appreciate stunning artwork by David Mack and Glenn Fabry, this series is a tale that looks to analyze and scrutinize their existence through the eyes of humans and their complex nature to question themselves and the world around them.
American Gods: The Moment of the Storm is an artistic spiritual journey presenting the final act where Old and New Gods march toward war.
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
March 14, 2021
One of my all-time favorite books. It'd been so long since I read it that I didn't quite remember how everything turned out. It's too bad the artwork by Scott Hampton is so pedestrian. A story like this should have something a bit more flashy. However, it's pretty much impossible to hurt Gaiman's story. Now, the TV series is another matter...(I'll be amazed if it ever reaches a conclusion with the glacial pace at which it's moving, not to mention numerous alterations to characters and story).
September 29, 2020
Not nearly as powerful as the novel, but this graphic novel is a much better way to revisit the book than that weird and annoying TV show. Sure, the script is a bit wooden, the pacing is slow, and the art is frequently lacking in detail, but Gaiman's story of old and new gods warring for the soul of America still shines through.
January 22, 2021
Well done...this three-part graphic novel adaptation of Gaiman’s novel is faithful to the text, and I’d give it five stars if the art weren’t so pedestrian. It’s not poorly drawn; it’s just pretty dull.
At least the understated approach here is better than what the television series does, which is fascinating at times but ultimately goes way over the top. Like Geico, it gives you more, too much, in fact.
At least the understated approach here is better than what the television series does, which is fascinating at times but ultimately goes way over the top. Like Geico, it gives you more, too much, in fact.
December 31, 2020
Percebi pouco mais que nada.
Era um nonsense porreiro, mas agora é só chato.
Vai-se safando a arte.
Era um nonsense porreiro, mas agora é só chato.
Vai-se safando a arte.
June 26, 2020
Everything comes to a close. I'm glad that I choose to follow this story on this media. I think I wouldn't have enjoyed the novel and the TV series is going somewhere far from this. This is just enough. Not a fan of the art but it works.
January 24, 2021
Call no man happy, said Shadow, until he is dead.
Read and finished the last book of the comic adaptation of American Gods. American Gods is one of my all time favorites, read the book twice, dig most parts of the tv show, and now the comic book version. Spoiler alert, its fucking great. You dont have to do alot of new things to make this great, Neil freaking Gaiman wrote it so you know the words are beautifull and everything you want in a book/comic. All you have to do is dont cut to much and have nice artwork, and that said artwork is really good, a photo realistic style painted over, giving this graphic novel a nice experience for the eyes. The tekst and story is just the same as the book, and thats just fine, its not like you gonna make the story better, its perfect as it is. And to have this great tale now visually is a absolute joy for me. And a perfect companion to the book. Highly recomended for God fans and for people who thought the book was a bit difficult aswell. 4.5 stars.
Read and finished the last book of the comic adaptation of American Gods. American Gods is one of my all time favorites, read the book twice, dig most parts of the tv show, and now the comic book version. Spoiler alert, its fucking great. You dont have to do alot of new things to make this great, Neil freaking Gaiman wrote it so you know the words are beautifull and everything you want in a book/comic. All you have to do is dont cut to much and have nice artwork, and that said artwork is really good, a photo realistic style painted over, giving this graphic novel a nice experience for the eyes. The tekst and story is just the same as the book, and thats just fine, its not like you gonna make the story better, its perfect as it is. And to have this great tale now visually is a absolute joy for me. And a perfect companion to the book. Highly recomended for God fans and for people who thought the book was a bit difficult aswell. 4.5 stars.
October 25, 2020
I really, really loved this adaptation of "American Gods". I'm really grateful that it was an accurate depiction of the events of the book and, above all, it was spiritually closer to its essence than its TV show adaptation.
There are no unnecessary frills, here, only the original story, only characters that are very human - even if they are gods - and are not depicted as impossibly gorgeous and cool supermodels. I loved the work of Hampton and Russel, the way they depicted the characters, the way they portrayed the void.
Overall it was a very emotional reading - it was easy to reach the end of the story and I honestly don't see the problem with it being "too literary". It's beautiful and do justice to Gaiman's beautiful writing style.
Recommended for everyone who loved the book and wanted to rediscover its beautiful atmosphere and meet again Shadow, to follow him in his "spiritual roadtrip" across the US.
