If you read this as a faithful graphic retelling of the first bit of The Iliad, you'll be satisfied. I think this book could be a helpful complement for teens reading the epic. It's illustrated in what I've come to think of as "classic comics" style, with vivid colors and not much nuance.

However, this adaptation is, like the classic, focused almost entirely on the male experience. We see the rape of Phthia, complete with tears and screaming, then suddenly she's defending Achilles to her father and begging him not to leave. And then she's gone, because she's served her purpose for the narrative and Pyrrhus can pop up again in a later volume of this series, I assume. The book was originally released in 2001, so I guess it's perhaps a product of its time, but as a female reader on my third telling of The Iliad this year, I'm tired of reading the ways the women were raped and sold and given as property.

After all, the war wasn't fought over a woman. It was fought over the pride of one man and the greed of another.

The book is fine, it's not spectacular, but as a faithful retelling, it's adequate. I don't need to continue with the series. ( )

IGN Ultimate Bookshelf Notable

Volume 1 of an apparently abandoned series
Review of the 2001 Black & White original edition from Image Comics

Writer and artist Eric Shanower showed real ambition with this series which had been forecasted to reach 7 volumes by its conclusion but which appears to have ended with "Age Of Bronze Volume 3B: Betrayal" (2013) while sidetracking into the non-canon subplot of Troilus and Cressida. So unfortunately we never reach the actual Iliad confrontations centring around Hector and Achilles.

There may have been an attempt at a reboot with the release of a colorized edition of Volume 1: A Thousand Ships being issued in 2018, but until now in early 2019 there is no indication of further books beyond Volume 3B at the Image Comics home page: https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/age-of-bronze.

Shanower's ambition was to incorporate all Iliad related subplots and legends but to exclude divine elements (by showing their influence instead through dreams and visions). For that purpose his research is very extensive and his Greek and Troy family trees are the most impressive that I have ever seen. Both of them take up a full 8 & 1/2 by 11 inch pages in the Volume 1 book. It is unfortunate that final 4 Volumes will likely never be seen. ( )

Yay! Comics to feed my current mini-obsession with Achilles and Patroclus and the Trojan war, etc. etc. As you may know, all the gods have been taken out of this retelling, leaving something more historical-fictiony seeming. BUT DID ANY OF IT ACTUALLY REALLY HAPPEN?

i dunno, maybe some of it, a little?

Anyway, I am so grateful to learn a little bit about this era and the epic Trojan war in such an easy-to-digest form. Yeah, Shanower removed the gods but the drama (OMG, such drama! drama I don't think even think a modern TV soap would touch... hmm... except maybe Game of Thrones) still remains. I was reading this thinking, OMG, this should be a TV show, like, right now. I like the art, as well, though I could not tell many of the characters apart because their faces and clothes look the same, which well... if you are trying for realistic historical accuracy might be a little hard to work around, admittedly. ( )