MYth is a webcomic (later self-published) series by Zelda C. Wang inspired by Greek mythology. It differs from many adaptations of Greek mythology for its unique re-interpretations of various events from the myth, such as the origins of the Titanomachy, the famous birth of the goddess Athena, and the meeting of Poseidon with his wife, Amphitrite.
The major stories that have been released so far:
- MYth: My Seasons retells Persephone's abduction as a love story. Persephone stays with Hades willingly and eats the pomegranate seeds in order to be with him for at least half of every year.
- MYth: Eternal Gift talks about Poseidon's love. And no, it's not Medusa, but his actual wife, Amphitrite.
- The longest one at three volumes, MYth: A Promise, recounts Zeus' overthrow of his tyrannical father Cronus. We find out why the three Olympian brothers' relationship, once so loving, has became so strained and meet Zeus's first love, Metis.
- The shortest so far, MYth: Sunny focuses on Apollo and a girl who still believes in him in the present day.
- MYth: Will is about how Hera deals with Zeus, who can't stop thinking about Metis.
- MYth: Distillation deals with Athena's birth and its connection to Zeus' mental maturity.
- MYth: Inflammation has been announced. It will tell Hephaestus' life story.
There are also side stories made exclusively for Patreon supporters: MYth: Treasure focuses on Hecate, MYth: Rebirth focuses on Demeter, and MYth: Void focuses on Cronus.
You can read the comic here
. You can buy the series and more here. Support the author on Patreon, here.
Not to be confused with the game Myth.
MYth shows examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Well, of course.
- Cronus, aside from being a neglectful and psychologically abusive father, is also borderline insane.
- Hera towards Hephaestus; true to the original myth, Inflammation begins with Hephaestus being thrown off a cliff by his own mother and he's literally thin to the bones.
- That was only the first draft the official one has Hera tossing him from a cliff.
- Adaptational Badass: Poseida a.k.a. Amphitrite to a certain extent. She gets little to no mention in the original myths but here she manages to scare shitless the priestess who came close to assaulting her after finding out how he's been using her.
- Adaptation Expansion: This applies to the series in general. Each story tends to tends to add more to the original myth, (i.e. A Promise) or be a new take on it completely (i.e. Eternal Gift).
- All There in the Manual: The author's side drawings in her Tumblr and deviantart explain more about the characters' personalities than the narrative.
- Angry Guard Dog: Subverted with Cerberus, thanks to its drawing style and its apparent love for treats. In My Seasons it can also be seen getting sad over Persephone's departure to the upper world like any house dog would.
- Art Evolution: Compare My Seasons with more recent comics like, say, Will and see how much the artist has improved.
- Ascended Extra: Metis, Bia, Zelus and Kratos get a lot of spotlight in A Promise in comparison with the original myth.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Delphin, Poseidon's assistant who's always worried about how Poseidon puts the paperwork aside. Hermes too to a lesser degree.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: In Will, Hera has been infatuated with Zeus since he kissed her in A Promise, but Zeus has been with a lot of other bride aspirants and he keeps her away; of course this drives her crazy with jealousy. Actually Zeus wants to protect her from himself.
- Big Brother Instinct: A Promise could well be named "Big Brother Instinct: Greek edition". The winged enforcers are desperate to save their little sister Nike, Hades swore to his mother to always protect Zeus and Cronus' siblings helped him hoping that with time, he would return to be how he used to.
- Break the Cutie: It wouldn't be Greek mythology without it.
- Zeus happens to be the most broken of the Olympian siblings since the end of A Promise, and Distillation is all about he trying to pull himself together.
- Hades is exiled to the Underworld and can't leave it unless Zeus gives permission. The thing is, Zeus hates him. And A Promise is a bigger break trip for him than for Zeus.
- Poseidon and Poseida suffered big breaks in Eternal Gift. Luckily for them, their story ends happy.
- The first page in Inflammation, is young Hephaestus, in what it looks like an underground jail, longingly looking to his mother.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Hades and Demeter, later replaced by Persephone.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Of course. It's Greek mythology.
- Hera is as much of a Clingy Jealous Girl for Zeus. At the end of Will, they got married.
