First let me say that I haven't read the first volume of this, although I doubt it would make much of a difference. The summary makes it sound like the female gladiator is the main character but really it's the detective guy who is like ...the most bland and boring Sherlock Holmes rip-off that I've ever seen. I feel like it would have been better if the gladiator was the main character because she was the only person in this with a shred of personality, but the plot was still all over the place and somehow boring despite the confusion. Also the review copy I received didn't have the last issue [well, it had the partial issue, but with no text] so I just read it on a free comics site because I thought maybe the ending would make the story make sense, but it didn't. Not a huge fan of the art either.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I got this because the blurb promised an interesting story about a gladiatrix named Achillia. As is often the case, the blurb lied! The story unfortunately featured very little of her, and instead focused far more on the activities of Antonius Axia who is repeatedly described as a 'detectioner' when in fact that isn't how Romans would have described what we know today as a detective. The actual word would have been one we know well: inquisitor. This failure to get simple names right (Achillia is never described as a gladiatrix either) was annoying, but it wasn't the worst problem with this graphic novel.

The worst problem was that there was scarcely a page went by without bared teeth and blood. It was obnoxious and laughable. The blurb describes Juan José Ryp as an "incendiary artist." I never knew that a definition of 'incendiary' was someone obsessed drawing endless mouths full of teeth and graphic depictions of gratuitous blood-letting and violent death. I think Nero the emperor was not once depicted without his teeth bared. It was asinine.

There really were gladiatrices in ancient Roman times, but they were not common. We know of one apparently described as Achillia from a carving found at Halicarnassus, which was the home of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world - the only remaining one of which is the Great Pyramid at Giza. Halicarnassus is in modern day Turkey, and the small carving featured two female gladiatrice. It was labeled Achillia and Amazon, but whether these were intended to be understood as their names is not certain.

This story actually follows Antonius as he tries to figure out why there is so much wanton slaughter going on, of the young men of certain noble families in Rome. His interest in Achillia is really incidental to his investigation, btu she does show up eventually. Unfortunately we never get to know her except in relation to his investigation, so she really isn't the leading female character the blurb led me to believe.

When she does appear, the same illustrator who has zero compunction about depicting endless violent slaughter and blood spatter galore, was evidently squeamish to a fault about illustrating bared female breasts, because Achillia was fully-clothed throughout, which flew in the face of the fact that gladiatrices fought topless, just as gladiators did.

I'm not a fan of splatter-punk in comics or text novels, so this turned me off, but the lack of any real story concerning Achillia was the major downer here. And I have no idea why it was titled 'Brittannia' since all of it took place in Rome. The final insult was that volume four, the last volume of this collection, was completely devoid of text in my ebook copy! It was a picture book only, and as such was utterly useless.

Once I'd ascertained that it was indeed totally bereft of text, I quit reading right there and have to rate this as a thumbs down, not because of the missing text but because of the overall story - or lack of an interesting story to be more precise. When in Rome, all I can do is as the Romans do and offer a Roman warning: legit cave! This has the added advantage of also applying when the words are read as English words! Reader beware as this novel is a legit cave!

I refuse to give reviews for partial arcs. There's no dialog in the final issue and the last 10 pages of the book are missing.

Its not easy jumping into a new series but this volume of Divinty makes it easy.. This is a nice jump on point and an action packed storyline, i really enjoyed the art in this volume as well

Beautiful artwork especially the coloring. Innovative story.

Young men are being killed in ancient Rome in the temples of the gods. The detectionist, Antonious, follows a twisty trail to the truth. A female slave, who has almost won her freeedom in the arena, may hold the key.

It is good to see a mystery in a graphic novel as those are my two favorite genres. Being set in Nero's Rome makes the artwork unusual too. The art and coloring in this book seem almost like series of classical oil paintings. You can see after looking at Nero's face why many at the time thought he was the antichrist. He has the look of pure evil.

The story was intriguing and the resolution fair. I loved the strong female presence.

I would highly recommend this book to those who wish to broaden their graphic novel horizon from superheroes and horror. It is reminiscent of the Classics Illustrated comics from my childhood.

I want to thank the publisher and netgalley for the advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review. To be published September 26, 2017.

