Comic books are continuing their attempt to take over television. And this time, it’s something truly fresh: Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson’s Eisner Award-nominated series The Wicked + The Divine has been picked up as a potential TV series by Universal Television in the US.
First published last June, the book’s story follows a disparate group of individuals who are given supernatural powers after merging with deities and forming a group known as The Pantheon. It’s part of a cycle of the gods being reincarnated every 90 years and performing miracles while attaining celebrity fame.
“The idea of playing superheroes as celebrity isn't exactly new,” said Gillen at the time of the launch. “However, it's always played cynical. The celebrity characters are always the debased bad guys, or at least the cautionary tale and wandering from the road of truth. It's always implicitly arguing that these people are worse than the heroes who came before them because they're on the cover of a magazine and they do a bit of coke. We're not interested in that. We're anti-that. We've all had popstars save our life.”
Helping shepherd the books to TV screens are Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick, comic creators themselves who have spun success into a production company called Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, designed to bring their own titles to Universal and assist with finding and supporting others. With luck, the main Wicked team will be involved in translating the subtlety and wit of their work to our screens.