KING OF SWORDS 174-177 (FINALE)
Chapter: 10
Thanks for reading!
These are the final pages of King of Swords. We’ll take a 1 week break to prepare and return Friday 10/2 Tues 10/6 with the final book of Kill Six Billion Demons, Breaker of Infinities.
This book was a blast to draw and I hope you’ve enjoyed it, I’ve learned a lot and hope to give it my all with Book 5. See you then!
-Abbadon
I don’t suppose this happens every time they do the tournament? It would explain why the built a new one.
Hey Abbadon, when can we expect to see book 4 out as a print with Image Comics???
I actually do sympathize with Solomon David, while I do not excuse his actions are they unknown ? The man lost his family , his world to a power hungry psycho and the only people who could have changed the battle stood by and let it happen , so he trained with those who stood idly (mighty stupid of them to not understand how some fires of revenge can burn so hot for so long) by and when he was done he destroyed them utterly for their failure in his eyes. He went after the man who had taken everything from him and stole his power and his first act was to return his world to glory , is he a dictator yes , is he authoritarian yes, deluded yes, but a human was made powerless and had everything ripped from him and then he gained that power and used it to install his own piece of sanity among 777,777 universes , how after all that do you expect him not to consider himself a hero , of all the 7 we have seen whose worlds seem more prosperous?
As for the rl implications of a benevolent absolutist dictatorship vs a self rule republic ..my opinion is neither works for long anyway. Benevolent dictators give way to cruel oppression and a government of the masses often rots from within giving rise to endless power struggles and class divisions in their own way both are flawed to me for I am yet to see a system of government that survives the spirit of its founding in perpetuity
holy shit what is WITH the monarchist bros here lately
Man, panel 13 says a LOT.
“All’s well that ends well, unless it doesn’t.”
– Machinations 5:13
I love Princess’ face as well, “Finally some real fightin”
I really liked this page, the small details like the calamity going around where Solomon and Jadis were standing. I wonder if Allison and crew even survived due to their own effort or more so because they were simply in the wake of Solomons own shield. Also of note is if the explosion was a result of breaking trough the immaterium and any barriers Solomon might have against direct teleports or if the explosion was intentional part of the entrance. If former it might speak volumes of how much stronger Jadis is with her spells in particular since her entrance was much smoother. Speaking of Jadis if this turns out into an all out demigod brawl her powers are probably least explored so far so will be interesting to see what (if anything) she can actually do in a fight.
Solomons appearance is of sheer terror so it’s still up in the air if there will be a fight immediately after. It could be that hes here simply to announce the start of the war and one or both sides want to disengage. It’s also possible Solomon will snap out of it and immediately attack Jagganoth in rage over the destruction he caused.
I admit, I am not fond of war. Besides the obvious, there are so many tiny things that could mean the difference between victory and defeat in combat. Too many to predict with any kind of certainty.
I am still unsure why Jadis is here, too.
Maybe Athena can always have a sound battle plan which survives contact with the enemy, but us mere mortals are left with only the chaos and confusion.
Ah, I forgot – she wants to die. Ground zero of Jagganoth is definitely a good place to accomplish that.
Is democracy a shitshow? Hell, yes! But holy shit damn ass is everything else so much worse. (Except maybe Singapore, which seems to have figured out a non-psychotic system of one-man rule).
Let’s start with the big three poster children of authoritarian role in the last century: Maoist China, Stalininst USSR and Nazi Germany. Totalitarian utter hellholes. Utterly the worst. Mao killed tens of millions BY ACCIDENT during the Great Leap Forward. Arbitrary and random violence against everyone including allies was a ‘feature’ rather than a ‘bug’ in Stalin’s system. And Nazi Germany…’nuff said.
As for the other authoritarian aspirants to horrible…. The Gulf States and North Africa? Hard pass. Post-colonial dictatorships of sub-Saharan Africa? No thanks. The murderous dictatorships of the right and left in Latin America? Nnnope.
So considering the alternatives, I’ll happily take the democratic shitshow as the least bad form of government going.
For the record, Singapore is one of the most unhappy developed nations in the world. It’s peace is won with compromises that leave no one happy or particularly empowered and all the issues they could be working out are just sort of brushed under the rug. It is far from an enlightened dictatorship just because it’s economically advanced.
