YOUNG JUSTICE #19

[superfangirl1]

Comments

[janegray]

"Awesome" is not a word I'd use to describe the knowledge that the Greek myths happened for real.

[bruinsfan]

I suppose the word's original meaning fits.

[scorntx]

"No-one ever said gods are nice. Gods are bad."

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Such was my thinking.

[zachbeacon]

*looks at the three on the left in the last panel*

So what exactly do they plan on doing to fight a god anyway? Maybe Tim has some Fourth World stuff he took from the Bat cave?

Also, it amuses me that both DC and Marvel - despite having completely different versions of Hercules - seem to have basically the same Zeus; a cranky old man who bitches about millennials*. I remember Mythological Zeus mostly just being horny and vengeful.

*By which I mean "people born in the last thousand years"...though he might just think it means "anyone younger than me". (Which is what most people complaining about millennials mean).

[tcampbell1000]

I figure it's because in both canons, Zeus is the Original Father of Heroes and yet has to stay very much on the sidelines while all these idiots in brightly colored costumes run around and get worshipped instead.

The alternatives would be a world that doesn't look enough like our own to tell relevant stories in, a comically sanitized version of Zeus like you get in Disney's Hercules, or a whole lot of shall-we-say problematic texts of Zeus continuing to act as he did in the myths ("She was beautiful and I wanted her, so I became a pair of Spanx and seduced her" "IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL IT???").

[zachbeacon]

The one that will always stick with me is the time he seduced Danaë by turning into "a shower of gold" ... which, I think, makes him the R. Kelly of the time.

[deh_tommy]

Depending on who’s telling, Zeus was either a serial rapist or everyone was all “TAKE ME NOW” against their better judgement because the forms he assumed were specifically catered to the individual he was seducing. Now I’m not one to kinkshame (mostly), but I’m somewhat curious at the amount of people who seemingly wanted to or did lie with animals in Ancient Greece.

[zachbeacon]

At least Norse Myth treats Loki like a weirdo for thinking "damn, that's one sexy horse". With Greek Mythology I just get the sense that everyone was really into bestiality. "Sure, your highness, the Minotaur exists because your line was 'cursed by the gods' and not because your wife got down with some livestock". Didn't Zeus once "romance" someone as a goose? Those things are nightmare animals.

(I feel like this is the one time its okay to kinkshame)

[deh_tommy]

Don’t underestimate the power of horny, I guess..

In the myth I’m familiar with, the Minotaur was the offspring of Minos’ wife and their prized bull. Said bull was meant to be sacrificed to Poseidon but was so fine that Minos went back on his word, leading to Poseidon enchanting Minos’ wife into falling in love with the bull in retaliation.

[zachbeacon]

The (probably sugarcoated) version I remembered as a kid was that Poseidon cursed the unborn child of the king and queen to become a monster but the Wikipedia version agrees with your version so there's also the possibility I just don't remember it correctly. After all, my memory also seems to have combined Minos and Midas into a composite character who was around for the Minotaur, Icarus, and the whole golden touch thing.

In my defense, since when does someone in a Greek Myth have to be enchanted into being with an animal?

[donnblake]

Nah, that's Minos for the Minotaur and the Icarus incident, Midas for the touch of gold, and also getting donkey ears after failing to vote for Apollo in a talent show.

[zachbeacon]

Donkey ears? I'm pretty sure that was something that happened to the the bronze giant Talos after it wished to be a real boy.

Joking aside, Midas got off easy on that one. Arachne got turned into a spider for showing up Athena (thankfully I don't believe there were any judges present for that one).

[donnblake]

Yeah- Apollo's actual opponent there was Pan, so he got off pretty okay, though Marsyas, being a mere Satyr, didn't fare so well after his own contest with Apollo.

[zachbeacon]

I like to think Pan is just too weird to curse.

"I'll shall give you the legs of ... no, someone beat me to it"

"You shall be sexually attracted to ...no, that won't work either."

[jlbarnett]

Zeus was also supposed to be a god of justice and hospitality as I understand it. I often feel like you could do a lot with him

[scorntx]

You'd think in a world where Wonder Woman exists, and everything about ancient Greek mythology is apparently real (for a given value of real), characters might have more drive to actually study it, for their own good.
[insert pithy commentary about American education system here]

(nobody's ever worried about getting attacked by Pele, ooh no, it's just European myths you gotta watch for...)

