The New Gods #3 Review

• Written by: Ram V

• Art by: Riccardo Federici, Evan Cagle

• Colors by: Francesco Segala

• Letters by: Tom Napolitano

• Cover art by: Nimit Malavia

• Cover price: $3.99

• Release date: February 19, 2025

The New Gods #3, by DC Comics on 2/19/25, explains the ancient history of all things, leading to the invention of an all-powerful weapon that took the form of a child.

Is The New Gods #3 Good?

Recap

When we last left the children of the High-Father in The New Gods #2, Scott Free, aka Mister Miracle, decided to accept Orion's request to find and flee with a child who could be a great power in the universe. Through several sets of scenes involving Metron and the fractured leaders on Apokalips, we learn the child in question may be the future heir to Darkseid's vacant throne. The issue ended with a god-killer, Karak the Scavenger, coming to take advantage of the power vacuum left by Darkseid's death.

Plot Synopsis

The New Gods #3 begins with an extended history of the gods of old - Parzunem, Arbor Struta, and Nyctar. Arbor Struta gathered and led the abandoned people and refugees of war to start new beginnings. Nyctar gathered his followers to explore the farthest reaches of space as the god of wanderers. Parzurem spent his many days building new machines as the god of invention.

During Nyctar's great travels one day encountered a darkness that corrupted all it touched, including Nyctar. The wandering god returned home to kill and consume his sister, Arbor Struta, to become immensely powerful - enough to defeat Parzurem and pressure the god of invention to build war machines. Parzurem refused, but he foresaw such a predicament, so he sent fractures of his mind - the Moder and the Paeter - out into the universe to find freedom elsewhere. Moder would eventually be captured by the gravity pull of the world that would one day become New Genesis. Paeter would find its home on the planet that would eventually become Earth.

When life evolved on Earth to become sentient, Paeter took the shape of a human to live among them as one of them but above them as an eternal god. After eons, Paeter chose to learn the one thing it had never known - death. Fearful the evolving humans could not survive on their own, Paeter created an adaptable weapon that would awaken if darkness fell across the land.

That weapon is the child Scott Free now seeks. 

Meanwhile, Scott and Barda seek out Oberon for help locating the child. Oberon happens to have a tracking portal to fit the bill, so he zaps Scott and Barda to a car chase in progress.

First Impressions

If you read the description above all the way through to the end, first, I congratulate you for your patience. Second, you're probably wondering what the Hell is going on, and you'd be right to do so. Nobody self-sabotages what should be a straightforward story like Ram V trying to impress everyone with his overblown sense of self-important magnificence, so sit back and enjoy the trainwreck.

How’s the Art?

The New Gods #3 flip-flops back and forth in time, with Riccardo Federici handling the past and Evan Cagle handling the present. Both artists have wildly different styles, but each looks fantastic in their own way. There's no quarrel with the art in this comic if you look past the fact that you're essentially reading two wholly different comics roughly spliced together.

What’s great about The New Gods #3?

Separately, Ram V has two stories worth reading, albeit suited for two different audiences. The History of the Gods reads like a space opera from the highest nobility, infused with meaning, myth, and matter. The present-day action scene is one of the better examples of characters taking their first steps to heed the call of adventure with snappy, punchy dialog and charm.

What’s not great about The New Gods #3?

Ram V did his best Ram V impression by taking a clear concept and overwriting the snot out of it while convoluting the plot at the same time. The history of the gods is interesting as a novel concept, but 80-90% of the backstory is irrelevant to the present plot, adding complications where none were needed to make a simple story "fancy." You could have easily begun with Paeter coming to Earth as an alien looking for a peaceful place to settle, and the story would have turned out the same. 

Ram V is one of the cadre of writers who chooses to make things unnecessarily complicated and pretentious in order to prove what a fancy, intelligent writer he is, and it usually turns out badly. The next generation of writers can't come soon enough.

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About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts

The New Gods #3 turns the fancy meter up to 11 and the pretentious knob to Max when readers get a space opera of kingly proportions to explain how the child at the center of this arc came to be. Ram V's penchant for overwriting and overthinking the simplest ideas is on full display. The mashup between past and present is so discontinuous that your eyeballs will trip trying to read this comic, and the whole thing wraps up with a basic, unfinished car chase. Whatever page rates Ram V is getting paid for this series, it's too high. That said, the score earns bonus points for gorgeous art.

5/10

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