The Goddamned, Volume 2: The Virgin Brides Review (Jason Aaron, RM Guera)

Set in Bible times, where all the best stories are set, is a brutal nunnery where girls are treated like slaves until puberty starts a-gushing and they get taken to the mountain where they’re offered up to the heavens as virgin brides - and subsequently die horrifically birthing monstrous nephilim (“angels”)! Two girls rightly look at this ghastly mess of an existence and decide to Thelma and Louise it the fuck outta there, Old Testament-style! But God’s warriors are hot on their heels to ensure that they are not put asunder…

Jason Aaron and RM Guera are back for a second volume of their grim, gory and grimy reimagining of Genesis, The Goddamned, a mere five years after the first, and, Lordy, it wasn’t worth the wait!

The story just wasn’t engaging. That’s the only reason I didn’t like the book - but it’s a pretty big one! Girls run, dickheads chase, fighting, then the ending. Bo-ring. The characters aren’t interesting, I’m over Aaron/Guera’s interpretation of an evil, pseudo-subversive Bible vision, and nothing memorable or gripping happens.

And I say that with disappointment because I loved their previous collaboration, Scalped, but it’s clear that Jason Aaron has really fallen hard from those heights since then. It’s been a minute since his last great book (from another Image series that he appears to have abandoned, Southern Bastards) and, unfortunately The Goddamned, a series that started out mediocre, has only gotten worse in the interim years.

I don’t know why such gross offspring are produced when angels mate with humans, and maybe I’d know if I was steeped in Christian bullshit, but it’d’ve been nice if Aaron had offered up something of an explanation instead of nothing. I guess to imply God/the angels are grotesque, in keeping with how they view Christianity in this series? And the brides are barely pubescent girls because Mary, right, so God’s a creep or something? Eh. Gratuitous grossness does nothing for me. I don’t like Christianity either, or any religion for that matter, but I don’t have the same bone to pick with it that Aaron/Guera seem to. The tone just feels childish to me, like teenagers who are trying to be edgy.

The way Aaron writes the serpent/demon was fun, as was the sheer nihilism of that finale, and I LOVED Guera’s art. He’s the opposite of Aaron and has only gotten better with time. If you’re as much a fan of his artwork as I am, he’s basically the sole reason you’re gonna pick up this book.

From the way it starts raining heavily at the end of this book, it’s clear what the next Ark is going to be in this series, which, at the rate they’re producing these, should be in 2026 or so, assuming there’s an audience still there to read it. Meanwhile though, there’s The Virgin Brides, a pointless and instantly forgettable addition that could very likely end the interest of many readers in this increasingly goddamned dreary series.