[tcampbell1000]

"I choose another path."
"May I ask what that path IS?"
"...I mean, you're lookin' at it, that's the point of us all getting together and posing like this. It's VISUAL COMMUNICATION, Gramps. I know you don't have a Snapchat, but you appeared on a few vases in your day--"
"HOW DARE YOU, I AM SEXTING MILLIONS OF WOMEN WITH A BOT AS WE SPEAK"

I understand Cassie's reluctance to be part of a system that seems to be all glory and little actual help to the world, but the perks of immortality and becoming the literal goddess of a thing seem to be dismissed far too easily by putting them in the mouths of newbs who just don't get it.

Maybe it's just my age showing, or maybe it's Adult Cassie's role in other stories, but I can't help but think this is an enormously under-informed decision driven by the natural teenage impulse to rebel and not a remotely rational consideration of the possibilities. Even Diana joined the Pantheon for a while, Cass! Maybe at least ask what your responsibilities would actually be? Because if it was going to be like Hercules' deal in Marvel, that would've been pretty sweet and basically indistinguishable from what you're doing now, only with much better health insurance.

[icon_uk]

True, though, despite her repeatedly mentioning that Zeus is her grandfather, she doesn't mention that her father is ARES!

Ares' children tended to be a bit of a mixed bag I mean not many would likely want to be Phobos or Deimos. Harmonia seems to have been okay, but Eros caused all sorts of problems.

Given his rep I would certainly be deeply suspicious of Zeus showing up all of a sudden and offering you a deal THAT good (assuming there's not some catch like, you're immortal, but you won't have eternal youth, which didn't end well for Tithonus)

Diana joined the pantheon a couple of reboots ago as the Goddess of Truth and that was hardly a sweet gig given the Pantheon's tendency to be less than generous with the truth and she quit the job didn't she?

[deh_tommy]

There was that one time she became the God of War after killing Ares, but that got retconned as the Gods fudging with her the whole time so she wouldn’t find Paradise Island ever again and/or unleash the “real” Ares on the world.

[tcampbell1000]

The thing about being Ares' child is, I don't think owning it changes who you are. I mean, I don't think Deimos was going to be a dog-loving accountant with a rock band, and then one day Daddy showed up and said "Free immortality if you pull my finger" and turned Deimos into a monster who scared his bandmates to death.

I don't remember how or if Diana's gig as Goddess of Truth came to an end, I think it was killed by the Goddess of Reboots (who I guess is Perpetua), but my point is that if a trial period of goddessship is good enough for Diana, then no offense, but it's definitely good enough for Cassie.

There could easily be a catch, but this version of Zeus seems so open to discussion ("May I ask why?") that she could just as easily ask him more about the nature of the deal instead of having brief, tense meetings and then going off on her own to decide, based on hunches and impressions and not a single interview with anyone in the know, that this'd be just like the deal Meghan Markle walked away from, only with togas.

This storyline is a good example of a recurring problem for Bendis: coming up with an amazing idea, writing stage-play scenes of dialogue about the idea, and then rushing the plot to a conclusion so fast that most of its potential is wasted. Without really trying, I can come up with at least three more interesting versions: (1) Cassie tentatively accepts godhood, immediately helps millions of people but soon falls in with the Pantheon and worries how they'll change her; (2) Cassie rejects godhood, Zeus is like "actually you don't get a choice, I just thought talking about it first would make the transition easier," instills her with divine power and then leaves her to figure out how not to blow up everything she touches, (3) Cassie seems ready to refuse godhood, so Zeus nudges events until YJ is so far up shit creek that she really has no choice but to accept if she wants her friends to live.

Any of these three versions and more besides could circle back to Cassie's status quo in the end or not. They'd all be more of a thrill ride than dissing royals in a coffee shop, bracketed by very brief and perfunctory fight scenes.

[armycat23]

The dialogue isnt as cringy as the first 18 issues.....but the story is meh and unoriginal. It takes a certain talent to stop me reading a comic that features conner kent.....but Bendis did it. Hes the only writer that has done it.

[reveen]

Good old Zeus. You are a great warrior and worthy heir to the legacy of Olympus, you fucking idiot. Piece of shit. Fuck you.