The issue ends with the good guys (at least, it seems like they’re the good guys) setting sail for Troy. I can’t say “finally,” because Shanower never really gave a timeline for when the war was to start. This issue is the first where the long lapses in time seem to affect the characters. It…

Shanower needs to include two things. First are maps. He moves all over the place; each issue should end with a map. Second is a cast list. He’s got this one character returning after being gone three issues. It’d help if a cast list reminded the reader of characters and their histories. Otherwise, it’s a…

Shanower fast forwards approximately nine months and opens with the birth of Achilles’s son. No one knows about Achilles and the girl, everyone still thinking he’s a girl too. It’s somewhat extraordinary and doesn’t work in Shanower’s realistic retelling. Achilles is such a jerk, it’s also unlikely sometime in the nine months he wouldn’t have…

Well, certainly by Republican standards, Achilles is not a rapist. The issue ends with him, dressed as a female, forcing himself on a girl. They’re presumably about thirteen. Between him and Paris, Shanower seems to be implying men’s errors tend to be due to desire for women (in Paris’s case, Helen). I imagine it’s in…

The combination of everyone looking alike and Shanower being deceptive for emphasis really plays in this issue. He opens with Helen’s two brothers coming home to find her missing. They look like Paris, only with facial hair. At least their identities are quickly revealed. The problem comes with the rest of the issue, which doesn’t…

Shanower constructs the plot of this issue well. It keeps the reader engaged–the focus moves from the unidentified Helen to Paris to other people around them, only becoming linear at the end. Shanower saves the big reveal–Paris is disobeying his father out of selfishness and is about to start a war–for the last couple pages.…

Shanower seems to have worked past his problems now. The protagonist is no longer Paris, who is developing more into a villain (due to lack of intelligence) and the issue is better for it. Having Paris, with his fantastical history, works against making the book feel real. Instead, Shanower moves the focus–for some of the…

Well, Shanower took a lot less time to get to the revelation than I thought… turns out Paris is a prince of Troy. That scene, the one where Paris gives up his old life for his new (he really doesn’t have a say as it turns out), is rather awkward. This issue features Kassandra going…

Shanower sets up Age of Bronze somewhat traditionally in the heroic sense. The protagonist, Paris, is secretly—or so it’s implied—of higher birth than his farmer parents. He’s bored of life as a cattle farmer and when the king’s men come to take away a prized bull, he sees the situation as wrong. So he sets…