You came, adventured, and left, a beta test for all humanity’s fate.
Keep reading for a review of Die #13.
Warning, some spoilers below, some for this issue and a lot for last issue.
The short version: Ash is getting reamed out by another one of the rulers of Die, H.G. Wells, who’s ticked off at her because his whole goal (either when he was a real person or as a construct of the game they’re in now) was to prevent war, and Ash proceeded to hand Glass Town to Eternal Prussia and start a war with everybody.
The longer version: this issue showcases Kieron Gillen’s love of history, literature, and gaming, because with Wells’ backstory we get all three. The author of The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine practically created modern tabletop war/strategy games. (There’s a quick write up of it on HuffPost.)
I like how this version of Wells has all the cheerful, sexist condescension of the original: he throws out backhanded compliments at Ash because she’s so smart for a girl, and the original title of his game/book Little Wars is “a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books“ Product of his time, that dude.
When the version of H.G. Wells that’s in Die talks about completing Little Wars (it was his plan to stop a Great War by showing the ridiculousness of it) he says “I closed my eyes, satisfied..” and then he wakes up in Die, a player in a huge war game.
The thing is, from what he says to Ash, he thought he was successful, but from my perspective the timing was way off. He created Little Wars in 1912. World War 1 started in 1914, World War 2 started in 1939, and he died in 1946. So how would he think his game was successful at stopping wars when he got to see two giant ones happen before he died?
It’s the “I closed my eyes,” line that threw me. That doesn’t mean he died and woke up in Die. (That seems to be what happened to Charlotte Bronte.) It really does mean the real H.G. Wells just happened to, I don’t know, take a nap, and the character was created and appeared in Die right after that. Not when he died, but right after he finished creating the game that was one of the biggest building blocks of all modern RPGs.
Ash points that out (both that his plan didn’t work and that he’s basically responsible for both of them being there, since without him Dungeons and Dragons might not exist) and he leaves in typical Wells fashion, but not before making things even more difficult for Ash.
I really liked the part where Angela described why she’s so mad with Ash all the time (not just because Ash had sex with Angela’s vampire boyfriend back in the day, though that’s certainly part of it.) Nobody wants to be the member of the group that still feels like they aren’t part of the group. Ash and Sol always did their own thing and everybody else had to catch up, and that’s still going on today.
One thing that’s getting frustrating (because it’s supposed to be frustrating) is Ash’s insistence that they all need to work together. Her whole line of reasoning with everyone seems to be “yes I’m the reason why Eternal Prussia took over Glass Town and could possibly kill us all, but we’re all in this together, why aren’t we on the same side??” Sure, the more people the better when it comes to fighting the bad guy, but the fact that she seems so puzzled that no one wants to be on her side, that’s annoying.
Meanwhile, Angela, Chuck and Matt are trying to find the Fair (the techno version of elves that give Angela her powers and seem to have a lot of control over Die) to find out if Angela’s daughter (currently a zombie) and Chuck (currently dying of cancer and peeing blood) can be saved. The result is, we get a lot more information about how time is so twisted in Die, why some things seem to have existed before they were actually created. (I’m not sure I completely understand it, mind you, but I’m getting there.)
(The next paragraph has something that just occurred to me, and I have no evidence that this could be the case but it feels also like I could spoil a surprise if it’s true, so if you don’t want to get spoiled please skip down to the part about Stephanie Hans’ art.)
My question is, we found out this version of Wells didn’t have to die to get to Die, and the real version of Wells existed separately from the Die version. Do we have any reason to think that Angela’s daughter couldn’t be the same thing? Maybe she’s still alive in the real world? Hell, (and this is total speculation but if I’m right it could be a GIANT SPOILER so maybe stop reading now) what if the Party technically isn’t real either?
(End of speculation/spoiler section.)
As for Stephanie Hans’ art, it’s always hard to pick a favorite panel. I loved the image of Angela holding her daughter’s face, the Party looking up at the Fair, the burning figures (that was a fantastic sequence there) and especially Ash talking to what I think is one of Doctor Moreau’s creatures, the design on that was absolutely lovely.
(Related note, still waiting for Aslan!)