- Hades and Demeter were in love before Persephone entered his life. The beginning of Eternal Gift revealed that Poseidon was in love with her too, but he knew he was a Hopeless Suitor.
- Apollo and Artemis have a lot of subtext. But they're Star-Crossed Lovers.
- Children Are Innocent: Demostrated in "Inflammation", when most of Zeus' offspring are still children. Hermes says to Aphrodite that the barrier that protects virgin goddesses' temples doesn't work on him yet because he's still a little boy.
- Classical Mythology
- Cool Big Sis: Hestia, especially to Zeus. Given her domain as the goddess of family and home, this is to be expected.
- Crossover Cosmology: Sunny implies that all mythologies' deities co-exist with the Greek gods. Apollo mentions that Amaterasu is very easy to talk to than the other sun deities, and that Artemis gets along with the Jade Rabbit better than with Tsukkiyomi.
- Cue the Sun: In A Promise, Eos' returning to help Helios rising the sun just as Zeus is about to face his father in combat shows that hope is returning to the world.
- Curse: In A Promise, Gaia told to Zeus that he'll never know true love. Considering that he loses his first (and probably true) love Metis and will cheat on Hera a lot, she may be right. Will reveals that Gaia cursed him to see Metis in every woman he sees and with that, his lust burns up, but when getting back to his senses, he'll feel as empty and lonely as ever.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Gaia's curse on Zeus is the result of Metis falling in love with him enough to sleep with him try to keep him from fighting Cronus. So yeah, despite Zeus still following his destiny, he'll still have to suffer for his girlfriend's mistake. Nobody disrespects Mother Gaia.
- Distressed Damsel: Poseida in Eternal Gift, Nike and Eos in A Promise. The Olympians thought Persephone was one when she was with Hades in My Seasons, although that may have been a ruse on Zeus' part.
- Dramatic Irony: "Inflammation" is full of it.
- When she was younger, Thetis believed Hera would be a great mother, seeing how well Hera cared for her. Hera ended up becoming a very abusive mother to Hephaestus.
- Hera believes she won't be a good mother material, and that someone like Demeter would be better for that. Way back in "My Seasons", Demeter died specifically because she birthed a child.
- Ares automatically dislikes Hephaestus. The reader knows those two will have more reasons to hate each other in the future.
- Thetis became Hephaestus' caretaker after Hera's abuse almost killed him. It was actually because of one of Thetis' prophecies that Hera imprisoned him in order to keep him safe.
- Driven to Suicide: Poor Poseida. But she definitely gets better.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Aphrodite and Eros were first shown in Irresponsible. Aphrodite's official introduction is in Inflammation and Eros is yet to be seen in the main plotline.
- Elemental Hair Colors: The Olympian siblings. Hades has black hair to parallel his power over the dark flames, Zeus has golden locks like his mother and he represents light, Poseidon has clear hair that reflects everything around it like the water, Hestia has flaming red hair and she's the goddess of hearth, Hera has dark brown hair to show that she's more down to earth and Demeter has flaxseed colored hair as the goddess of harvest.
- Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: In Distillation, Zeus' mental maturity affected Athena's growth thanks to her being tied to his mind at that moment. Also, while in his dreams, his mental maturity also manifested in himself growing up.
- Everyone Can See It: In Will, everybody can tell Hera is mad at Zeus because of jealousy.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, is depicted as a wild, fun-loving, long-haired blonde bombshell here.
- Eyes Always Shut: Selene is always seeing with her eyes closed whenever is her turn to shine on the sky; Helios has constantly closed eyes and they only can be opened with Eos' help, in order to bring daylight.
- The Final Temptation: In the Irresponsible omake, Demeter tries to seduce Hades into sleeping with her, now that she's human and not bound to the rules of a spring goddess. Hades doesn't do it because he realizes he loves Persephone more than her now. Demeter, though sad over Hades' rejection, is happy that her daughter has such a faithful husband.
- Foregone Conclusion: If you know about the original myths, you can foresee the endings of many stories. Most of the time, anyway—see Adaptation Expansion above.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: A Promise shows that the Titans are way more monstrous than they normally show. They look human because Cronus, the most human-like of them, is disgusted and/or scared of his siblings' true forms.
