God Is Dead is a comic book series created by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Costa, published by American company Avatar Press. It deals with ancient gods and goddesses from mythologies around the world coming to Earth to lay claim to the world of man. The subplot deals with a group of people named the Collective, who resist the ancient gods. Publication history God is Dead began as a six-issue limited series in September 2013, with Hickman and Costa as co-writers. Once the initial six-issue story arc concluded, the comic became an ongoing series with Costa as the only writer. In August 2014, Alan Moore and Simon Spurrier contributed to the first issue of a new story arc entitled God Is Dead: The Book of Acts. The series concluded in 2016 with its 48th issue. Cover art The cover art of the comics typically featured five different covers. The initial one would be a solid color with a religious symbol. The other styles of covers were "Enchanted", "Iconic", "Carnage", and "End of Days". Plot In 2015, a man claiming to be Zeus, the ancient Greek god of thunder, arrives in Vatican City and claims the Earth as his domain. This event becomes known as the Second Coming. In subsequent months, several other figures claiming to be gods and goddesses emerge as if from nowhere, and begin to divide the Earth into different territories. Fighting between the various gods breaks out, and drags the Earth into war. Unknown to the gods, an underground society known as the Collective suspects that the gods are not who they appear to be, and seek to create their own new gods to rival those of the ancient pantheons. The Collective is eventually destroyed by the gods, but one member, Gaby, survives, and a generation later has risen to take the identity of the Earth Mother, Gaia. As Gaia, Gaby rules over the world virtually unchallenged by the gods that still remain. One of her followers, Tansy, travels to Australia, which has been abandoned since the events of the Second Coming. Once there, she meets a man named Albert Spencer, who survived the Second Coming and has been residing in the Dreamtime with a ragtag group of humans. Together, they use a device to go to Heaven and find the Judeo-Christian God with his head blown off. Albert then decides to unite the remnants of Earth's pantheons