Have we finally gotten the greatest adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey...?

Homer's epic poem The Odyssey is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and a cornerstone of world literature and Western culture, directly inspiring such modern works as James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses, 1995's episode five of Wishbone, The Coen Brothers's 2000 film O, Brother Where Art Though? and the Animal Man passages of DC's 2006 weekly comic book series 52.

Now comes perhaps most consequential retelling of The Odyssey, with major talents tackling the oft-told story in a much talked-about new take sure to introduce the classic to a new generation. 

I am talking of course about Godzilla's The Odyssey. 

IDW published the oversized one-shot comic in June, branding it with a "Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre Presents" above the title. Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre was a 2024 miniseries by the great Tom Scioli, in which Jay Gatsby used his vast fortune and single-mindedness to try to rid the world of Godzilla, a bizarre literary mash-up that also folded Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, the protagonist from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and others into the adventure (I reviewed the collection, released in 2025, in this column). 

It was as great a comic as it was a wild one, and it must have been successful for IDW, as they have since launched a line of "Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre Presents" books, starting with April's Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla. Godzilla's Odyssey is the second in the line. 

Unfortunately, Scioli himself isn't creating these books himself, each of which has a different creative team. Rather, Scioli is providing inspiration, and contributing around the edges. He provides the cover art (or, given the variants, some of the covers) and a five-page Godzilla and Robin Hood back-up. 

The Odyssey book is the work of writer Frank Tieri, whose 2023 Godzilla vs. pirates comic Here There Be Dragons was surprisingly well received for how simple it was, and artist Ilias Kyriazis, whose inspired art sings, and really sells the unlikely combination of source material.

Now, based solely on a reading of the summary on Wikipedia just before reading this, it certainly seems Tieri stays fairly faithful to the Homer's poem, at least in terms of the chronicling the events of Ulysses' journey, if not each and every character, and certainly not the structure (It would seem a couple of books have been excised, but those seem to be the same ones that usually get excised). In fact, I wonder if it may even be a bit more faithful than that other big Odyssey adaptation of the summer...? But I should probably leave that matter to be judged by anyone who has both read Homer's original poem and remembers it. 

That so much of The Odyssey is in Godzilla's The Odyssey is in itself is pretty impressive, as Tieri and Kyriazis don't have much room to work with; they need to squish the whole 24-book poem into just 35 pages. They manage it, and they do so without ever betraying that they were crunched for space. The layouts are as open and breezy, and the panels as few-per-pages, as one has come to expect from modern comics. Hell, they even allow themselves a splash page here and there. 

Perhaps this is helped by the extremely fleet pacing, where a typical adventure of an island might only take a page or three, or a nicely constructed page like this one below, which combines a map with a comic, and put me in mind of one of those Sunday installments of The Family Circus, where a dotted line might follow Billy or whichever kid through the neighborhood:

(Come to think of it, I bet it would be fun to see a clever artist adapt the entirety of Odysseus' journey into a Family Circus style journey strip. Surely someone somewhere has had that idea already though...)

The other way the comic saves time and space is by the relative simplicity of its structure. The entire adventure is told in the Olympian court, with Athena and Poseidon recapping what goes on and has gone on while they argue with one another (Athena is pro-Odysseus, Poseidon anti-Odysseus), and eventually Zeus involves himself.

The Olympians, by the way, are wonderfully designed. Rather than the standard toga-wearing models and bearded men of old movies and most comics, Kyriazis' Olympians are all quite distinct, some of them even unique. They put me more in mind of, say, George O'Connor's masterful Olympians graphic novel series or Cliff Chiang's version from his chunk of the 2011-2016 New 52 Wonder Woman series rather than those of, say, George Perez's post-Crisis Wonder Woman relaunch. 

You can probably tell, or at least guess, who each of the are at a glance, and yet I like how...different they seem from one another and, in some cases, from more traditional renderings. The most interesting looking of them all are, of course, Athena and Poseidon. 

While the latter looks like a big, strong, muscular old man with a long beard and loin cloth, resembling his brother Zeus save for that, in medium shot, he looks a bit like the ocean and, in close-up, a bit like a fish, Athena looks like no version I've ever seen before, nor imagined. That's her on the left below, identifiable by the owl on her shoulder. Honestly, the strange armor she wears suggests a chess piece or a fancy layer cake to me. It's a great design, one that looks appropriately alien given how far removed the Olympian gods are from humanity.

So, how does Godzilla fit into all of this...?

Well, he appears on the opening splash page, when "The Trojan Godzilla", an apparently life-size wooden construction of the familiar monster, is left as a gift outside the gates of Troy. In the world of Godzilla's The Odyssey, Godzilla is well-known, referred to as "the legendary hammer of Zeus". (Does the mention of Godzilla and Zeus in the same sentence tickle your memory, as it did mine? Then you are likely remembering 2016's Godzilla: Rage Across Time #2, in which writers Chris Mowry and Kahlil Schweitzer and artist Tadd Galusha had Godzilla storm Olympus, climaxing in a battle between the King of the Gods and the King of the Monsters.)

And he pops up now and then throughout Odysseus' journey as a sort of guardian monster. He's there to fight the cyclopean monster who killed, cut and half and then replaced the cyclops on one island (that would be Gigan, of course), as well as the many-headed dragon Scylla (King Ghidorah) and the whirlpool monster Charybdis (the tidal wave-creating Titanosaurus).

(Now, why didn't Odysseus think to simply grab Charybdis by the throat and throw it at Scylla...?)