- For Want Of A Nail: In Sunny. Thanks to Apollo erasing the memories of both Sunny and her friend, the boy didn't have a reason to fight his illness and died. Once Apollo returns the memories, a second timeline is born where the boy lived and Sunny and him reunited.
- Four-Girl Ensemble: Aphrodite, Artemis, Persephone and Athena.
- The Gadfly: Hestia knows and loves to push all her siblings' Berserk Buttons mostly because it amuse her.
- Genius Loci: Gaia, the Earth Mother, is essentially depicted as a sentient small island with a beautiful woman's upper body.
- Genki Girl: Aphrodite is a very hype girl, especially when drunk.
- Girl, He's Like in a Coma: Persephone and Hades' first kiss, with him being asleep. Since Hades is very reserved with his feelings, Zelda likes to joke that he pretends to be asleep every time he wants Persephone to kiss him.Question #7: Wedding time! If not, what about one of them discovers that their "better half" has a weird habit?
Persephone: Does 'sleeping a lot' counts? - God in Human Form: Apollo, Hermes and Artemis in Sunny. Zeus, Hades, Persephone, Ares, Hermes and Artemis in the Irresponsible omake.
- Hot Gods: The gods naturally are stunning. Even Hephaestus, who's traditionally considered ugly. Zeus exploited the trope in the Irresponsible omake by getting undercover as a model.
- The Ingenue: Persephone. She may be the most naive of the goddesses, not even for a second stopping to think what people's reaction would be when she says straight out that Zeus is her daddy while in the mortal world and not knowing how the "bees and the birds" work in the Irresponsible omake, driving Zeus and Aphrodite insane. Also, thanks to her godly beauty and naivety, Zeus had to put undercover gods to bodyguard her way to the place Hades can find her, so nobody does anything funny to her.
- In the Hood: Seems to be the mandatory outfit for the current smith of the gods, as Prometheus wears it before his successor Hephaestus. Ares lampshades it in Inflammation when he sees Prometheus and Hephaestus together.
- Is That Cute Kid Yours?: Thanks to Eros taking the form of a child in order to be around Aphrodite, many people mistake him for Aphrodite's child.
- Kick the Dog: Hera kept young Hephaestus locked in an underground jail before (apparently) pushing him off a cliff. This event is especially jarring if you've read Will before, seeing as she'd looked so determined and resolved in the ending.Hera: They almost saw you—! I can't let that happen...you are not to be seen! You're not supposed to exist!
- Kill and Replace: In a fashion and done without ill intention, in Sunny, Apollo couldn't bare the thought of his only worshipper in centuries being sad for a dying friend, so he erased her memories of him, he died and Apollo took his place in her life. It helped that the mortal boy was named Apollo too.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Apollo uses this in Sunny. Since the boy Sunny befriended as a child was going to die from an illness, Apollo erased his and her memories from each other, to spare the girl from the pain of waiting for a friend who will never return.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Hera is one for Zeus. She's the only one who truly loves Zeus and she accepted to be his wife so Zeus could have someone to give him solace whenever his curse takes the best of him.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Variation. Zeus, being the dense dork he is, needed for Metis to reveal that the girl in his dreams is the result of their "embrace" on that night in Gaia's garden. Zeus, of course, freaked out.Zeus: You...You mean she's my...?!
Athena: It's rude to point. - Mark of the Supernatural: The first and second generation of Titans have marks on some place of their bodies. Those having an affinity with some heavenly body, like Helios and the sun, have marks resembling stars.
- Meet Cute: Hephaestus first saw Aphrodite when her pet bird flew near by Hephaestus' underground jail. His first thought was that he never saw something so beautiful.
- Misery Builds Character: Hades and Metis orchestrated her own death at his hands in order to, aside saving Nike, force Zeus to stop relying on them.
- Mood Whiplash: The first two stories, My Seasons and Eternal Gift, were both love stories with lots of drama, but they ended Happily Ever After. A Promise breaks the Lighter and Softer vibe of its predecessors, showing the obscure times of Cronus' reign and Zeus losing his first love. Sunny then comes as a short, happy story in order to ease the angst left by A Promise, for then Will and Distillation being dramas about Zeus' emotional issues, ending both with a good note.
