Supergod #5

Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Garrie Gastonny

While only seven months late, the conclusion to Ellis's strange science fiction series is pretty satisfying.

Supergod has been an odd duck from the beginning.  It's been narrated by a British scientist who has been involved in his country's plans to create an artificial god (based on space mushrooms).  The same thing has been happening in other countries, and basically, they all fight.

Of course, it's more complicated than that, as Ellis works with the religious traditions and beliefs of a number of different cultures, and tries to map them onto the different countries' imagined approach to theological weapons of mass destruction.  While the series has had a number of interesting and novel ideas, it has lacked a real heart or sense of focus.  It's hard to care about the ending of the world when it's hard to care about any of the people on it.

Still, this has been a competent and interesting thought exercise of a limited series, and is destined to read better in one setting (without half-year gaps between issues).  Gastonny's art is pretty nice, although done in the Avatar house style.  Now that this series is finished, is there hope that we may see another issue of Doktor Sleepless one day?