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A review by dr_matthew_lloyd
Age of Bronze, Vol. 1: A Thousand Ships by Eric Shanower
2.0
In reading Volume 1 of Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze, it becomes apparent why [b:The Iliad|1371|The Iliad|Homer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388188509s/1371.jpg|3293141] and [b:The Odyssey|1381|The Odyssey|Homer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390173285s/1381.jpg|3356006] survived the millennia, while the rest of the epic cycle come down to us only in fragments: it's really, really dull. While the Iliad has themes of glory and revenge, mortality and memory, alongside quite literally epic battle scenes, and the Odyssey is an archetypal story of there-and-back-again, monsters at the edge of the world, loss and recovery, the early scenes from the epic cycle include beauty contests with gods, irrational love affairs, and the politics of idiocy. It is very difficult for most modern adaptations of this story to really capture a good reason why Paris/Alexander should abduct (or elope with, or rape) Helen and get away with it, why Priam and Troy should protect him, and why the Achaeans should all attack Troy. Shanower's version removes the gods - more on which later - but doesn't remove religious obligation, visions, or prophecy. This ties the characters up in events belong their control, which is really the case: Shanower expresses his desire not "to invent, but to tell anew", and thus surrenders himself to teleology - characters do what they do because that's what they do, not for any obvious motive. It's a sequence of events, in order, with generally the same characters. It's not much of a story.
While some of these problems may be with the sources for the story, Shanower's unwillingness to "invent" leaves the story and characters somewhat flat. This flatness is especially obvious in the case of the women in the story, the most obvious examples being three of the most powerful, evocative women from Greek mythology (Medea aside): Helen, Penelope, and Clytemnestra. Helen is introduced when the affair with Paris has already begun and she is running away with him. Apparently this is because Paris has made her realize what passion is, which, judging from the immaturity and idiocy with which Paris has been characterized in the earlier parts of the story, is difficult to believe. We don't even get to see her face until Paris reveals her to his fellow Trojans, thus removing her own agency or identity beyond her beauty. While Helen might not be an obvious character to make fascinating, Clytemnestra comes ready-made in Classical tragedy such as Aeschylus' [b:The Oresteia|1519|The Oresteia (Ορέστεια, #1-3)|Aeschylus|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466835778s/1519.jpg|2378] and Euripides' Elektra as fascinating. Yet all she gets in this volume is shushed by Agamemnon when glimpsed in his bed. Worst of all, Penelope, who is described by the poet of the Odyssey as the equal of her husband, just stands by and watches his scheme to avoid service when she should have been totally in on it. I'm reading A Thousand Ships in a post-[b:The Penelopiad|17645|The Penelopiad|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442806554s/17645.jpg|3016476] world, so perhaps my expectations for the characterization of Penelope are higher than that of readers when the comic book was originally published. But there is so much scope for creating a human Athena (especially if you're excluding the gods) that it's painful for it to be missed.
It's painfully obvious how much more interesting these women could be, but it doesn't stop there. The minor female characters are usually presented as boy-crazy, only interested in marrying a boy (usually the one that they actually do marry, to ensure that Paris and Helen are the only complication, with the exception of poor Polyxena). As with Helen, it's difficult to see what Oenone sees in Paris, or Deidamia in Achilles. But that's their point, so they do it. the boys, meanwhile, are all young, playful jokers who occasionally break from their care-free attitudes to have sex with one of the girls; meanwhile the men are all scowling, angry men blundering into a war without a point. It's nowhere near as interesting as Euripides' twist on the tale - the war was over Helen, but she was never in Troy.
This flatness is emphasised by the exclusion of the most interesting characters from Greek mythology. It's not an original idea to exclude the gods from the Trojan War, but it is almost invariably a bad one, especially as Achilles' mother is a god, and vital to the plot. Shanower's reasoning also doesn't hold up, in my opinion: "so many are quick to look beyond themselves for answers or to assign blame." The better twenty-first century metaphor would be to present the gods as powerful figures completely ignorant of the suffering and experience oftheir constituents the mortals who worship them; interested only in their own powers and plans, they create disaster on the lower orders, think themselves blameless, and suffer no consequences. I think the gods in epic are a perfect metaphor for the things we can't control; [a:Dan Simmons|2687|Dan Simmons|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1427999015p2/2687.jpg]'s storyline in [b:Ilium|3973|Ilium (Ilium, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390894862s/3973.jpg|3185401] and [b:Olympos|3972|Olympos (Ilium, #2)|Dan Simmons|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388216654s/3972.jpg|1537178], where the only solution to the war is to turn both Trojans and Achaeans on the gods who oppress them , is a much better use of this story. Put simply, the gods are more essential to epic than the structure of the story. It may be unbelievable with them, but it's even more so without.
On "believability", it may be clear to anyone who has read my review of [b:The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction|16685187|The Trojan War A Very Short Introduction|Eric H. Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1355906159s/16685187.jpg|22901196] by [a:Eric H. Cline|106142|Eric H. Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1233696406p2/106142.jpg], I have strong feelings about the historicity of the Trojan War, especially it's Bronze Age setting. Put simply, I do not think that anything is gained by debating whether or not the Trojan War is based on an historical event, as in the format in which the story comes down to us that historical event is completely unrecoverable. Shanower repeats a lot of the problematic statements which Cline makes in his "Afterword", and indeed Cline is thanked in the acknowledgements. But that being said, I actually enjoyed the Bronze Age anacro-mulch which is the setting of this volume. After all, an amalgamation of different chronological bits is the material culture setting of the epics. Shanower's dismissal of the Classical look is disheartening, especially as Agamemnon is specifically said in the Iliad to have had a Gorgoneion shield which would not have existed before the seventh century; and personally I think the best setting would be an eighth/seventh century style Aegean, but the Bronze Age largely works. I'm not so sure about the Horns of Consecration (a Minoan religious symbol) on the Palace of Nestor, nor Shanower's assertion in the "Afterword" that Agamemnon had a face which could be reconstructed (he didn't, because he's not real). But the look of the volume is quite nice, even if it's not quite any actual period of the Late Bronze Age exactly.
