Odysseus The Rebel: Homer Revised
In the Greek epic of Odyssey, Homer describes the return journey of the Greek hero Odysseus from Troy to Ithaca. After devising the strategy of the Trojan Horse and leading the Greek side to victory after a prolonged war of ten years, he had to wander for another ten years in the seas due to the wrath of Poseidon. His journey divides the Greek gods into two groups: those who support him and those who oppose him. In Homer's version, Odysseus is basically a ping-pong ball at the mercy of the gods.
Odysseus the Rebel is a graphic novel that reimagines the Greek epic as a fierce proclamation by humans that gods don't matter. Here, we find an Odysseus who always challenges the superiority complex and sadistic ego of gods. When everything around him falls apart, he keeps his wit and fights hard. More than his strength and valour, it's his ability to think outside the box and come up with ingenious solutions that's highlighted in the book.
The gods fear that his victory will make them redundant and dispensable. Even when they finally let him forge his own path, it's due to their overconfidence that, as a human, Odysseus will soon die of old age and be forgotten, while they will continue to impose their might on the world. But he defies them even then, when, taking a deviation from the Homeric happily ever after version, he decides to go on another adventure to places where no gods exist and a man is free to execute his will.
The graphic novel, written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Scott Bieser, works as a metaphor for free will and the departure of humans from the influence of gods. It celebrates the iron will of a minority of people to fight against dogma and create their own path towards freedom. In the protagonist's fearless provocation towards forces far mightier than him and his will to deny them the pleasure of his submission, we find a glimpse of everyone in history who challenged the authorities and installed human will at the pinnacle of social evolution.