High school/college/new job orientation is all very awkward, but very important to setting up your new personal status quo. (Also, you could also meet someone cool!) In the same vein, Die Loaded #2 is all about orienting Sophie and Molly to this strange, new game world. Kieron Gillen’s narration for Sophie serves a triple purpose of her trying to figure out the lay of the land, acting like a surrogate mother to Molly, and also digging into her relationship to the absent Dominic/Ash. She’s a great POV character for new readers, but brings depth and connective tissue to the events of Die. On the art side, Stephanie Hans continues to shine from the panel wobbling, whip cracking action of newly minted Rage Knight, Molly, to singular fantasy illustrations that dangle a tantalizing fantasy world inside, but don’t deliver. However, one iconic image can create a lifetime of imagination. (Honestly, me when I was eight with this Lord of the Rings poster.)

The dynamic of the characters in Die Loaded #2 is uneasy to say the least, and Gillen and Hans draw the conflict from their interactions with the ever-deepening horror fantasy world being just icing on the cake. Sophie is freaking out about Ash and their son Stuart on the other side while Molly feeds her anger with uncertainty and loads of angst from her Manchester art school where they are struggling to fit in as a working class person. Stephanie Hans’ intense art drives these feelings home with specters of art students grasping at Molly in a tornado of pink, blue, and watercolor. Molly is in their Foundations year so Hans strips down visual depiction to its basics before returning to her usual vivid, expressive fantasy style. Along the way, Sophie starts to grow into her heroic mama bear role adapting to a world that is foreign to her unlike the RPG aficionados of the previous volume. As someone who hasn’t played a lot of tabletop roleplaying games, I actually find Sophie’s narration refreshing and relatable.

One thing I’ve neglected to mention in this review is the mysterious (and face it, nefarious) presence of Isabelle from the previous series as someone giving helpful hints to Sophie and Molly like some kind of Navi from Legend of Zelda meets Mufasa figure. Clayton Cowles’ lettering for her is like light icing on a cake, but make it ethereal. She’s pure exposition, but gives you just enough to make it to the next checkpoint instead of exploring the real context of the situation that you’re in. There’s almost a verbal war in the way that Kieron Gillen writes Isabelle and Sophie as beauty brawls with a no-bullshit, we need to get the hell out of here attitude with a side of empathy. She’s the right kind of push the narrative needs in the early going while hinting at darkness to come.

Two issues in, and Gillen and Stephanie Hans have crafted two messy, yet endearing protagonists for this ominous journey in the world of RPGs. They also use the beautiful, yet dangerous world of art to explore how visual art can make life worth living, but also lead to sadness and despair, especially if you’re a young, struggling art student. Die Loaded #2 taps into the primal emotions of rage and motherly love to keep the story grounded while expanding this world that seems easy to escape, but we know from experience that’s not going to be the case.

Story: Kieron Gillen Art: Stephanie Hans Letters: Clayton Cowles
Story: 8.8 Art: 9.0 Overall: 8.9 Recommendation: Buy

Image  Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans return to the hellish TTRPG world of Die in their new series Die Loaded #1. It’s definitely helpful to be familiar with the previous series, but in gaming parlance, this first issue is “new player friendly” and slowly unravels the lore and relationships from Die. Die Loaded is a dark fantasy/horror series, but it’s also grounded in authentic, real world relationships. The main focus for this launch issue is Ash, who is a female Dictator in the game world, but is a nonbinary person in the real world and dealing with becoming a father and good partner to their wife Sophie, who had a child while they were trapped in the game. Gillen writes the majority of the issue from their POV as they adapt to a “normal life” after a great crisis although that normal life happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. He and Hans use parenting as the initial throughline for the series, but things definitely get fantastical later on.

From page 1, Die Loaded felt like being reunited with an old friend who I thought I’d never see again: Dominic Ash. In previous articles, I’ve mentioned my connection to the character and their complex relationship with their gender identity and nostalgia in the fantasy genre. So, it’s cool to see them take on the unexpected role of “Daddy” and navigate an even more complicated relationship with their partner Sophie because they definitely don’t reveal 100% of what happened in Die to them. Kieron Gillen’s narrative captions for Ash are downright confessional and add an extra dimension to a seemingly mundane of a couple getting ready for a night out, which is Chuck’s (The Fool from Die and a wealthy fantasy author.) wake. I felt so seen when Ash mentioned putting their “gender bullshit” on hold to deal with other things in their life.

The social maze that Ash and Sophie must traverse is just as frightening as any fantasy quest, and Stephanie Hans’ use of shadow and color gives the function a sinister vibe as she and Gillen check in with various characters and their families/partners from the previous series. She makes the real world feel like a dissociative episode using more straightforward shots and layouts for friendly encounters and more askew one for conflicted ones. Hans’ palette in Die Loaded is muted compared to the majestic fantasy or Gothic horror of some sequences in Die. Her choice of color and lighting almost screams for normalcy. She and Kieron Gillen pace the wake scene like any massive social gathering where you have close relationships with some folks, dislike others, and are intrigued/overwhelmed by others.

Kicking off Die Loaded with a wake is an ingenious piece of storytelling from Gillen and Hans as the various old/new characters reacquainting themselves with each other mirrors readers coming back to a series that made an impact on them, but it’s been a few years. The focus on Ash and Sophie’s dynamic as partners and parents is a wonderfully mature hook for the series before it goes into Goth Jumanji chaos, and it gives a freshness to the sequel instead of going the Die Harder route. I feel both blessed and cursed (In an in-universe kind of way.) to return to this world.

Story: Kieron Gillen Art: Stephanie Hans Letters: Clayton Cowles
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.4 Overall: 9.2 Recommendation: Buy

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle