The first entry in Edouard Cour’s Herakles trilogy was an unabashedly non-classical take on the Hercules myth that throttled through the hero’s first eight legendary labors in service to Eurystheus, the king of Argos, as penance for Hercules’s effrontery to Hera for being the bastard son of her husband Zeus. Read about it here. Book two picks up where the first volume left off, chronicling Hercules’s final four and ever-increasingly difficult tasks. Just as the first book was, the second volume is a triumphantly singular work of a talented creator with an unorthodox but still faithful take on the well-known tale.
Written by Edouard CourCover by Edouard Cour
Illustrated by Edouard Cour
Translated by Jeremy MelloulAuthor Edouard Cour revisits one of the greatest Greek myths by painting the often-heroic Herakles as, well . . . somewhat of a jerk. Crude and stubborn at times, in little glimpses we meet a man-half-human, after all-with a psychology more complex than he appears, entangled in guilt over the ghosts who have haunted him since childhood. A mournful sadness seizes him as he crosses the fleeting silhouettes of a woman and her three children. “Friends or foe, all those who cross his path end up stiff and worm food,” comments Linos, the ghost of his childhood music teacher. Brimming with pathos and dark humor, this portrait of Herakles is a graphic whirlwind leaving little respite and often revealing beautiful surprises. This second volume follows the titular hero on four more of his epic quests, each one a stepping-stone in his growth as both man and god.
With book two, Cour continues not so much to reimagine the tale of Hercules as he manages to reframe it, presenting it as the story of a demi-god who cannot help but destroy everything he touches, a valuable skill for a mighty warrior but somewhat inconvenient for a man who may aspire to more or even a simpler existence. While the first book heavily leaned into Hercules’s haunted relationship with the Gods of Olympus, book two provides no rest for Alcides (Hercules’s given name), if our hero ever really tires at all. Instead, the book focuses on Hercules’s quest to fulfill his final labors and inserts an increasing number of unexpected detours and roadblocks as the inevitability of each task’s success becomes evident. As with many seemingly invulnerable heroes, the trick is to make them relatable in some way otherwise it robs them of nuance and their accompanying narrative of drama. Cour manages to provide both by depicting Hercules as a mentally and emotionally taxed traveller who takes no joy in his immense strength beyond the solace that it may eventually provide him. To be honest, Hercules is a bit of a meathead, but his admirably simple aspirations leave reader’s rooting for him at each step along the way of his known world-spanning journey. As the story progresses, readers empathize even more with his plight. He’s a man with with immense power who constantly is preyed upon, taken advantage of, and manipulated by scheming others. He has a right to be a little grumpy about it all.
What Cour does so well in this saga, and indeed again in this book, is to infuse his retelling with enough deadpan humor that it makes the narrative’s tragedy palpable and even more surprisingly and emotionally effective. It is a tragicomedy in every sense of the conveniently apt word. It’s too reductive to call this volume more of the same that we saw in volume one. If anything, Cour continues to make even more daring narrative choices, namely by having much of the large-scale action take place “off screen,” a positively Shakespearian conceit that is no longer the norm for modern audiences. We clamor to see the big battles and claim to feel cheated if we don’t even if the prelude and the aftermath are infinitely more dramatic and rousing than knuckle-dusting and carnage. Here, it reinforces the thematic thrust of the saga and underlies the difficulties that a life of violence hath wrought, and by the time readers reach this volume’s tragic and brutal final pages it’s abundantly clear that there’s more to this story than feats of strength. With a third of the saga to go, Cour leaves little doubt about what’s important in his story.
As for the book’s art, the choices that Cour makes in his saga continue to be surprising, from the depiction of Hercules giving Atlas a much-needed vacation to our hero’s descent into Hades, each oversized panel demands close and rewarding scrutiny. “Herakles” continues to set a high bar for what’s possible on a comic book page in terms of pacing and tone-setting design. The Hades pages in particular are masterful in conveying the nightmarish disorientation of entering the underworld, the absence of natural light, and the setting’s overwhelming dread. Cour’s lines are swirls of refined hatching and his figure drawing is a cartoon-lover’s delight. Even Cour’s lettering is imaginatively first-rate, and his colors, that remain firmly and primarily relegated autumnal reds and golds, give the pages a dreamily arcane quality, perhaps the most traditionally classical aspect of the book aside from its rigorous adherence to the key points of the Hercules myth.
Once again, Lion Forge has produced a beautiful book worthy of its contents. Like their now-trademark rounded-corners, this volume features other production flourishes like the foil stamping, high quality paper, and binding that accompanied the first volume. The lovingly presented appendix is not so much bonus material as valuable resource for increased enjoyment of the book. Readers may even find it worthwhile to refer back to volume one’s back matter as well. Lion Forge’s Magnetic Collection continues to be a vital part of the comic book landscape, and with Lion Forge’s recent merger with Oni Press, one can only hope that there are plans to continue to deliver this kind of superlative translated content to those of us in the English-speaking world. As for Hercules, his tale concludes in “Herakles” Book Three due out this Summer, and the set will undoubtedly make a handsome and immensely re-readable addition to your shelves.
