Same Hero, A Restored Vision

I want you to imagine someone for me. I want you to think of the first character that pops into your mind when I describe him. An orphan is blessed with god-like strength and agility. He has two fathers, one a celestial being responsible for his immense power but separated from him at birth, the other is a farmer who is responsible for his down-to-earth perspective and earnestness. This character is known the world over, he has been at the helm of many blockbusters and his influence can be felt all over modern storytelling.

If you guessed Superman, well I guess you're technically not wrong, though this is not the character I had in mind. I've been thinking about the original super man, Herakles, or Hercules, if you prefer the romanticized version of his name.

And that's what I've been doing for about 15 years. Or, should I say, what my writing partner Nicholas Adkins and I have been doing for the last 15 years; thinking about how we would do a Herakles story.

It all started, as many (of my) stories do, at Taco Bell. I specifically remember hanging out in a booth (one of the old school pastel ones) with my friends when Nick turned to me and said, "You know what's never been done?"

"What's that?" came my answer.

"Herakles."

I knew exactly what he meant. That's what happens when you share a bond with a writing partner. A lot tends to go unsaid.

He meant a true blood-and-guts honest portrayal of the Greek demi-god found in Greek mythology, the one modern society calls Hercules. Not the rose-tinted, Disney-fied version, not Arnold Schwarzenegger in New York, and not Dwayne Johnson in a wig, but the Herakles we find on the pages of Euripides, Hesiod, and Herodotus. We saw a man, a king among men, a god, with the power to squash a man's head with one hand, and the evil of men inside his heart.

That was something we would want to read. That idea always inspired us. Herakles, flaws and all, surrounded on all sides by the decadence and danger that is the tapestry of Greek mythology.

Even the name itself represented a unique opportunity. General audiences know him by his Roman name as a result of our spot in the timeline of world history: downstream from Rome. Conventional wisdom would say it is better (easier) marketing to cash in on this public awareness. But we always felt the name was the first opportunity for us to make a bold statement: this ain't your grand-dad's Hercules. This is something completely different.

But more than that, we never took it much further. Partly because we just knew it would never happen, and partly because it would hurt worse to have it all figured out and nothing ever come of it. So it stayed on the back-burner, occasionally being brought up in passing but never developed. Until I received a message from Antonio Diaz.

Antonio is a fantastic Peruvian illustrator and story-teller who had previously contracted me to write Femme Fatale for him. We met in Excited Comics, a Facebook group of like-minded comic creators looking to collaborate and strive for success together. I had a lot of fun working with Antonio, I mean a lot. He drew every insane thing I threw at him and still managed to surprise me. So when he messaged me one day, I was hoping it was to write something new, but I couldn't have imagined it would be the ultimate on my writing bucket list.

"Hey bro, what do you know about Hercules?"

In an instant, it was like a flash before my eyes. All at once, I just knew Antonio wanted to do his own version of the Herakles story, and he was testing the waters to see if I had any interest in writing it. So, I proceeded to tell him what I knew, and what I felt was missing from the vast numbers of adaptations out there. I told him how I would do the character if it were me, the tone of the stories, a vague outline of an arc, pretty much the basic cliffnotes of what Nick and I had decided years before.

Then he told me I had the job. I immediately told him about Nicholas Adkins and how the project would suffer without his involvement. He gave me his blessing and I told Nick everything. It was a couple kids' dreams come true. We had a visual storyteller who could tell the tale in all its beauty, its majesty, and its terror (no small feat). And he was trusting us with guiding the ship. We had complete creative control, and he was signing up to draw whatever elaborate scenes we could dream up.

I can't lie to you. I stared at the empty legal pad for a good fifteen minutes. Not out of fear, or hesitation. Just soaking in the moment. Once I started writing, I would finally be working on Herakles.

Following that inital writing session I messaged Wesley Callihan, a teacher and author I follow online that many regard to be an expert in Old Western Culture. I asked him for all the works he could remember off of the top of his head that either told Herakles' story, or utilized him as a character in some way. He was gracious enough to share the following list with me:

Hesiod, Shield of Herakles

Pindar

Sophocles, Women of Trachis

Euripides, Herakles

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca

Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica

Hesiod, Theogony

Aeschylus, Prometheus Unbound

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Iliad

Aristophanes, The Frogs

Herodotus, about Scythia (bk 3? 4?)

Ovid, Metamorphosis

So that's pretty much it for right now. We've spent a good few months researching, finding what facets of the character we want to portray and the different sides of the story we want to explore. What they don't tell you about writing a comic book is that, if you're doing it the right way, you're really writing all of them; you're building the world, casting it with colorful characters, and starting them on a journey that needs to go somewhere. And it better be somewhere interesting that justifies coming back for more. So that takes time, and a story as grandiose as Herakles takes even longer, but progress is being made.

There is some concept art floating around from Antonio, but obviously we don't want to show you all anything just yet. You'll just have to make do with these blog updates and a couple bibliophile pics until the time comes. Just know that a lot of love and care is going into this project, with equal parts awe and respect. I believe we've cracked the story, and we have a unique perspective from which we are telling it. But only time will tell. Until next time folks, be brave, and be stout of heart!