Divinity II #2 (Valiant)

When I saw, in Valiant's 2016 Free Comic Book Day release, the direction Matt Kindt planned to take with the next installment of Divinity, I knew instantly that this was a concept with legs.  Now that I've had a look at Divinity II, I know I was right.

Divinity was the story of Russian cosmonaut Abram Adams, who was sent on an extraordinary mission at the dawn of the Space Race, and returned in the present day a changed man, to say the least.  He became a superman.  In a lot of ways, he was transformed into Dr. Manhattan, imbued with powers that put him far beyond mortal man, able to manipulate reality on a whim.  Thankfully, he was fully benevolent, although Valiant's heroes weren't comfortable making that judgment, so they ended up trapping him in a prison of his own memories.

DC has made that same kind of conclusion with Captain Atom, who in recent years has become more and more like Alan Moore's Watchmen vision of him, Dr. Manhattan, so that in itself was not a breakthrough.  It's Kindt's storytelling, which keeps a human focus the whole time, Abram's focus on his tragedy, the family he left behind and couldn't, except in his unique prison, return to, that grounds it, makes it something new.

In the sequel, Kindt returns to the beginning and revisits Abram's colleagues, two other cosmonauts marooned at the edge of mystery same as him, but who didn't return.  Until now.  One of them, anyway, Myshka, whose arc is defined by the perceived abandonment by Abram.  Her return is a savage confrontation with Abram, who reveals to his would-be captors that he was willingly imprisoning himself all along...

It's this clash of perspectives that has made Divinity so great, Kindt's exceptional ability to navigate the conflicts that ensue, that's at the heart of all great storytelling.  If Divinity is a Watchmen story (which is not how you have to read it), then it's another way of viewing how things would look different, from a different perspective.  Which is kind of the point.

Divinity continues to be a must-read, and the best thing Valiant has published.