ODY-C. Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa

This hallucinatory sf recasting of Homer's Odyssey doesn't simply swap the gender of its protagonist—it takes place in a universe where men have suffered genocide at the hands of a paranoid Zeus. Finally victorious after a 100-year war at Troiia-VII, Odyssia and the crew of the starship ODY-C head home for Ithicaa but are diverted by plunder and waylaid by insulted, scheming goddesses—for the Olympians here are all female, too. Fraction (Hawkeye) deserves kudos for the feat of narrating Odyssia's exploits entirely in Homer's original dactylic hexameter verse form, lending them grandeur. Scenes of the goddesses are told in natural dialog, highlighting their pettiness in contrast. Fraction's story innovations are more startling than compelling, with one exception: a third human gender, created by a lotus-fueled Promethene. Picking up the drug motif, Ward fills the pages to bursting with incredible varicolored psychedelic imagery, bringing extraordinary vividness to scenes of space travel, grotesqueries such as the multibreasted Cyclops, and depictions of nudity, sex, and copious gore.