Jason and the Argonauts is a visually appealing graphic novel that depicts the adventures that the famous Greek mythical hero Jason on his voyage to acquire the Golden Fleece. Jason, along with his team of valiant Argonauts, set sail on the huge ship named Argo encountering danger, experiencing magic, and forming friendships of various kinds.
This graphic novel version of Jason and the Argonauts isn't half bad. The artwork isn't my favourite but there are some particularly nice sequences such as Eros shooting his arrow of love at Medea and the zombie army.
The sex and violence is a little sanitised - Medea simply stabs her brother Apsyrtus - we don't see him chopped up into little pieces. Similarly we don't see her slitting her children's throats, they die in a fire. There is one head being lopped off in a battle sequence, but I do feel that this has been watered down. The sexier scenes with the Lemnean women, water nymphs and of course Medea herself are also glossed over.
Some of the adventures are missed out, I guess due to length - I was particularly sad not to see the attack of the Stymphalian birds.
It is however an excellent introduction to the Jason myth and does include the tragic fate of him and Medea. After watching the Harryhausen movie this is a very good next step before tackling the actual Argonautica.
This graphic novel will appeal to readers who have gotten hooked on Greek mythology by the recent trend in fiction and films. This version of the story of Jason could have been longer, which would prevent a couple of abrupt transitions, but is otherwise a nice retelling of the classic parts of the Argosy. I don't know why Talos, the bronze giant, has what appears to be plumb bobs hanging from his mechanical elbows, but otherwise the designs are very interesting, and draw in the eye of the reader.
This was a graphic novel designed for the non and hard readers. The illustrations were not as good as they could be and thought the story line was okay, to much was left out as had to be I guess to make it fit the format. That all being said this is still a good recommendation for those who dis-like reading or the hard readers.This is designed to keep them interested in reading.