Zeus: King of the Gods, Olympians #1 by George O'Connor (Neal Porter/First Second, $16.99 hardcover, 9781596436251/1596436255; $9.99 paperback, 9781596434318/1596434317; 80 pp., ages 9-12, January 2010)
Here it is! The book you've been waiting for: the first in a 12-book graphic novel series about the Greek gods, called Olympians. And it's just in time to satiate the kids waiting anxiously for The Lightning Thief's movie release (and aimed at the same age readers). Going back to sources from antiquity, including Homer and Hesiod, George O'Connor begins his story with the creation of the gods and lays the foundation for their famous jealousies and rash actions. For starters, Ouranos (the sky), husband to Gaea (Mother Earth), favors his Titan offspring ("They were ageless and beautiful and so tall that their heads scraped the sky") over the one-eyed Cyclopes and Hekatonchieres (each of which has 50 heads and 100 hands). So Ouranos condemns the latter two lines to a chasm deep within the earth. Gaea (pronounced GHEE-uh), however, wants all of her children to be free. So, at her urging and with Kronos in the lead, the Titans "cut open the sky" and drain Ouranos of power. Much to Gaea's dismay, Kronos, now ruler of the Titans, "has too much of his father in him," and he, too, refuses to free his brothers below the earth. So she appeals to the next generation--Zeus.
O'Connor, who early on demonstrated his love of comics with his debut picture book, Kapow!, taps into the more complex visual characterizations he explored in his artwork for last fall's Ball Peen Hammer (by Adam Rapp) here. Kronos and Zeus, even at their most chilling, never lose their dimension or their charisma. The artist uses long vertical cartoon panels in wine, rust and midnight-blue tones to emphasize the commanding grace of the Titans, as well as the "new life" that arises from the drops of Ouranos's blood (and the text plants seeds to further installments: "What came from that [pink froth] is a tale for another day"). The first sight of a maturing Zeus warrants a full page and a much lighter palette in terra cotta, forest green and robin's egg blue. Eight equal panels chronicle Zeus's transformation into an eagle ("To be an Olympian... was to be able to change shape as others change their mind"), and when Zeus meets Metis (a daughter to Oceanus and future mother of Athena), the story shifts from the omniscient narrator's voice to direct dialogue between the pair. But the climactic duel between Kronos and Zeus (father and son) is O'Connor's crowning achievement here. While carefully adhering to the Greek legends, O'Connor endows these mythic characters with a freshness and magnetism that will attract even today's visually savvy youth.--Jennifer M. Brown
