Die Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker
The Die series, Issues 1 - 5
Kieron Gillen, illustrations by Stephanie Hans
Image Comics
Fiction, Fantasy/Graphic Novel
Themes: Cyborgs, Diversity, Dystopias, Fantasy Races, Games, Girl Power, Magic Workers, Portal Adventures, Religious Themes, Twists
****
Description
They were just six British teenagers playing a game to celebrate a birthday. Six kids using roleplaying to escape the misery and monotony
of their lives. Six... who vanished, only to return two years later as five, scarred and scared and unable to talk about where they went or
what they did - or what happened to their friend Solomon.
Now 40, Ash/Dominic has a marriage and a job and is still incapable of uttering a word about what happened, when a mysterious package arrives.
It contains the 12-sided die of Solomon, the gamemaster who was left behind when they escaped the fantasy world they'd been sucked into. The
party must now reconvene to decide what to do... but before they can make a decision, the die chooses for them.
Now they're back in a world they thought they'd left behind for good. Once again, they are the Dictator whose words remake reality, the
Godbinder atheist who bargains and binds gods to her will, the cyberpunk Neo whose artificial parts and powerful skills are fueled by an
addiction, the Grief Knight who turns pain into strength, and the Fool whose devil-may-care attitude lets him rush in where others dare not
tread. Their enemy, as last time, is the Grandmaster... but the old Grandmaster is dead, and a new one has risen, one even more dangerous:
their former friend, their lost companion, Solomon.
Review
The "adults revisit childhood fantasy" subgenre is booming lately, as a generation raised on Dungeons & Dragons and the first
video games tips over the hill and starts looking backward with a mixture of nostalgia and new, often darker perspective. (Though, of course,
this isn't a new theme to explore; Stephen King's horror classic It has definite shades of these ideas, as do earlier tales.)
Die is a fairly solid entry, a bleak fantasy for grown-ups whose youth wasn't all fun and games.
Unlike some stories, where what seemed a light and whimsical world is revealed, on reflection or return, to be twisted and dystopian, the world
of Die was dark even when the party was young, reflecting the dark inner worlds of the players. It's only gotten worse in the intervening years
under Solomon's rule, though the world itself is implied to be no simple creation of one British teenager. It's far older than that, stitching
in pieces of classic fantasies from Narnia to Middle-Earth to Glass Town and more. Each player was indelibly marked by their first venture into
Die, marks that shaped and often warped their fates, and on return are not the same people they used to be, viewing the world with a mixture of
jaded criticism and fatality. Even as Ash the Dictator tries to convince herself it's all fantasy, all ultimately a role-playing game populated
with non-player characters and contrived puzzles and obstacles and enemies, she can't make herself believe the pain she sees isn't real, that
deaths don't matter.
Sometimes, Die can be a little jumbled and confusing, especially as it's establishing itself. The pitch-black story mood can also be
wearing; I'm getting a little tired of fantasies without the teeniest glimmer of light or hope (though there is a nice sense-of-wonder moment...
one that turns to ash as it's literally killed and burned a few pages later, but it's nice while it lasts.) But it has an interesting concept
and fairly solid cast, plus some nice (and needed) nonbinary representation. I just don't know if I want to venture further into an adventure
that's only going to get darker and darker.