“I recommend ignoring the idea of this being a retelling of the Odyssey. Okay, it’s about a warrior who has to make the journey home. This seems to be a big touch point for people, but honestly I could give a shit. That’s like saying that any romance between two people that ends in tragedy is a take-off on Romeo and Juliet. This story may have been inspired by the Odyssey, but I think that idea puts off as many people as it attracts, so feel free to ignore it.
People also tend to give this kind of thing credit because it somewhat accurately predicted the future in terms of U.S. military action. But that’s getting excited over the history of the story as opposed to the story itself. I’ve said a lot about my feelings on that already, so I won’t go into overkill other than to say something accurately predicting the future doesn’t really make a fictional story better or worse in and of itself.
There’s also a subplot. I’m honestly a little confused. The main character’s wife is at home waiting for him to make a post-apocalyptic journey across the world. Meanwhile, it seems that things on the homefront have also fallen apart, but too a lesser degree. The wife apparently controls some kind of water? Owns water rights? Has the ability to poison the water if she decides to? This puts her at the center of some conflicts, but it’s kind of silly. I mean, why would anyone give one half of one fuck about water rights in a semi-apocalyptic situation? I would think water rights would be one of the first things we would go ahead and forget about.
The two stories also lose a lot of steam when they come together, which isn’t a great sign. Most narratives start to get exciting as the different strands come together, but in this one the stronger story was dragged down by its integration into the weaker.
The main plot, the return of the guy, is a 4-star story. The subplot, the odd, confusing conflict over water rights is maybe a 2. Maybe.
It should be noted that the individual issues were written over a 5-year period. So I think that might have something to do with the odd feeling.
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