ODY-C #3 Review

writer: Matt Fraction / artist: Christian Ward / Image Comics “Who the good fuck are these whores in my home?” If you had any trouble with the first two ODY-C books from Fraction and Ward completely going egg whipper on your brain, then you might as well take some Tylenol now. Shit gets wild. You’ll notice that there’s a man in the first page of this book. Just kidding. It’s Zeus watching her child be born, but disguising her true form. Hera—who is either tired of Zeus’s infidelity, loves to destroy mortals for her malicious appetite, or both—makes Zeus reveal her true self to her latest fling and BOOM, mortal parts all over the place. No mortal can take in the sight of Zeus in her true form, so we have a new child (Dionysus) and mortal remains all over the page, accompanied by an ornery Hera. This is how this book begins and it keeps that tone for the remainder of the issue. There is some political maneuvering among the gods, but what you’re really here for is the battle between Odyssia and the Cylcops, one of the most famous stories from the Odyssey itself. Part of the fun of this book is seeing what Fraction will keep, leave out, create, invert or distort when it comes to the original Odyssey, but it’s safe to say that we were always going to get the Cyclops scene eventually. And it does not disappoint. Ward’s art is so custom-built for this book and its epically scaled, acid dream-like story. It is appropriately grotesque and unsettling when it needs to be. There’s also s…