We Only Find Them When They're Dead (Al Ewing)

 We Only Find Them When They're Dead, by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo, is a graphic novel about harvesting materials from dead space gods. The space gods in question are the size of Marvel's Celestials (recently featured in the mediocre film The Eternals), but in appearance they resemble the New Gods of DC. This scaling has precedent in DC; at one point New Genesis and Apokolips were cosmically large and the boom tubes used for transport adjusted the size of the New Gods to be commensurate with Terrestrial life. One of heroes flew through space to Apokolips and discovered how miniscule they were. The corpses drift into the galaxy like cosmic fish and are harvested for exotic substances. All these corpses appear to be coming from one direction, but the exotic material is so valuable that nobody in power is motivated to ask the questions they should ask, such as "Why are there so many dead space gods and who killed them?" With a title such as We Only Find Them When They're Dead, naturally some crew discovers one that is not quite as dead as the ones before. The plot is standard fare: a crew desperate enough to take chances flouts the law and is pursued by the space police with whom some of the ragtag band have personal connections. The crew of the pursuer also choose to break the law in pursuit, thus establishing the precedence of revenge. The fishermen of space have left the coast for deeper waters. 

The representation is moderate and is integrated well into the plot. It is difficult to guess where this storty might lead, partly because this is one of the areas involving space gods which is not frequently examined, and partly because volume one is dedicated to establishing the world and the relationship of the characters before they depart for parts bereft of other humans, or aliens other than giants, that much remains unexplained. It will be character driven by necessity, but the work of giants is the motivation for further reading. All the gods found by humanity within the galaxy have been dead, but is this due to some property of our galaxy or galaxies in general versus open space? Do the space gods come from some galaxy that might even be described as Promethean? What War in Heaven resulted in the death of the Gods? Or do the Gods date from a time before the galaxies? To paraphrase G'kar, humanity can stay out of the way or be stepped on.