ARES

In the latest of his inimitable Olympians series, O’Connor comes around to Ares and the Trojan War.

The heroically ripped Ares is depicted howling maniacally on the cover and later thundering into the melee in a chariot driven by Eris, the goddess of discord and plainly (as the author puts it in his closing “G[r]eek Notes”) “crazier than an outhouse rat.” Ares is openly reviled by his father, Zeus, thoroughly drubbed by his cooler-headed half-sib Athena (“Bring it, blowhard!”) but ultimately savvy enough to see his father’s subtle hand in the war’s course. In short, he comes across (like much of his immortal family) as wild and flawed but not one-dimensional. In compressed form, the major events of the Iliad and the subsequent sack of Troy serve as cause and backdrop for the internecine strife that the earthly war brings to Olympus. On both stages, Athena, still fuming from the beauty contest that started it all, practically steals the show. Zigzagging between Earth and Olympus, the sequential scenes present a typically lively mix of melodramatic action and strong reaction shots—enhanced, often, by not-exactly-Classical language. For all the chaotic violence, though, there is little visible gore.

What family doesn’t have its little disagreements? Thank goodness the Olympians have many. .