Every party needs a pooper that’s why they invited you…
I wonder what motives of Jagganoth are.
We’ve only the word of the other demiurges on that and I’m wondering how reliable are their accounts, particularly Mottom’s. Abbadon said on Tumblr that Jagganoth was possibly the most interesting of the Seven, so one might expect something more nuanced than “smash everything”.
Also, what are Metatron & co thinking about all this? They seen to have wound up Jagganoth and sent him marching to war, but now they support the King instead.
Mottom seems quite terrified of Jag, and she belongs to a category of people that needn’t bother to lie to their lesser.
Occam’s razor suggests that unless we are presented with alternative possibilities within the comic, the hypothesis that Jag is indeed an omnicidal maniac bent on destroying the Wheel should be favored.
As for Metatron, we learned from 6 Jugg Star that initially, Metatron had the omnicidal vibe himself before having a change of heart.
I think its likely that in his goth period Metatron gave Jag some of his own feathers, and sent him on his crusade.
White chain’s desire has been granted, the people of rayuba have been liberated
from life
Indeed.
Final book?
It´s the end?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Literally every panel in this strip would make a rad-ass wallpaper
He finally got a done clothes
Some clothes. Fack U autocorrect
My master would advise the Rising King and her companions to remove the nails that preserve his durability. Or he would ask them if he looks more like a duck or a platypus. Hard to say, honestly.
Siiick entrance bro
When could I but the book?
Oh hai!
*begins faithfully checking BookShop.org for pre-order detais on book 4*
Interesting how he refers to Solomon and Jadis as “princes” but referred to Incubus as a “little king”
So, did anyone notice that on panel, I don’t know, 13? The one where Allison has her hands out, clearly creating a shield for her and her companions? Then 2 panels later, when the big bad says “Hello little princes!”, we see debris piled up in front of the two Demi-Urges standing ahead of her, as if THEY also threw up shields, and ALLISON was shielding her friends from not the original blast, but only what got through the DemiUrge shield in front of her…
It isn’t spelled as love and peace, certainly none of the stories it contains espouse that kind of nonsense. I’m not kidding but if you don’t know it you will never know or understand how the thing that draws us to peace is built upon war, it only sounds ironic to baby, to someone who knows it’s a mere fact of life.
I’m suprised at the sheer number of comments on the nature of Dave’s character and politics as well as political debates that ensued, but no one, not one seemed to critique the author here for not providing enough clarity. Compared to previous Demiurges, this one was far less detailed and we saw much less of the society. We got big hints it was patriarchial, but without seeing the effects on women (and now the planet is bust so we’re unlikely to see their experiences). Instead what we have is an angel who has 0 experience on the planet yelling how its all fake with little direct evidence and only storytelling habits on her side. We’re expected to believe them simply because they are the protagonist and we’re familiar with them and this is pretty much all we have to judge Dave on.
With Mottom and Mammon we saw that they are truely pathetic in their current state. The protagonist didn’t need to utter a word. With Incubus we are also shown this and the protagonist doesn’t know his true state. Dave doesn’t fit the pattern that made the comic so good. The author here slipped. It’s not that he’s good, or bad, or complex or anything its that we don’t know enough about the society to make a proper judgement. We didn’t see enough of everday life and problems, in fact we mostly see its sucesses.
If there is a similar message here it’s that in spite of all his success he still failed when Jaggnoth came and he lost everything. His pride was not power, and it cost the entire planet it’s life. But thats not the fault of pride itself, so the message falls flat. It could have been any other Demiurge and the same result would have happened.
The author failed to demonstrate how Pride was it’s own prison here and relied too much on the protagonist to communicate the message directly.
I’m really sad we’re only getting 1 more book and we don’t get to see all the demiurges equally detailed, but perhaps its for the best. I really wanted a book just on Jadis, her cult, and the trappings of omniscience and over-thinking. I really wanted to see a book on how knowlege is weakness. I’d love more on Gog-Agog too but this chapter really dissapointed me. We saw very little of the society and just got a long arena fight.
It’s nearly time. I’m excited.