- More than Mind Control: In A Promise, Hades reveals that he wasn't quite brainwashed into helping his tyrannical father but actually was seduced by his power and his own dutiful attitude as the eldest child. It was thanks to seeing Zeus again that he reminded his promise to his mother and Metis' potion weakening Cronus' power that he regained his senses.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Zeus has a big one when he's forced back to his senses by Athena to discover that he has raped Hera.
- Hephaestus has a similar one after he sexually assaulted Aphrodite.
- The Night That Never Ends: Cronus's reign was surrounded by night because he kidnapped Eos (dawn) to stop Helios's (sun) rising.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: In "Inflammation", Aphrodite is more horrified with her enjoying when Hephaestus touched her than with him touching her.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Cronus makes the comparisons between himself and Zeus. Both were the youngest child of their generation, choose and empowered by Gaia. What makes them different is that Zeus never breaks his promises.
- Offered the Crown: Zeus first intended Hades to be King of the gods, but Hades declined saying that it was not Gaia's will. He actually was ashamed of his weak will against his father.
- Out-of-Clothes Experience: Zeus' meeting with Gaia. This is justifiable because only souls can meet up with her.
- Parental Incest: Cronus kisses Zeus multiple times while the latter is disguised as a woman, due to his strong resemblance to his deceased wife Rhea.
- Parental Substitute: Thetis saved and raised Hephaestus until he was old enough to go to Olympus to get revenge.
- Poor Communication Kills: This is the driving problem underneath all conflicts of "Inflammation".
- Hera imprisioned Hephaestus and hid his existance out of fear of Thetis' prophesy. The prophesy says that Zeus' firstborn would be strong enough to overthrow him. Had Hera told Zeus about it, he would've revealed her that Athena is his firstborn child, saving Hera and her son lots of pain.
- Hephaestus is driven to challenge Athena to prove himself to Hera. Unfortunately, when he arrives at Athena's palace she's not there, but instead is Aphrodite. With all the clues he had pointing the girl in front of him, he attacks Aphrodite without explanation, nor he gives her any time to explain herself. Because of this, Hephaestus got caught in Aphrodite's influence and sexually awoke her, causing her to seek release in Ares' embrace.
- Had Zeus made known that Athena is his firstborn daughter, born out of Metis, the whole main conflict would've never happened, because everybody knows Athena's loyalty to Zeus is absolute.
- Punny Name: The "MY" in "MYth" is, according to Zelda, a way to show that this series is her interpretation of the Greek mythology.
- The Promise: Many promises are explored in A Promise, and all of them are sworn to be fulfilled. The most tragic ones are Hades and Zeus'. Hades' promise to Rhea of protecting Zeus led him to willingly gaining the latter's hatred in order to make him stronger. As a result Zeus swears to hate Hades forever for killing Metis—despite the narrative showing how much these siblings love each other.
- Rape as Drama:
- In My Seasons, Zeus raped Demeter in an attempt to hurt Hades, since her getting pregnant equals her death. Possibly subverted if Irresponsible is deemed canon. In which case, the entire thing was a lie intended to actually ensure Hades' happiness while still allowing both to keep their promises of hate one another.
- In Will, Zeus rapes Hera. Subverted because Zeus actually is sorry and angsty about it, and Hera is fine with it because she actually loves him.
- Really Gets Around: Zeus, of course. Played for Drama. Because of Gaia's "prank" on him and Metis, he sees an illusion of Metis in every woman and his lust gets out of control. Knowing this, he kept his sisters away to avoid hurting them.
- Really 700 Years Old: While this apply to all gods somehow, it's played straighter with Eros, who looks like a little boy but is actually from Gaia's generation, i.e. a Protogenos. That's right, that little boy is one of the oldest deities in existence.
