Olympians Vol. 1: Zeus King of the Gods

by George O'Connor

I read George O'Connor's first graphic novel, Journey into Mohawk Country, and was pretty unimpressed, despite the fact that the subject matter is right up my alley.  When I saw reviews for Zeus, the first of his Olympian graphic novel series, I never realized that it was by the same creator; he has completely changed his style and approach for this book.

In these books, O'Connor is retelling the classic Greek myths for a more modern audience.  In many ways, he's borrowing a few pages from Lee and Kirby, envisioning these deities as the first superheroes, although he stays true to the essence and look of their sources.

This volume deals with the creation of the world, and the way in which Zeus led his brothers and sisters to overthrow the Titans.  There's plenty of action, and a pretty quick-moving plot.  There are a few places where O'Connor has played with the characters' motivations to make them easier to relate to and understand, but for the most part, he's gone for a faithful portrayal (although I'm not sure why he leaves out the rivalry between Zeus and his siblings).

Artistically, he's come a long way.  I feel like the art is a bit of a mix between early Mike Mignola and Michael Avon Oeming, if that makes sense.  He really works at portraying the differences in size between the Titans and the Olympians, which I thought made the battle scenes pretty effective.  My favourite character design would have to be for the Hekatonchieres, the hundred-handed creatures that guard Tartarus.  They have hands coming out of their fingers, in a very fractal design that I thought was cool.

While I enjoyed this book, I thought that it was too short for the full hardcover treatment - the story was only 66 pages, with some back matter used to round things out.  I would not have been happy to pay full price for something so short.