I’m going to assume that you, my daring readers, either read the review on Monday or the book itself so I can skip the basic premise of the book. But keep that premise in the back of your minds, okay?
Athena opens the book by teaching Amadeus a lesson about knowing himself, how the smartest of us often lose sight of themselves and, thereby, defeat themselves. That’s important, so file it away for later. We then start the action off with a run-in between Hercules and the Eternals. Now, the Eternals take a little bit of explanation, but I’m actually going to skip their Marvel Universe origin in lieu of telling you the outside-the-comics back story about them.
Hail to the King
Jack “The King” Kirby (at right) was one of the original architects of the Marvel Universe along with Stan Lee but even if you’ve heard about “The Man” You’ve probably never heard of the “The King.” Short version: Jack got muscled out. In retaliation, he went across the street to DC, home of Superman and Batman, and created the New Gods. Without going into too much detail, they were Kirby’s first shot at doing “gods of science.” They are the New Gods, heirs to the Old Gods, and they all have super-science fiction underpinnings since they are gods of a new age.
Eventually Jack “went home” to Marvel and wanted to keep playing in that same sandbox. This led to the creation of the Eternals who are a pale reflection of the New Gods. To me, this shallowness was natural since the two universes had different philosophical underpinnings. DC was more known for its “god like” characters and Marvel’s answer was to only create flawed heroes. The Eternals suffer from the Marvel Way because they are supposed to look, act, and feel like science gods but instead end up looking like a sad mess. If being a Marvel superhero sucks, then being a Marvel god must suck on an epic scale and the Eternals bear this out.
Identity Issues
So several Eternals show up and insist that Hercules isn’t actually Hercules but is, instead, one of their own who lost his memory and has become confused into thinking he’s the Lion of Olympus.
Despite some confusion in the middle of the discussion, Hercules finally denies it based on “I can’t be that guy, I fought that guy.” Shockingly, Herc is so obviously himself based on this comment that the Eternals are convinced.
Here’s a moment, though, when the writers are commenting on Marvel’s “feet of clay” heroes whether they meant to or not. Hercules is obviously a flawed hero and was (albeit less so) by ancient Greek standards. But he doesn’t see himself in the same way as the Marvel superheroes see themselves. He has tragedy and family issues and his own unchecked passions, but they never drag him down. Hercules is never going to think of himself as a hard luck hero despite all his tragedies. Does that make him less flawed? Or moreso?
I think the answer is less flawed because he never lets “real life” get him down, he never wallows in the abject misery in which you might find Spider-Man or the Thing. Even in the face of so many people watching him react (or not, as the case may be) to all this tragedy in his life and assuming he’s at best simple or, at worse, an idiot, Herc never gives in.
Hercules is almost a Third Way. He could be miserable about the horrible things that have happened to him or, worse, been caused by him. But instead, Herc decides to, in the words of Barney Stinson, just be more awesome. Who cares if his life sucks or people think he’s an idiot? He’s still Hercules, Lion of Olympus! So let’s go kick some ass, bag some babes, and quaff some ales! We might prefer to read about heroes written in the Marvel Way, but the Hercules Way seems like a much better way to be. And maybe that’s a lesson we can take from the Incredible Hercules.
To Be Continued…
So I’ve delved deeply into the real life lessons we can learn from Jack Kirby and a life lesson we can learn from Hercules, but I still haven’t even got to the point where Athena calls a meeting of the earthly pantheons to declare war on the Skrull gods. Please come back to a special Friday edition so we can talk about the rest of Sacred Invasion. See you then!
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