The First Superheroes

George O'Connor

George O'Connor refers to the Olympians--the Greek gods led by Zeus--as "the first superheroes." They may not undergo a Clark Kent–like transformation, but O'Connor portrays them with some very human qualities. Poseidon, for instance, has never quite forgiven Zeus for taking full credit for the demise of their father, Kronos the Titan, "the all-devouring." 

The Greek myths have always fascinated me, from elementary school right through my college thesis (on James Joyce's Ulysses; Poseidon hates Odysseus--another name for Ulysses--for blinding his son, the Cyclops called Polyphemos). I thought I knew a great deal about these stories, but O'Connor prompts us to consider them from a number of perspectives. Poseidon is his fifth in the Olympians series.

The author-artist demonstrates the Olympians' difficult childhood (a father who ate them out of fear they'd cause his demise--they caused it anyway) and their infighting due to jealousies both petty and well-founded. My favorite of his retellings thus far may be Hera, because O'Connor brings to light another side of her; she's so often portrayed as the jealous wife overshadowed by Zeus. O'Connor's take on the 10 labors of Heracles (also known as Hercules) posits that Hera's assignment of them strengthened Heracles's character, to complement his physical prowess. However, with Poseidon, O'Connor's use of the comic book format hits a new level, even by the high standards he'd already established with his first four books. 

Chiefly, in the series of images that chronicle Poseidon's son Theseus entering the labyrinth to face the Minotaur--O'Connor blows open the confines of the book-as-object. O'Connor divides the pages to emulate the labyrinth itself. The first double-page spread shows Theseus tying the red thread (that will help him find his way back) in the upper left-hand corner, a series of horizontal L-shaped panels track his journey, and his first sighting of the Minotaur appears in a vertical panel at the far right of the spread. A turn of the page reveals the eye of the Minotaur (with Theseus reflected there) in the upper left-hand corner, a series of vertical L-shaped panels depicts their struggle across the double-page spread, and, in a vertical panel in the lower right-hand corner, Theseus reaches for his sword, which he'd dropped in the conflict. The next page shows Theseus's climactic victory. It's an achievement in design, pacing and visual storytelling.

O'Connor takes ancient stories we may think we know well and take for granted, and endows them with immediacy and emotion, proving their relevance today. Triumph, defeat, love, jealousy, strength, weakness, joy and sorrow. It's all here, playing out in well-orchestrated panels and full-spread illustrations. Twelve are planned, but perhaps he'll do more? We can only hope. 

The author-artist is not only extremely talented, but generous, too. When I interviewed George O'Connor for School Library Journal's Curriculum Connections, he shared the 5 steps of his creative process, so kids can make their own comics.

Connecting Past and Present

Rick Riordan has zeroed in on my two favorite topics when I was in school: Greek myths (with his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series) and ancient Egypt (with the launch of his Kane Chronicles series earlier this month, The Red Pyramid).

In Mrs. Hecker’s seventh-grade English class I remember really locking onto the Greek myths. I had always been fascinated by them, but there’s something about the Greek gods that speaks to that point of embarkation into puberty. Perhaps it’s the adolescent behavior of many of them. Anyway, I guess you could say I never really stopped focusing on Greek mythology because I did my senior thesis in college on James Joyce’s Ulysses (which also led me back to Homer’s The Odyssey).

Some of you are likely too young to remember when the contents of Tutankhamun's tomb first traveled around the country. Again, I believe I was in junior high when King Tut came through Chicago, a mere 3-hour drive from Kalamazoo, my hometown. For the first time, all the things I’d read about and the photos I’d seen in National Geographic were sitting there in front of me in three dimensions. That made an enormous impression on me. But what I hadn’t known before reading Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles was the depth of influence of what was called The House of Life--the ancient school of Egyptian magic.

The House of Life earned its name because the practicing magicians were healers (through the spells they cast), and they also staved off curses and thus protected Egypt's Pharaohs. For all of us who believe that words and books can create entire worlds and spark new philosophies, there’s a precedent for that in the House of Life as well. The ancient Egyptians believed that hieroglyphs themselves created magic. As Rick Riordan put it in a recent interview:

“The ancient Egyptians considered all writing magic. They had to be careful: if they created the word ‘cat,’ they had to deface it slightly, because they believed they could create a cat. The idea was that the ultimate form of magic was to speak and the world began. You see that influence in the Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ All these ancient cultures dovetail, and they were all forming and evolving at the same time.”

It’s both awe-inspiring and humbling to think about how far-reaching our roots go. To think of America, almost two-and-a-half centuries old, with seeds planted half a world away and thousands of years old makes the planet seem a bit smaller, doesn’t it? Like Carter and Sadie, the sibling protagonists of Riordan’s new series, we begin to see portals to the past all over the place.