One story arc in and DIE: Loaded, Stephanie Hans and Kieron Gillen’s sequel to their excellent “Goth Jumanji” horror/fantasy comic DIE, has matched its predecessor play for play and turn for turn. Its first collection, Zero Sessions, honors the work that’s come before by breaking off from it. DIE is Loaded’s base, but not its blueprint. Where DIE was about a group of estranged friends who had to settle scores they did not think could be settled, Loaded is about a group of more-or-less strangers pulled into an unexpected crucible.
DIE’s party traveled the titular living game world as teenagers, and then returned to it as middle-aged adults. While they faced plenty of challenges, they had experience with the world and baseline knowledge of what to expect. Their challenges were frequently personal issues, like closest to overall protagonist Ash’s manipulative tendencies. Those issues could be exacerbated by the nature of DIE-the-sentient-world, as was the case with Ash wielding the power to make their word the world’s metaphysical law as a Dictator, but the party knew this. Loaded’s party is far more fractious and far less informed. As the family and loved ones of the first party, Loaded’s crew know each other at varying distances. Where the first party were close in age, Loaded’s range from teens to elders, with closest to overall protagonist Sophie being the one confirmed player to be middle-aged. While some of Loaded’s party know a fair bit about the world and its rules, none of them have the first-hand experience their predecessors did. The new party’s journey is as much about figuring out how the world works and how they work in the world as it is their personal arcs.
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With these new players come new interpretations of their powers, and new opportunities for Hans to push her considerable abilities as an artist. Margaret, the vengeful mother of Sol; a member of the first party who spent decades stranded in DIE, wields her Dictator abilities like a bomb, with bursts of power exploding from her rigidly contained shell. Callum, the son of first party member Chuck, inherits his father’s class as the Fool, who can and will do anything as long as it’s for a laugh. He pinballs through the world without a care, a ball of effortless muscle and cool-to-a-lunkheaded-teenager ink. Sophie, who’s used to compromise and uncertainty is the Godbinder, treating with and manipulating deities grand and petty. Loaded does not lack for striking imagery, but if there is one visual reason to read it, it’s Sophie’s gods. They’re magnificent creations, possessed of majesty and might whether they’re unleashing terrifying power or doing Sophie a lower-key solid like using their giant lungs to shout loud enough to get a horde of would-be chosen ones’ attention.
On a macro scale, part of what makes Hans’ work on Loaded so impressive is that she builds a world that is both consistent and wildly diverse. The world of DIE has been shaped by generations of gamers and storytellers, from edgy teens who think the height of narrative parody is “What if the Hobbits were literally in World War I?” to a certain Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy beloved for her caverns and lifelong interest in Taoism. DIE is a world made of worlds, compiled from and composed of stories upon stories. As drawn by Hans, no one region of DIE looks like another, but they still feel like a coherent whole. It’s a spectacular achievement, and one that Hans continues to build on.
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Narratively, Gillen devotes Zero Sessions to introduce both the new players and the new play. While Sophie remains a constant presence, each of the new party gets an issue to take center stage, to show how they’re adjusting to the realities of their powers and lay the seeds of their continuing arcs. They’re a strong bunch, bouncing off of each other and their predecessors in ways that give them space to grow and opportunities to fail. The narrative and thematic connections between Chuck and his kids Callum and Violet are particularly intriguing, especially with where each of them stands at the end of Zero Sessions.
The greater story, meanwhile, is riffing on and twisting what Gillen crafted in the first volume of DIE. The first party’s shared history and their efforts to navigate it were two of DIE’s major throughlines. Loaded’s party do not have that history, not with each other and not with DIE. The first party had to struggle with baggage they’d let grow mold and the ways that powers that had seemed awesome when they were teens look more like maladaptive coping methods in middle age. The new party does not have that grounding experience. They don’t have the baggage that comes with having played and been played by DIE, but they also don’t know what to watch out for, the risks that come with throwing yourself into the game or pursuing temporary catharsis over a more durable understanding. It’s rich, thorny writing.
In other words, DIE: Loaded is terrific. It’s a game to get caught up in, a comic as dense and thrilling as its predecessor that carries its fire while running its own marathon. It’s a must-read comic.
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