And it begins again. But this time a little differently as this volume begins in the middle of a story instead of neatly at an arc’s opening. All does become clear, though, as this particular volume continues as we have one of the more major state changes this time—but then the continually shifting world beneath Promethea is all we’ve known of her so far. Even still, in the penultimate arc of Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III, Mick Gray, Jeromy Cox, and Todd Klein’s Promethea we find even more.

More, in this sense, is the continuation of Sophie and Barbara’s journey through the higher planes of existence. They’ve gone beyond the mortal spheres and have ascended into the realms of the gods to find Barbara’s husband, Steve, and have been met with the one entity they haven’t met for a millennia: Promethea’s father. But to fully meet him, he must take the spirit of Promethea from Sophie as her and Barbara must traverse the abyssal path from Chesed to Binah, from mercy to understanding. Only by passing through these realms can they traverse Chokmah, wisdom, before finally ascending to the final light of god. It is only here that Barbara and Steve can be reunited and take their plunge off the path and back into the cycle of reincarnation together.

This, however, is occurring simultaneously with Sophie’s best friend, Stacia, slowly falling in love with a past version of Promethea, Grace Brannagh, as they’re charged with watching over New York while Sophie completes her journey. 

As we take this journey, we see more of the completed, fully-realized Promethea that Sophie has been working for over the course of the story—as we should since there’s only one volume left. But for this series in particular, we see that path even more clearly as, like I mentioned last week, we have a physical map. The path, though, has different ways of traversing it, with each point having multiple points of entrance and exit—even taking the most direct path to the Crown of it involves criss-crossing over other realms and generally following an inefficient road. But then that’s just character growth, isn’t it? That kind of growth can never come in a linear way, it has to have its ebbs and flows to better match the trajectory we’re most used to in our own lives. The path set upon here was never just meant to represent some magical journey as much as it’s showing all of the ways someone can become that better person through introspection and acceptance of who they are.

Promethea does more. Moore himself said that he wanted a series on the shelves that actually discusses philosophy and we see that in every page and character. The series is his kind of mythology—one that showcases not just characters in a story, but the representations of individuals as the greater parts of ourselves. Even if they look human, the blood of myth runs through them. 

Get excited. Get litigious.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.