"On the Great Sea of Nu a pyramid named Benben rose from the water with silent purpose. Benben flowered a lotus... and the lotus flowered the sun. The sun rose up, signalling the dawn of the first day. And the sun named itself Amun. With only darkness for company, Atum did what anybody would do when faced with endless loneliness. He had a wank."
Pantheon: The True Story of the Egyptian Deities is a 2017 graphic novel by British freelance animation director and illustrator Hamish Steele.
The most important myth in Ancient Egypt is faithfully retold in glorious color! Horus, son of Isis, vows bloody revenge on his Uncle Set for the murder and usurpation of his Pharaoh father. Based on elements from various versions of the famous Osiris myth, Hamish Steele has resurrected this fantastic story in all its symbolic and humorous glory.
Pantheon contains: incest, decapitation, suspicious salads, fighting hippos, flying cows, a boat race, resurrections, lots of scorpions and a golden willy.
This work provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: The woman who refuses to let Isis and her Scorpions in her house is reluctant to do so, but doesn't outright refuse or be rude to Isis before the Scorpions attack her son like the original myth. Isis herself only found out Ra's true name (He is also The Maker god Amun) by accident. She created a snake and sent it to him to get his attention, not to bring him to the brink of death to find out his name.
- God of Evil: Set openly identifies as this. Even more so, he is literally Made of Evil, poisoning his nemesis and nephew Horus by having sex with him and poisoning him with his own semen.
- Insane Troll Logic: While just a theory, Thoth reasons that him being born an adult to Set and Horus despite having already been born, raised and lived a full-life and Set and Horus both being men is because Gods are not bound by the same rule of “cause and effect” that everyone else is.
- Our Gods Are Different: Gods are established as being as flawed and capable of piety as human beings are. Because there is a limited number of them, incest is common with no foreseeable consequences or stigma. While technically immortal, they do still age (their bodies adopting properties similar to precious stones and metals instead of withering and dying like humans) and can be killed through poisoning. They are unaffected by the nature of cause and effect like humans are, Thoth being born from Set and Horus copulating despite having already been alive all this time and the two parent gods both being male. It is revealed by the end that all of the Gods are different aspects/extensions of The Maker god Amun.
- Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: Osiris breaks in his new golden penis when he has sex with Isis while she is still in bird form, hence why their son Horus has a bird's head.
