King Agamemnon is one of the great figures of Ancient Greek myth. The king of Mycenae, this heroic figure features in many of the great works of Ancient Greece, including Homer’s Iliad. The play Iphigenia in Aulis is by Euripides, one of the great Greek dramatists, and is presented by Image Comics in full, translated and adapted by Edward Einhorn. What is unique about this script is its accompanying images by Age of Bronze writer/artist Eric Shanower.
Presented as a “play on paper,” the inclusion of the Shanower’s images is intended to show the action of the play within the text of the script, to bring this ancient play to an audience without requiring them to take a trip to the theatre. The text itself, laid out by Euripides, is engaging and challenges societal structures that still ring true almost 2500 years later. The images provided alongside this text are meant to illuminate this story and help depict the action of this play, which was always intended to be performed, not read.
Unfortunately, the directorial decisions, as Einhorn puts it, around the image choices fail to meet the intention of a “play on paper.” The images are rarely more than a presentation of characters’ faces and often in similar poses. There is no real relationship between many of the images and the text, fault perhaps lying in the decision for the images to be interspersed between the scripted lines instead of proceeding with a full graphic novel adaptation. (It should be noted that the story of Iphigenia is presented in full comic form in Shanower’s Age of Bronze series.) It is unfortunately clear that the reason an illustrated version of this text is presented at all is due to its existence within the broader Trojan War mythos captured in Shanower’s award-winning and critically acclaimed Age of Bronze series.
Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis, about King Agamemnon’s decision to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, to gain the gods’ favor in war, has a striking message that is still relevant. Iphigenia’s eventual consent to become a martyr for Greek success in war against Troy is steeped in misguided patriotism, becoming a literal sacrificial offering for her country, saved only by the intervention of the divine at this misguided attempt to curry their favor. In the world and society of today, with its pseudo-moral pursuit of violence for the sake of safety and security, Euripides’s message could ring out. Yet, a powerful anti-war interpretation of this work is lost in the uninspired artistic decisions in the presentation of the text. More daring illustrations could help bring this fascinating work of ancient theatre to a new audience, so it is a shame that the creative team did not decide to make such bold decisions.
