DIE, Stephanie Hans and Kieron Gillen’s reliably excellent horror/action/role-playing-game/Goth Jumanji comic, has never been shy about the works it was inspired by and in conversation with. The questions of inspiration, influence, and interpretation in story and gamecrafting are not as key to the story as the protagonists facing themselves in a world they were pulled into by the home-brewed tabletop role-playing-game DIE when they were teenagers, but they’re a consistent presence. Indeed, the first series’ protagonists repeatedly encountered figures who were either constructs based on or outright were the authors of the works that had inspired them. With sequel series DIE: Loaded, the works DIE is in conversation with now includes its earlier tales.
Loaded’s sixth issue concludes its first arc. Without spoiling anything, on a macro level the ending of Loaded’s first arc, titled Zero Sessions per the upcoming trade, shares a major structural similarity with the ending of DIE’s first arc, Fantasy Heartbreaker. The increasing similarities are deliberate. Loaded’s protagonists lack the tight bond and direct past experience with DIE-the-world that DIE’s protagonists shared, but they aren’t flying completely blind. The new party is composed of the previous party’s family members; their spouses, parents, and children. Some are closer to their predecessors than others, with the closest being half-siblings Callum and Violet, the son and daughter of Chuck, the only member of the original party not to make it out of DIE.
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DIE’s first volume closed with some pointedly unanswered questions about DIE-the-world and about the possibility of and work necessary for someone to change. Callum and Violet, and by extension Chuck, who DIE-the-world preserved as an undead capable of returning to life by devouring one of the current party, are a direct line back to those questions. But they aren’t the only questions that Hans and Gillen are focusing on. Indeed, the most important question Loaded’s sixth issue asks and answers is the latest and last in a series of questions that Hans and Gillen have been asking since the first issue, namely, who are the new party?
DIE’s parties have six players, each filling a specific class and each carrying different abilities. Callum is the Fool and Violent is the Master. Sophie, the overall protagonist and spouse of DIE’s overall protagonist Ash, is the Godbinder, treating and manipulating deities mighty and eccentric. The child of Ash’s sister Angela, Molly, who was seen in the original series as an undead like Chuck, is a Rage Knight who turns their fury into might. Margaret, the long-suffering mother of DIE-the-game’s apparent creator Sol, is the Dictator, whose words become the world’s law.
That leaves only the Neo, the cyberpunk thief whose fantastic powers can only be activated by Fair Gold, gold that only lasts a day. As the rule book for the real life DIE RPG puts it, “Adventurers love gold. With their propensity for taking anything that isn’t nailed down makes them all thieves…which makes the classical fantasy prejudice against rogues a little odd. They’re all at it. Why do rogues get the glances? But anyone who’s ever met one knows why people are suspicious about the Neo…If they can’t find enough (Fair Gold) then all their gifts mean nothing.” Neos wield an “armoury of magic-cybernetic gifts” that they can customize as they will, but they always, always, always need to “hunt desperately for the next score.” Best case scenario, frantic scrambling chaos is the name of the Neo’s game.
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Angela, DIE’s Neo, took on the role when she was a tween. Her successor is older and far more used to frantic scrambling chaos thanks to everything he’s been through before. He’s someone who knows what it is to take a horrible, unexpected hit, and who has consequently learned to accept and ride chaos in a way that promises to make for an extremely interesting clash with his abilities and their potential for self-destruction and destruction. Of Loaded’s party members, he seems to be the steadiest and most together, and he arrives not a moment too soon. Zero Sessions has been a steady build, introducing the new party. With the arrival of the new Neo, the players are gathered and the stage is set. So, naturally, Hans and Gillen promptly flip the board and cast everything asunder. If the new Neo’s thoughtfulness and self-awareness are a breath of fresh air for Sophie and the reader, especially compared to the intensely teenage antics of Callum and Violet, then Loaded issue 6’s cliffhanger is the plunge that follows that deep breath. It’s a brilliantly executed turn, surprising and horrible and all too sensical given what’s been set up so far. That it has a bleak, applause-worthy gag amidst the collapse is even more impressive.
Where Loaded’s fifth issue saw Hans play with form and structure by integrating a visual maze into her page setups, issue 6 sees her match the steadiness of the newly introduced Neo with similarly steady storytelling. When Sophie finds herself in an unusual modern and familiar space for a fantasy world, Hans’ clean lines and cool colors clash with Sophie’s elaborate Godbinder robes and the new Neo’s striking red goggles. But, as jarring as it is to see people in gorgeous fantasy costumes sitting in plastic waiting room chairs, Sophie and the Neo’s body language emphasizes the familiarity. Neither of them expected the space where they’ve found themselves, but it’s a space they both know well, and while they aren’t necessarily comfortable there, it’s somewhere they can slip into a routine, where life creeps back into the game’s world in uncomfortable conversations and Styrofoam coffee cups. It’s gorgeous work, and it contrasts beautifully with the dread-fueled lead-up to the issue’s close, where only the Neo’s google lights (hey, his googles do something) pierce the darkness and illuminate the horrifying truth that awaits him and Sophie.
With DIE: Loaded, Hans and Gillen have reliably crafted an excellent comic. Issue #5 was just about perfect. Issue #6 matches it. This is an essential read.
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