ODIN

Kicking off a new theogony, the author of The Olympians series begins with the origins of the Nine Worlds according to Norse myth, and an introduction to the Aesir’s enigmatic chieftain.

Anchored, as in the brilliant previous series, by bountiful source notes and commentary at the end, O’Connor’s account sets the tone at once with Valkyries swooping down to lift the unseen reader up from a battlefield strewn with corpses, then flashes back to chronicle a whirl of worlds and peoples arising from a huge and doughy frost giant floating in the void of Ginnungagap. If it all seems hard to follow—indeed, as the author complains, nearly everyone and even certain inanimate items have one or more names—it still makes for a grand tale. The story’s capped by the arrival of Odin, who plucks out his own eye in exchange for wisdom. That’s not the only gruesome deed depicted here in loving detail, but in general the artist goes more for an exhilarating mix of hulking, skulking monsters and, at least in cameos (anticipating fuller portraits in future volumes), Thor, Freya, and the rest of the brooding, swaggering, Nordically light-skinned Aesir and Vanir looking larger than life.

A rainbow bridge to a fresh set of mythological places and faces.