In what seems like a small prelude but isn’t, a young slave girl is about to be raped, but like me notices the knife nearby and kills her attacker. In the meantime there’s a new cult in Rome that the rich kids are joining, only some of them are the ones being sacrificed, so the world’s first official detective has another case, and this time doesn’t have to go all the way to Britannia to solve it. Eventually it gets personal. . .
Good of them to have recaps before every issue; every comic should do that.
This story is not as strong as the first one, but then it’s more about the moments. With the Wonder Woman movie and especially the way women all over the world are responding to it, it’s amusing to see the same thing happening in Ancient Rome with a female gladiator. I don’t remember ever reading about any such archaeological evidence found, but it wouldn’t be surprising to find there were hucksters like the one here outside the Colosseum, selling souvenirs. My favorite line had to be “By Mithras!” Having studied that cult, it made me laugh.
The last part is “silent,” which makes it more intriguing. Too bad it took him long enough to realize who, or what, the bad guy was, which was a letdown.

This was ok. I like the art, and there's a passable mystery, but all of the characters are intolerable.

Five years ago a young slave girl refuses to allow her master to take liberties, and winds up in the Gladiator pits, now noble young men are dying horrifically, in apparent sacrifice to the gods. Can "detectioner" Antonius Axia find a connection using the skills the Vestal Virgins have given him before their leader Rubina faces the blame for the God's displeasure? Is he really hearing the voice of Apollo?
Turns out I don't know because the review copy I received was incomplete.
What I can say is that I think the story has potential to be good, and the character of Achillia, the female gladiator is pretty cool. The artwork is nicely detailed, and adds to the drama of the story. The fact that the review copy is incomplete is unfortunate as I am sure this had the potential to be a 3 or 4 star book for me.

Excellent art portraying Rome during Nero's time. The art may seem to jump around but that is just the story from many viewpoints. The mystery seems solved, but the book's end seems a bit abrupt. I will be looking for volume 2.

What a dispiriting mess. And I say that as, until the last couple of years anyway, a massive Peter Milligan fan. The first volume of this seemed to be founded in all sorts of weird and lazy assumptions about Roman society and thought, with our ‘detectioner’ hero the one (Ro)man seeking rational answers while everyone else just said ‘Eh, the gods’ and considered that explanation enough. As fucking if. No real change here, except that we’re not even in Britain anymore so the title no longer makes even that much sense. The theme this time is the male fear of female power, tangled with murders tied to a seeming renascence of the gods, and you could get a very good story out of that…but this isn’t it. Roman society was sexist, sure – but there was much more nuance to it than here, where it’s just Nero and a gaggle of interchangeable Roman dick men muttering about how the women are getting ideas above their station since this new gladiatrix started doing well in the arena, and plotting to bring down her, the Vestals and any other vestige of female independence as if Rome were merely Gilead or Da'esh in togas. Indeed, if you’d presented me with this clumsy Pat Mills-esque script and not told me who was responsible, I’d probably have lamented that the job hadn’t been given to Peter Milligan instead. After all, he did the vexed relationship of an empire and its deities in Egypt, he did such things with gender identity and anxiety &c in Enigma, Shade et al…he’d be ideal for the job, instead of whoever penned this farrago! "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”

So disappointed was I already that, when the last issue of the Edelweiss ARC turned out to lack the lettering and then cut off before the end, I wasn’t even particularly bothered, because it’s not as if I’m likely to be missing much. Ryp and Bellaire’s art has its flaws – there’s no real distinction of look between the lead’s Briton sidekick and the Romans, our hero’s son appears to be having his first fighting lesson using metal rather than wooden swords – but the basic storytelling is clear enough, and it’s not as if anything said up to this point has been terribly enlightening, or as if there look to have been any unexpected turns I would have needed explaining. It’s not as if Milligan has entirely lost the plot - Counterfeit Girl was still recognisably him – but between this, The Discipline, New Romancer and the last Bad Company, there’s a real sense of his recent work failing to live up to the impressive standards he once set. And not even all that long ago – Hell, the man made a really good read out of a New 52 book devoted to the sodding Red Lanterns, for heavens’ sake!

Update: downloaded it from Netgalley too in case their file, having gone up later, was complete - but no, exactly the same. Evidently the same care and attention being applied as at every other stage of the project's completion.

I have been reading comic books since I was a child, and I am well past my half century. I have read everything from regular super hero books to what was known as Underground, to just about anything that had pictures and was in a comic book form.

This is all to say I am aware of bloody, fighting comics. Read them as super hero comics. Read them as underground or independent comics. Doesn't mean I have to like them. This book is set in the time of Nero, and involves a detective trying to find out what is killing all the noble children.

There are vestal virgins, and talking statures, and gladiators, and slaves, and you know what? I really didn't care about the any of them.

So, perhaps this book is for you. Perhaps you like fighting and blood, and mysteries of the gods, and emperors. But I never really got into any of this, and when, as another reviewer pointed out, our review copy's last chapter lacked words, it didn't really make a difference.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.