There are no unnecessary frills, here, only the original story, only characters that are very human - even if they are gods - and are not depicted as impossibly gorgeous and cool supermodels. I loved the work of Hampton and Russel, the way they depicted the characters, the way they portrayed the void.
Overall it was a very emotional reading - it was easy to reach the end of the story and I honestly don't see the problem with it being "too literary". It's beautiful and do justice to Gaiman's beautiful writing style.
Recommended for everyone who loved the book and wanted to rediscover its beautiful atmosphere and meet again Shadow, to follow him in his "spiritual roadtrip" across the US.
July 25, 2020
What a great book. Amazing art on all 3 volumes. I think I may have enjoyed it more than the novel. Though I read the novel a few years ago so I'm not sure. I mean it's no sandman. It's too different though to be able to compare. Sandman was one of a kind. But I would call this his next best graphic novel. And I've read them all(some are crap). Nobody writes like gaiman. He's not my favorite writer. If I had to choose I think I would say Gerald brom writes my favorite books. But Neil is one a kind and fills the page with awe and wonder in a way that nobody else can match. 5 stars for book three. 5 stars overall.
September 18, 2020
Really good! I can’t give it five stars because that was all I could give the novel, and as good as this adaptation is it’s not as good as the original.
Hinzelmann the kobold, the lake, his clunker lottery, and the children has got to be one of the creepiest and most memorable a supporting characters ever. In a book full of amazing characters that story always stands out. He isn’t the most likable, but he is the most memorable.
Hinzelmann the kobold, the lake, his clunker lottery, and the children has got to be one of the creepiest and most memorable a supporting characters ever. In a book full of amazing characters that story always stands out. He isn’t the most likable, but he is the most memorable.
June 20, 2020
I never ever get tired of this story, whether it's reading the novel itself, watching the show, or this sublime graphic novel series. I'm just always sad it's over when I finish. The story is fantastic as always, but the artwork in this adds so much. It's incredible!
October 9, 2020
Com uma arte competente, O Momento da Tempestade é mais uma boa adaptação ao romance de Neil Gaiman. Se não gostei por aí além do original e os dois primeiros álbuns da adaptação se destacaram exatamente pela ilustração, devo dar também uma palavra de destaque para o argumento. Seguindo praticamente de forma fiel o romance original, acaba por oferecer as melhores falas e o tom ao mesmo tempo esperançoso e desapaixonado do livro publicado no ano de 2001.
Ainda assim, concluída a leitura da adaptação, posso dizer que é exatamente o tom e a mensagem que passa o que mais me atrái em Deuses Americanos. Se não me deslumbrei nem pela escrita nem pela proposta de Gaiman, não fiquei muito mais entusiasmado com a BD, ainda que deva sublinhar que retirou do livro o melhor que ele tinha para mostrar. Um confronto entre as mitologias de ontem e o que realmente importa às sociedades de hoje que não é mais que uma metáfora interessantíssima vestida de fantasia urbana.
Apesar da roupagem não me atrair, e mesmo o formato road trip não me cativar minimamente, entendo o porquê de o livro (e a série derivada) ser tão elogiada. A mensagem é realmente interessante e os fãs de fantasia urbana certamente encontram aqui uma boa oportunidade de desfrutar do seu género preferido repleto de um humor trágico e falsas frivolidades. Neil Gaiman é exímio exatamente a desenhar este género de tramas.
Neste último livro, novos e velhos deuses aceitam encontrar-se no centro da América para a entrega do corpo do líder caído dos velhos deuses, preparando a incontornável batalha entre deuses. Shadow vê-se mergulhado numa guerra sem paralelo que irá resultar, inevitavelmente, no final destroçado de uma das facções. A conclusão revela que a proposta do autor não foi despropositada, conferindo algum sentido às deambulações aparentemente vazias do protagonista.
Formado em pintura pela Universidade de Cincinnati, P. Craig Russell distinguiu-se ao serviço da Marvel por trabalhos como Killaraven ou Doutor Estranho, sendo um dos pioneiros ao adaptar para o universo dos comics óperas de Mozart (A Flauta Mágica), Strauss (Salomé) e Wagner (O Anel dos Nibelungos). O seu trabalho mais recente inclui adaptações em banda desenhada de Coraline e The Graveyard Book de Neil Gaiman.