- Ret-Gone: Inverted. Athena writes herself into existence the moment she came out of Zeus' mind, to the point everyone already knows her from a long time ago. Even Zeus has vague memories of knowing her before but he's not sure until Prometheus assure him of them. Officially, Athena is a girl that Zeus took in from Cronus' castle after Metis' death. The only one knowing the truth behind Athena's existence is Prometheus for being the one that took her out of Zeus' head himself.
- Running Gag: In memes the artist does for fun, Hermes always ends as the only option for "Which one of this X would marry?". Amusingly, the artist never picks the options on purpose and the results are pure chance.Hermes: Looks like I'm the only one available again~
- Sex Equals Love:
- Averted with Aphrodite who's clearly defined as the goddess of sexuality completely detached of the idea of having sex as an act of love.
- Deconstructed with Zeus. Gaia's words imply that Zeus thinks he loves Metis because she was the first one he had sex with, but he just confused the pleasing sensations of sex with developing actual feelings.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: In the omake of Sunny, Artemis gets involved in Apollo's shenanigans. Because he covers the truth that Artemis is his twin sister, everybody starts to assume she must be his girlfriend. That a boy spied on them while they were sharing a headbutt (to Apollo show Artemis his memories) just cemented the rumor. Hermes then confirms it to keep the cover up, to Apollo's chagrin.
- Shout-Out: Artemis gets a crescent moon mark on her forehead after becoming Selene's attendant, a la Sailor Moon. No surprise since Zelda is a lover of the franchise.
- Shown Their Work: The author has applied details about the myths that most adaptations have omitted or alterated.
- Sibling Rivalry:
- Zeus and Hades. Subverted thanks to A Promise which reveals that it's an act on both their parts. Though Zeus needed Athena to make him realize Hades' reasons.
- Apollo and Artemis, with a incestuous Star-Crossed Lovers mixed into it. Artemis started to grow apart from Apollo after he was made Helios' attendant and she became Selene's. Since sun and moon are supposed to be separated, she thought it was the best thing to do, but Apollo keeps trying to fix their relationship somehow.
- Significant Birth Date: Athena's birthday is the very same day of Zeus and Hera's wedding and his ascendance to the throne.
- Simultaneous Arcs: Will and Distillation's stories happen around the same time. The trope is played a little, though; the stories start separated, then unite, and then separate again. They unite at Hera's rape and then separate until Zeus and Hera's wedding.
- Someone To Remember Her By: In Distillation, Metis used all of her essence's energy in order to mantain Athena alive in Zeus' mind, so she would be unable to provide him with guidance in his life. But Athena inherited Metis' wisdom and will be able to do it herself.
- Stalker without a Crush: In the Sunny omake, Apollo started to follow Sunny around in order to see if she ever shows signs of remembering the boy of her past.Artemis: You know...you're totally acting like a stalker.
Apollo: (behind a tree) What are you talking about? I'm just watching over her. - Stealth Pun:
- Aphrodite's seat in Olympus is in between Hephaestus and Ares. Get it?note
- In the Irresponsible omake, a little girl is seeing playing with an earth ball. It's heavily implied that little girl is actually Gaia. note
- Strong Family Resemblance: Athena looks a lot like Metis, Persephone is a mirror image of Demeter, Hades is a younger version of Cronus and Zeus is a male, younger Rhea. Even Rhea and her sister, the Titaness Phoebe look alike.
- Their First Time: Zeus and Metis' in A Promise and Zeus and Hera in Will. It's implied that Hades and Persephone did the deal at the end of Irresponsible.
- The Three Faces of Eve: The Olympian sisters, Hera, Demeter and Hestia.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Artemis and Persephone. Also Athena and Aphrodite.
- Urban Fantasy: Sunny is the only story, so far, to be settled in modern times. 2/3 of the Irresponsible omake is set in modern Japan.
- Voluntary Shapeshifter: Zeus. He uses this to change into a bird to get Hera invite him into her room...
- What Beautiful Eyes!: In one of the very first pages of Distillation, Zeus describes Athena's eyes as the "most calming and mysterious eyes". We get to see a close up of her eyes as proof that he was right.
- Winged Humanoid: The Winged Enforcers, Eos and Eros.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In Eternal Gift, Poseidon's grief over Poseida's death caused massive tsunamis for days.
