Comic Review: Olympia #2

Olympia #2

Image Comics

Writers: Curt Pires & Tony Pires

Artists: Alex Diotto & Dee Cunniffe

Tony and Curt Pires’ Kirby homage continues with the next chapter of Image Comics’ Olympia. I stated in my review of the series’ debut issue essentially that its story and characters showed promise but that they needed to differentiate themselves more from their comic and film inspirations. Olympia #2 moves forward slightly in this direction but many of its designs and minor concepts feel lifted directly from Kirby’s Thor and Fourth World comics. This is a problem for a developing series trying to find its footing that I think detracts from the potential that the first issue showed. Overall, Olympia #2 does take some major steps forward but also takes its story in directions that don’t fully realize concepts that could have been developed further.

Olympia #2 delivers some major story beats; it’s a welcome change in pace from the previous issue, which was intended to establish the main plot, characters, and conflicts. While little time actually passes in-universe, the issue builds upon important events and concepts introduced in #1 including Olympian’s childhood, his arrival on Earth, and his serialized comic adventures. The idea of using the comic as both a pseudo-history book for Olympian and the heroes’ guide to sending Olympian back may not be especially original, but it’s still a neat concept that is used somewhat effectively in this issue. Unfortunately, this is one of the series’ concepts that feels cut short as Elon discovers partway through the issue that the in-universe Olympian series has been canceled. The stunted usage of the meta comic concept in tandem with a significant reveal on the last page places an arbitrary time limit on Elon and Olympian’s ability to obtain information and diverts focus away from the more interesting aspects of Olympian’s world and history. Still, this issue’s plot is briskly paced and decently entertaining.

Olympia’s characters sadly still don’t totally impress. Apart from one flashback to Olympian’s childhood, we don’t get much new information about Elon, Olympian, or the main antagonist Vilayne, who only appears in the in-universe comic. Olympian and Elon’s personalities at least remain consistent with their depictions in the previous issue, but the problem of differentiation persists. Certain bits of dialogue and visual aspects of the character designs only add to this problem. For instance, the opening page shows Olympian hurtling through a void that looks suspiciously like the interdimensional Bleed featured in DC Comics. Olympian possesses an AI of sorts called the God Box (a clear reference to the Mother Boxes of Fourth World fame) which coats him in full-body silver armor and a space harness (again, clear references to both the Fourth World comics and another Kirby creation, the Silver Surfer). Perhaps most obvious, however, is the appearance of Olympian’s father, who is a dead ringer for Marvel’s Odin, eyepatch and all. The art is still quite good so these elements are drawn well, but it’s jarring to see the Kirby references turned up to 11 here when they were slightly more subtle in the previous issue

Olympia #2 is mostly a step forward in terms of story but a step back in terms of its characters. Concepts from the first issue that could be worth exploring aren’t fully utilized and the issue feels too caught up in Kirby homage rather than making its characters feel unique and interesting. It’s not a bad issue, as the story is still decently strong, but given the potential of the series’ debut and the huge amount of work that it still needs to do to avoid being strictly derivative of the classic Kirby comics, it’s sadly not as good as I hoped it would be.

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