Já o ilustrador Scott Hampton nasceu em 1959 em High Point, Carolina do Norte, e cresceu embrenhado em literatura clássica, romances de horror e banda desenhada. Com o seu irmão mais velho, Bo, enveredou pelo mundo dos comics e chegaram a estagiar com o icónico Will Eisner. Além de ilustrar as suas histórias, Scott ilustrou livros de alguns dos melhores autores de fantasia, incluindo Neil Gaiman (Books of Magic), Robert E. Howard (Pigeons from Hell), Clive Barker (Tapping the Vein), Archie Goodwin (Batman: Night Cries) e David Brin (The Life Eaters).
https://noticiasdezallar.wordpress.com
Ainda assim, concluída a leitura da adaptação, posso dizer que é exatamente o tom e a mensagem que passa o que mais me atrái em Deuses Americanos. Se não me deslumbrei nem pela escrita nem pela proposta de Gaiman, não fiquei muito mais entusiasmado com a BD, ainda que deva sublinhar que retirou do livro o melhor que ele tinha para mostrar. Um confronto entre as mitologias de ontem e o que realmente importa às sociedades de hoje que não é mais que uma metáfora interessantíssima vestida de fantasia urbana.
Apesar da roupagem não me atrair, e mesmo o formato road trip não me cativar minimamente, entendo o porquê de o livro (e a série derivada) ser tão elogiada. A mensagem é realmente interessante e os fãs de fantasia urbana certamente encontram aqui uma boa oportunidade de desfrutar do seu género preferido repleto de um humor trágico e falsas frivolidades. Neil Gaiman é exímio exatamente a desenhar este género de tramas.
Neste último livro, novos e velhos deuses aceitam encontrar-se no centro da América para a entrega do corpo do líder caído dos velhos deuses, preparando a incontornável batalha entre deuses. Shadow vê-se mergulhado numa guerra sem paralelo que irá resultar, inevitavelmente, no final destroçado de uma das facções. A conclusão revela que a proposta do autor não foi despropositada, conferindo algum sentido às deambulações aparentemente vazias do protagonista.
Formado em pintura pela Universidade de Cincinnati, P. Craig Russell distinguiu-se ao serviço da Marvel por trabalhos como Killaraven ou Doutor Estranho, sendo um dos pioneiros ao adaptar para o universo dos comics óperas de Mozart (A Flauta Mágica), Strauss (Salomé) e Wagner (O Anel dos Nibelungos). O seu trabalho mais recente inclui adaptações em banda desenhada de Coraline e The Graveyard Book de Neil Gaiman.
Já o ilustrador Scott Hampton nasceu em 1959 em High Point, Carolina do Norte, e cresceu embrenhado em literatura clássica, romances de horror e banda desenhada. Com o seu irmão mais velho, Bo, enveredou pelo mundo dos comics e chegaram a estagiar com o icónico Will Eisner. Além de ilustrar as suas histórias, Scott ilustrou livros de alguns dos melhores autores de fantasia, incluindo Neil Gaiman (Books of Magic), Robert E. Howard (Pigeons from Hell), Clive Barker (Tapping the Vein), Archie Goodwin (Batman: Night Cries) e David Brin (The Life Eaters).
https://noticiasdezallar.wordpress.com
July 16, 2024
This is how we reach the end of the story and I am happy to renew my touch with this wonderful story I am not sure how much time it will be before I start reading the novel again but my guess would be a little bit longer time but let's see. This one is vol. 3 of 3 in the series completes the story ties up the loose ends and answers some questions the art continued to be awesome covers continued to be superb and strange. I didn't remember a lot of details but they came together as I read through after this, I will try to watch the TV series and admittedly that strays away from the book so then would be interesting to read the book again to judge which adaptation stayed closer to the source material. I am happy to have read through these books in a double fast time but then also a little sad to say goodbye to the books because the next time for them would surely be not before a few years pass and then we would see. So till then, there are books to read, series to watch, finish more books, and all around just Keep on Reading.
I have always loved comics, and I have I can. I love comics to bits, may the comics never leave my side. I loved reading this and love reading more, you should also read what you love and hope always to love them. Even though I grew up reading local Indian comics like Raj Comics, Diamond Comics, or even Manoj Comics, now's the time to catch up on international and classic comics and Graphic novels. I am on my quest to read as many comics as I just want to Keep on Reading.
I have always loved comics, and I have I can. I love comics to bits, may the comics never leave my side. I loved reading this and love reading more, you should also read what you love and hope always to love them. Even though I grew up reading local Indian comics like Raj Comics, Diamond Comics, or even Manoj Comics, now's the time to catch up on international and classic comics and Graphic novels. I am on my quest to read as many comics as I just want to Keep on Reading.
