Title: Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory
Series: Olympians #3
Previous books in this series: Zeus: King of the Gods (#1) | Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess (#2)
Author: George O'Connor
Genre: Middle Grade, graphic novel, fantasy, Greek mythology
Publication date: July 2011
Published by: First Second
Source: Purchased paperback
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Synopsis: There's only one thing Zeus, the king of the Gods, is afraid of. It isn't the many-headed Hydra or the towering Gigantes. It isn't his powerful, jealous brother Poseidon, the god of the seas. Monsters, gods, Titans—none of them make the mighty Zeus blink an eye.
The only thing Zeus fears is his wife: Hera. Goddess of the air, the sky, and the heavens, patroness of the cunning Jason, and scourge of the mighty Heracles, Hera rivals Zeus in power—and surpasses him in wrath.
This volume of the Olympians focuses on Hera, the Greek goddess of marriage. For being the goddess of marriage, she really married the worst guy possible...
“What use is a queen to one such as you?”
Hera to Zeus when he was, uh, wooing her. You have to admit it’s a fair question if you know Zeus at all. Lol.
One thing that always annoyed me about the myths is how when Zeus would go have a fling and have a child Hera would always take it out on those innocent children. But honestly, it makes sense why she never went after Zeus (well, she did once and it didn’t end well for her 👀): because he’s so powerful she would never get away with it.
One such child she tortured endlessly is Heracles (aka Hercules). This graphic novel goes a little into how and why his labors got started, what the labors were, and all that. I really enjoyed that quick little rundown. (One thing I’ve always loved is the fact that they named Heracles, well, Heracles, because you know what that name means? “Glory of Hera” 😂 I guess they did it to appease her? Appeased she was not. Hence the labors. Lol. But by the end, it kinda makes sense why they call him the glory of Hera.)
I also learned some very interesting things about Hera that I did not know before. The end of the graphic novel claimed that one day a year she reverts to her maidenhood when she is no longer queen or goddess of marriage, and it is implied that she goes off and does what Zeus does on basically a daily basis 👀 This was news to me! I was like, where the heck did the author get this info! But I’ve started to read the author’s notes at the end of each volume because that’s where he talks about all the behind-the-scenes of the series if you will. Where he got the inspiration and information and all that good stuff. Everything in his series have all been grabbed from one source or another in history. It was very interesting! I love learning new things! Especially when it comes to Greek mythology!
But yeah, I really enjoyed this volume! It was fun and it was a really good retelling of a couple of myths about the goddess of marriage.
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