If I were to characterize the problem with Age of Bronze as an idea, I'd say it was entirely Shanower's desire to retell without invention. There are clearly some creative decisions being made, but a reluctance to say anything interesting, to do anything besides tell a story. He wants to make it relevant, it seems, if his reason for excluding the gods is anything to go by, but there's no other evidence of any attempt to actually do that. He's amalgamating the inventions of other people, such as Troilus and Cressida, which was a medieval story, and doesn't really see the disjuncture between being willing to include that, but nothing of his own. It ends up coming across as flavourless. I'd rather have a story which I hated but which crafted these mythological characters into people than this bland reiterating of plot points which I already knew.
While some of these problems may be with the sources for the story, Shanower's unwillingness to "invent" leaves the story and characters somewhat flat. This flatness is especially obvious in the case of the women in the story, the most obvious examples being three of the most powerful, evocative women from Greek mythology (Medea aside): Helen, Penelope, and Clytemnestra. Helen is introduced when the affair with Paris has already begun and she is running away with him. Apparently this is because Paris has made her realize what passion is, which, judging from the immaturity and idiocy with which Paris has been characterized in the earlier parts of the story, is difficult to believe. We don't even get to see her face until Paris reveals her to his fellow Trojans, thus removing her own agency or identity beyond her beauty. While Helen might not be an obvious character to make fascinating, Clytemnestra comes ready-made in Classical tragedy such as Aeschylus' [b:The Oresteia|1519|The Oresteia (Ορέστεια, #1-3)|Aeschylus|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466835778s/1519.jpg|2378] and Euripides' Elektra as fascinating. Yet all she gets in this volume is shushed by Agamemnon when glimpsed in his bed. Worst of all, Penelope, who is described by the poet of the Odyssey as the equal of her husband, just stands by and watches his scheme to avoid service when she should have been totally in on it. I'm reading A Thousand Ships in a post-[b:The Penelopiad|17645|The Penelopiad|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442806554s/17645.jpg|3016476] world, so perhaps my expectations for the characterization of Penelope are higher than that of readers when the comic book was originally published. But there is so much scope for creating a human Athena (especially if you're excluding the gods) that it's painful for it to be missed.
It's painfully obvious how much more interesting these women could be, but it doesn't stop there. The minor female characters are usually presented as boy-crazy, only interested in marrying a boy (usually the one that they actually do marry, to ensure that Paris and Helen are the only complication, with the exception of poor Polyxena). As with Helen, it's difficult to see what Oenone sees in Paris, or Deidamia in Achilles. But that's their point, so they do it. the boys, meanwhile, are all young, playful jokers who occasionally break from their care-free attitudes to have sex with one of the girls; meanwhile the men are all scowling, angry men blundering into a war without a point. It's nowhere near as interesting as Euripides' twist on the tale - the war was over Helen, but she was never in Troy.
This flatness is emphasised by the exclusion of the most interesting characters from Greek mythology. It's not an original idea to exclude the gods from the Trojan War, but it is almost invariably a bad one, especially as Achilles' mother is a god, and vital to the plot. Shanower's reasoning also doesn't hold up, in my opinion: "so many are quick to look beyond themselves for answers or to assign blame." The better twenty-first century metaphor would be to present the gods as powerful figures completely ignorant of the suffering and experience of
On "believability", it may be clear to anyone who has read my review of [b:The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction|16685187|The Trojan War A Very Short Introduction|Eric H. Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1355906159s/16685187.jpg|22901196] by [a:Eric H. Cline|106142|Eric H. Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1233696406p2/106142.jpg], I have strong feelings about the historicity of the Trojan War, especially it's Bronze Age setting. Put simply, I do not think that anything is gained by debating whether or not the Trojan War is based on an historical event, as in the format in which the story comes down to us that historical event is completely unrecoverable. Shanower repeats a lot of the problematic statements which Cline makes in his "Afterword", and indeed Cline is thanked in the acknowledgements. But that being said, I actually enjoyed the Bronze Age anacro-mulch which is the setting of this volume. After all, an amalgamation of different chronological bits is the material culture setting of the epics. Shanower's dismissal of the Classical look is disheartening, especially as Agamemnon is specifically said in the Iliad to have had a Gorgoneion shield which would not have existed before the seventh century; and personally I think the best setting would be an eighth/seventh century style Aegean, but the Bronze Age largely works. I'm not so sure about the Horns of Consecration (a Minoan religious symbol) on the Palace of Nestor, nor Shanower's assertion in the "Afterword" that Agamemnon had a face which could be reconstructed (he didn't, because he's not real). But the look of the volume is quite nice, even if it's not quite any actual period of the Late Bronze Age exactly.
If I were to characterize the problem with Age of Bronze as an idea, I'd say it was entirely Shanower's desire to retell without invention. There are clearly some creative decisions being made, but a reluctance to say anything interesting, to do anything besides tell a story. He wants to make it relevant, it seems, if his reason for excluding the gods is anything to go by, but there's no other evidence of any attempt to actually do that. He's amalgamating the inventions of other people, such as Troilus and Cressida, which was a medieval story, and doesn't really see the disjuncture between being willing to include that, but nothing of his own. It ends up coming across as flavourless. I'd rather have a story which I hated but which crafted these mythological characters into people than this bland reiterating of plot points which I already knew.