November 30, 2022
This is the last volume, the whole retelling of American Gods. The completeness is nice. It also reminds me how fond Gaiman is of long goodbyes. There are 3-4 epilogues and minor tying of the threads. They can be viewed as heartwarming or dragging. Controversial, slightly not worth to my mind. Strong concrete ending should have been perfect. Why drag it out?
Not a fan of the art style, kinda dirty, hurried and overly watercolor like blending of bland tones, but it does it's job. It's also rather text-heavy, so I think that also hints at what the proper format for this excellent story should be.
Part of the still ongoing Neil Gaiman by Dark Horse HumbleBundle. Seems there are some pretty nice graphic novels there!
Not a fan of the art style, kinda dirty, hurried and overly watercolor like blending of bland tones, but it does it's job. It's also rather text-heavy, so I think that also hints at what the proper format for this excellent story should be.
Part of the still ongoing Neil Gaiman by Dark Horse HumbleBundle. Seems there are some pretty nice graphic novels there!
May 17, 2023
Was able to get through it a lot faster this time because A) already read the whole novel B) there was a lot less extraneous stuff in here than the other 2 parts.
The abstract and nigh-rotoscoped nature of the artstyle helps with the dreamlike nature of some of the trippier aspects of the story, but otherwise makes it seem like a more artsy adaptation of something that doesn't work so well as a visual medium.
If it weren't for the sweeping changes they made to the source, I would recommend the TV show, but I don't even know how it ends so I can't say if it's the superior adaptation.
The abstract and nigh-rotoscoped nature of the artstyle helps with the dreamlike nature of some of the trippier aspects of the story, but otherwise makes it seem like a more artsy adaptation of something that doesn't work so well as a visual medium.
If it weren't for the sweeping changes they made to the source, I would recommend the TV show, but I don't even know how it ends so I can't say if it's the superior adaptation.
March 29, 2025
I love that I ended up finishing this shortly after spring has arrived for myself, although Easter is still about a month away.
I appreciate the reminder for how this story ends, as I recently read Black Dog which takes place shortly after these events.
I had forgotten how Shadow had gifted Sam flowers at the end, and how he sees her being so happy. I love how she explains the ‘fuck off kiss’ even if she has to resort to ‘you had to be there’. I also love the closure to the missing teenage girl and Hinzelman.
I appreciate the reminder for how this story ends, as I recently read Black Dog which takes place shortly after these events.
I had forgotten how Shadow had gifted Sam flowers at the end, and how he sees her being so happy. I love how she explains the ‘fuck off kiss’ even if she has to resort to ‘you had to be there’. I also love the closure to the missing teenage girl and Hinzelman.
March 16, 2025
Sem dúvida o melhor dos três volumes. Estes últimos capítulos são muito ricos em acontecimentos, tornando a leitura muito viciante. Já tinha visto a série, mas não acho que tenha sido uma boa adaptação. Inventaram partes e ocultaram outras importantes.
O conceito é muito interessante. Fala do esquecimento dos deuses tradicionais sendo substituídos pelos deuses modernos: os media e a tecnologia. Um tema pertinente. Apesar de no início estar relutante em ler a história em BD, acabei por ficar feliz que assim tenha sido. As ilustrações estão muito bem conseguidas.
O único defeito é a tradução e revisão de texto. Encontrei muitos erros de tradução e até erros ortográficos.
O conceito é muito interessante. Fala do esquecimento dos deuses tradicionais sendo substituídos pelos deuses modernos: os media e a tecnologia. Um tema pertinente. Apesar de no início estar relutante em ler a história em BD, acabei por ficar feliz que assim tenha sido. As ilustrações estão muito bem conseguidas.
O único defeito é a tradução e revisão de texto. Encontrei muitos erros de tradução e até erros ortográficos.
January 22, 2021
This was absolutely riveting. The story reached its climax and it was no disappointment. I hope they do Anasi Boys next.
January 8, 2022
Som forventet, en smuk afslutning.
June 1, 2023
¿Me ha podido gustar más el final de la novela gráfica que el del libro original siendo éste uno de mis favoritos? Pues puede ser.
Gracias, tito Neil.
Gracias, tito Neil.
August 8, 2023
A great interpretation of Odin's travail on the World Tree. Some good insights into faith and gods.