Perhaps most satisfyingly, Godzilla is there at the end in Ithaca, where he cracks open Odysseus' castle and uses his atomic breath to skeletonize the suitors (Is this as suspenseful as a long-bearded Matt Damon fighting dozens of men in hand-to-hand combat? No, but it is certainly quicker and more satisfying; I mean, if you've already seen Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, then surely you can imagine how delightful it would be to see Godzilla vaporize Robert Pattison's smarmy Antinous, right?).

If all the creators did was stick Godzilla into the narrative like this, portraying his as something between a monster and a god—which, to be fair, he has long been depicted as, in his films as well as comics—then Godzilla's The Odyssey would have been a pretty fun comic while also fulfilling its reason for being.

But, of course, they don't stop there. As the last few paragraphs make clear, like most of IDW's Godzilla comics, this one makes full use of the whole Toho stable of monsters (and, surprisingly, other characters and creatures), using them in pretty much wherever they could conceivably fit as analogues to the original elements of classic Greek mythology. 

The characters never use the real names of the Toho IP—for example, Ghidorah and Titanosaurus are referred to only as Scylla and Charybdis—leaving it up to readers to recognize them. Godzilla fans won't have a problem doing so, though, making these 35 pages a treasure trove of Easter eggs. And, I imagine, if you don't get a particular reference, well, I'm sure there's a Godzilla fan somewhere online willing to tell you all about it (Like me; I will tell you all about any of the cameos in here).

I've already mentioned the most obvious ones. A delightful surprise came during the part where Odysseus receives a bag of wind from the god Aeolus (A sequence not in the film; while Nolan isn't shy about using the monsters or demonstrating that magic is real, he equivocates when it comes to the existence of the gods himself, even the one who is onscreen throughout the film). The bag has a bat-like symbol on it, which I thought odd for a few seconds, until I turned the page:

Of course, the wind is Rodan, who, in his initial 1956 film appearance, destroyed the city of Fukuoka by generating hurricane force winds by flapping his wings. (Check out that first panel, too; I love how Kyriazis captures and conveys the sheer weirdness of a giant monster emerging from a small bag.)

Perhaps the strangest Godzillafications in the comic though come on the island of Circe and when Odysseus sails past the sirens. Circe doesn't turn his men into pigs, but rather into loathsome giant sea louses, like the one seen in 1984's Return of Godzilla. And the sirens, rather than being some sort of admixture of women with birds or fish? Well, here they wear head-to-toe silver jumpsuits with ponchos; it appears they are a trio of Kilaaks, the all-female aliens from 1968's Destroy All Monsters. 

There are several more such inserts, at least one more of which I thought quite clever, but I don't want to over-spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it yet. 

Now, while Godzilla's The Odyssey seems pretty faithful to the plot of The Odyssey, thoroughly Godzilla-izing the proceedings to the point where Homer's story is at once transformed but intact, does it diminish Odysseus, given that is now the co-star in a poem named after him and that, over and over, Godzilla saves him and his crew? (For one example, Odysseus doesn't have to come up with any kind of scheme to save himself and his men from the cyclops; here Godzilla arrives at the cave mouth to fight Gigan while Odysseus and company simply run away).

I'm not sure. He still has his "brilliant attack on Troy" going for him (even if the shape of his wooden gift is different), he still has the bravery and perseverance to face and survive whatever is thrown at him, and he still pulls off his bow trick and he is at least prepared to take on all the suitors until Godzilla arrives. 

And then, I suppose, there's this scene:

At the end, Odysseus comes face to face with a power far beyond him, one that has demonstrated its ability to control his face and, ultimately, whether he lives or dies. Now, a scene in which Godzilla confronts a human adversary or ally like this, seemingly sizing him up and, if the human is a good guy, ultimately storming off without eating, stomping or roasting him, occurs repeatedly in the Godzilla cycle of films. Here, Odysseus has the courage to face him (even if Godzilla has the hero sweating!), just as he has faced the dangers presented to him throughout his journey, and he has the grace to thank Godzilla, just as he had prayed to the gods a few pages earlier.

In the end then, Tieri doesn't just insert Godzilla (and friends) into The Odyssey, but he manages to portray the invincible monster as a divine figure capable of using his great strength for good or ill, and for rendering judgement on humans.

In other words, Godzilla's The Odyssey presents Godzilla as a something of a god, which, as I mentioned previously, is a common take on the character, while the comic simultaneously portrays Odysseus' relationship to this godlike entity in a way consistent with the way he addresses the Olympians and ultimately comes to think of them after an earlier burst of hubris that apparently so offended Poseidon (In this telling). 

As weird, as unlikely and as funny as Godzilla's The Odyssey is, then, it's also the very best kind of comic book team-up. 

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Now, if you didn't buy this comic off the rack last month, either because you weren't sure how awesome it might be or because you quite sensibly didn't want to spend $7.99 on a 40-page comic book (and/or, like me, you were waiting for a trade collection of the "Monsterpiece Presents" specials), well I've got good news for you.

Do you have a library card? Does your library offer access to Hoopla digital media service through their website? If so, then you can borrow and read Godzilla's The Odyssey for free...along with a bunch of other Godzilla and IDW comics. Not a fan of reading comics (or anything else) on screens, I was waiting for some kind of collection to read this, as I said above, but, well, with the national conversation turning to The Odyssey this weekend, it seemed like a good time to check out the Godzilla version.