Tuesday, 20 September 2011

300 (graphic novel)

Despite being the original, I came to 300 as an interesting companion piece to the movie it spawned, with more realistic male nudity (given the Spartans’ reputation) and better pacing.

The mere mere five issues actually answered just about every qualm I had with the film. The lame betraying brother subplot didn’t exist, and the ‘strong woman’ actually looked a hell of a lot stronger by asserting herself properly in just one scene. ‘Herakles’ replaces ‘Hercules’ and the bits that dragged were skipped through at the right speed here. The focus on the evils of slavery was less intense, making the Spartans look less hypocritical, given that the Spartans had plenty of slaves – something Miller acknowledged in his letters page at the same time as addressing the homophobic line, though his reasoning behind that line (there is evidence the Spartans lied about their homosexuality; this is what he was doing – but that misses the point that it wouldn’t be something Leonidas would have though to be something that should be mocked) was a bit suspect.

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