February 7, 2024
It took me almost the length of my loan to get through this one, but in the end, I really liked it. The idea is, of course, great. The art has its moments, particularly the cover pages. From what I can remember of the original book, this is a pretty faithful adaptation.
October 21, 2022
Rating 5 out of 5 |Grade A+; Hypnotic, Liberating, Final
Last on American Gods, the spark for the battle between the Old Gods & New Gods was ignited, with the very public execution of Odin. A recently escaped Shadow, alongside Mr. Nancy & Chernobog must rally what remains of their forces for the inevitable confrontation. But what secrets & mysteries lie behind the veil; which tree was Shadow missing, hidden amongst the forest. That, and more on the concluding Volume of Gaiman’s American Gods.
It still amazes me, how Gaiman is able to extrapolate the origin myths of Ancient gods and apply them to the magical realism like world of this story. At one point, somewhere in the middle, Shadow, after retrieving Wednesday’s body, is resolved to hold vigil over it, as per the dead god’s request.
What does that entail one might ask. Well, it involves being tied to a decrepit yet large tree on the backyard of a farm owned by three homely sisters. And to lie restrained to it over 9 days and nights. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the creation myth of All-father, who underwent much the same trial, being hung on the world tree, in exchange, obtaining all the knowledge in the world.
And boy is Shadow’s trial mind boggling, and hypnotically nauseating. Along the way, we are acquainted with his long forgotten memories, revelations from the past, meeting some former acquaintances, ultimately being lost in the vast nothingness. The Illustrator Scott Hampton doesn’t miss a beat, translating Gaiman’s fantastic prose to equally fantastic canvases.
The climax of the whole event was, in some senses anticlimactic, but also fitting, with the whole ‘Gods are con men' theme which Gaiman was going for throughout the story. Without revealing too much I’ll just say this much.
Usually in stories, you see Gods intervening in midst of moral affairs; Deus ex Machina
But here, we have Shadow, a mortal intervening in matters of the Divine with much the same effect; Mortalis ex machina. Pardon my Pig Latin.
The whole side plot with Shadow's dead wife also ended, which was a mixed bag. One, she did serve a purpose in the narrative. But two, I didn't really like what she was in relation to Shadow's character development. But, hey, it can't all be perfect.
Another thing which I like about Gaiman’s stories is that usually, the story doesn’t end with the Climax. There is no happily ever after. We spent a long epilogue, essentially wrapping up loose story threads, and much of it is quite cathartic in nature. It’s almost as if all the tension we’d built up over the narrative just evaporated, and now we are content to just gaze at the stars. Plus, there is a surprise cameo by my namesake, the mouse demon riding god of Hindu Pantheon.
Last on American Gods, the spark for the battle between the Old Gods & New Gods was ignited, with the very public execution of Odin. A recently escaped Shadow, alongside Mr. Nancy & Chernobog must rally what remains of their forces for the inevitable confrontation. But what secrets & mysteries lie behind the veil; which tree was Shadow missing, hidden amongst the forest. That, and more on the concluding Volume of Gaiman’s American Gods.
It still amazes me, how Gaiman is able to extrapolate the origin myths of Ancient gods and apply them to the magical realism like world of this story. At one point, somewhere in the middle, Shadow, after retrieving Wednesday’s body, is resolved to hold vigil over it, as per the dead god’s request.
What does that entail one might ask. Well, it involves being tied to a decrepit yet large tree on the backyard of a farm owned by three homely sisters. And to lie restrained to it over 9 days and nights. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the creation myth of All-father, who underwent much the same trial, being hung on the world tree, in exchange, obtaining all the knowledge in the world.
And boy is Shadow’s trial mind boggling, and hypnotically nauseating. Along the way, we are acquainted with his long forgotten memories, revelations from the past, meeting some former acquaintances, ultimately being lost in the vast nothingness. The Illustrator Scott Hampton doesn’t miss a beat, translating Gaiman’s fantastic prose to equally fantastic canvases.
The climax of the whole event was, in some senses anticlimactic, but also fitting, with the whole ‘Gods are con men' theme which Gaiman was going for throughout the story. Without revealing too much I’ll just say this much.
Usually in stories, you see Gods intervening in midst of moral affairs; Deus ex Machina
But here, we have Shadow, a mortal intervening in matters of the Divine with much the same effect; Mortalis ex machina. Pardon my Pig Latin.
The whole side plot with Shadow's dead wife also ended, which was a mixed bag. One, she did serve a purpose in the narrative. But two, I didn't really like what she was in relation to Shadow's character development. But, hey, it can't all be perfect.
