Olympians: Zeus

Review in 1/1 BooklistO'Connor unveils his new Olympians graphic-novel series with this story of the daddy of Greek gods. Most immediately striking about this, aside from the exciting artwork, is the care O'Connor takes to visualize the creation myth that begins with Gaea creating and taking as a husband the sky, Ouranos. Their children--the Titans and other proto-Olympian entities--are often neglected or at best murkily covered, but here they're vividly portrayed with all the magnificence of their beyond-good-and-evil power. After this breathtaking and lengthy sequence, Zeus enters the scene to grow from a feisty nymph-needling youth to a lightning bolt-wielding avenger. The extended, earth-shattering battle he wages with his father, Kronos, takes up the bulk of the story, delivering page after page of cataclysmic blows with the sensibility and hyperkinetic pacing of a literary superhero comic. While O'Connor includes a generous bounty of bonus materials to gratify myth hounds, this series could well become the initiation point for a new cadre of acolytes. New volumes should come quickly, with Athena's book due in April 2010.Review in 2/1 "Publisher's Weekly"O'Connor ("Kapow!"; "Journey into Mohawk Country") embarks on a new project: a series of graphic novels for young readers about Greek mythology ("Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess" follows in April, with "Hera" and "Hades" in the pipeline). While the D'Aulaires' "Book of Greek Myths" is the gold standard for illustrated introductions to Greek mythology, O'Connor offers a modern take with a new view of these "original superhero stories" with gritty yet heroic art and spare prose that lets the myths speak for themselves. The story is the one most schoolchildren know--the Titans created Zeus and Hera, as well as the Cyclopes, and adventure ensued--but O'Connor brings the young gods to life with memorable compositions and attention to detail (childlike fear on Hera's face as she navigates the treacherous new wo