Divine Right (comic)

Divine Right : The Adventures of Max Farady
Divine Right #1 cover
Publication information
Publisher	Wildstorm
Schedule	monthly
Format	Limited series
Publication date(s)	1997
No. of issues	12
Main character(s)	Max Farady Susanna Chaste
Creative team
Written by	Jim Lee
Artist(s)	Jim Lee

Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created, written, and drawn by Jim Lee and published by American company Wildstorm from 1997 to 1999. Its protagonist is Max Faraday, a computer science student who inadvertently becomes the receptacle of an incredible mystic power.

Millennia ago a gigantic creation engine fell to Earth, impacting into a Middle-Eastern desert. An engine capable of unthinkable power, it was later to be called the Creation Wheel, potentially able to provide a user with the power of God. It would lie dormant for centuries, with its power creating a holographic realm of energy-projection to be known as the Hollow Realm, regarded as the gates of Heaven by the artificial beings who lived there.

However, whilst there were people willing to wait for the Messiah, others wished to take the power for themselves and begin again, rewriting the universe to their own desire. The principal architect of this dream was the shadowy ((Cardinal Lazarus)), backed with the might of Lord Acheron, the villainous brother of Tobruk, and Lord Jesthra, a powerful minion.

The story then flashes forward to the modern day, minus a few years. Operation Divine Right, run by the super-espionage group I.O (International Operations), has uncovered the Creation Wheel. The Dark Arts, a sub-section of I.O, working with the Coda assassins (ultimately working for Cardinal Lazarus), have sponsored a translation of the futuristic hieroglyphics by Dr Mattheus Senreich, rendering the codes into a binary number string known as the Creation Equation, which supposedly allows an individual to access the full power of the Creation Wheel. The only copy is stolen by I.O operative Christy Blaze, working deep undercover as a Coda warrior.

A chase ensues between Acheron's forces (known as The Rath) and Blaze, as they struggle to regain the code. They are ultimately too late; while they manage to kill Blaze, she had already uploaded the Equation to Icore, the I.O mainframe.

This is where we meet Max Faraday, a 20-year-old computer science major and lovable loser, at home with older friend Devan Lawless. Bored, Dev logs into Icore using his old professor's access codes. Something starts downloading: a binary code string. Max views it all (barring one file, which he forwards to his cyber-girlfriend, Susanna Chaste) before the computer blows up as a result of channelling the Equation.