Another thing which I like about Gaiman’s stories is that usually, the story doesn’t end with the Climax. There is no happily ever after. We spent a long epilogue, essentially wrapping up loose story threads, and much of it is quite cathartic in nature. It’s almost as if all the tension we’d built up over the narrative just evaporated, and now we are content to just gaze at the stars. Plus, there is a surprise cameo by my namesake, the mouse demon riding god of Hindu Pantheon.
November 3, 2020
3.5 Stars.
This final Volume of the American Gods graphic novel finishes up the story... but it feels satisfying and at the same time anti-climactic. If the art had been better (or the characters matched their actor counterparts from the series) it might have been better overall. Highlights:
- With Wednesday dead, the Old Gods and the New Gods meet up in the middle of America (a place of no gods) to pass Wednesday's body back to the Old Gods. While there, the tension is high, but the transfer goes through.
- Now that Wednesday is back with them, they must hold his vigil, which is to be hung on a tree for 9 days. As per his original contract, Shadow volunteers to take it.
- During the time Shadow hangs, he goes through lots of meta actions involving the various deities he's encountered before. Easter ultimately resurrects him (obvious Jesus reference)
- Laura has a plot too: drinks water of life and is reborn, seduces Mr Town (who was sent to get a branch from the World Tree) and kills him, and then uses the branch to kill herself and Mr World (revealed to be Low Key Liesmith, Shadow's cellmate.... Loki)
- Shadow figures out that Wednesday and Mr World (Odin and Loki) set up a two-man con to bring them both back to power, buy starting the war between the Old and New Gods... so... he stops the battle and gets the gods to go back to their homes OR simply pass on from the world.
- Taking a clue from Ganesh (who visited him while he hung), he goes back to the small town where he was Mike and figures out who's been murdering the kids. A fellow cop helps kill the murderer.
- Shadow decides he's fulfilled his purpose and goes to settle up his bet with Czernobog. Forgiving the debt as gratitude for Shadow helping the Old Gods, Czernobog barely taps Shadow on the head with his hammer.
- We see Shadow visit Iceland and speak with the elder Odin, giving him Wednesday's eye.
See? Satisfying and yet, anti-climactic. But I don't think it could have ended any other way.
Overall, I will definitely be continuing to watch the series and will get to the novel at some point in the future. I enjoyed the graphic novel series, and would definitely recommend it to Gaiman fans. If you are curious, you should check it out for yourself.
This final Volume of the American Gods graphic novel finishes up the story... but it feels satisfying and at the same time anti-climactic. If the art had been better (or the characters matched their actor counterparts from the series) it might have been better overall. Highlights:
- With Wednesday dead, the Old Gods and the New Gods meet up in the middle of America (a place of no gods) to pass Wednesday's body back to the Old Gods. While there, the tension is high, but the transfer goes through.
- Now that Wednesday is back with them, they must hold his vigil, which is to be hung on a tree for 9 days. As per his original contract, Shadow volunteers to take it.
- During the time Shadow hangs, he goes through lots of meta actions involving the various deities he's encountered before. Easter ultimately resurrects him (obvious Jesus reference)
- Laura has a plot too: drinks water of life and is reborn, seduces Mr Town (who was sent to get a branch from the World Tree) and kills him, and then uses the branch to kill herself and Mr World (revealed to be Low Key Liesmith, Shadow's cellmate.... Loki)
- Shadow figures out that Wednesday and Mr World (Odin and Loki) set up a two-man con to bring them both back to power, buy starting the war between the Old and New Gods... so... he stops the battle and gets the gods to go back to their homes OR simply pass on from the world.
- Taking a clue from Ganesh (who visited him while he hung), he goes back to the small town where he was Mike and figures out who's been murdering the kids. A fellow cop helps kill the murderer.
- Shadow decides he's fulfilled his purpose and goes to settle up his bet with Czernobog. Forgiving the debt as gratitude for Shadow helping the Old Gods, Czernobog barely taps Shadow on the head with his hammer.
- We see Shadow visit Iceland and speak with the elder Odin, giving him Wednesday's eye.
See? Satisfying and yet, anti-climactic. But I don't think it could have ended any other way.
Overall, I will definitely be continuing to watch the series and will get to the novel at some point in the future. I enjoyed the graphic novel series, and would definitely recommend it to Gaiman fans. If you are curious, you should check it out for yourself.
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