There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in. The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.
This week we have:
Urban Fantasy author Kelly Meding
Talking of Titans.
"Of Heroes and
Titans"
When Melissa first
asked me to participate in Mythical Mondays, we both thought that my Dreg City
booksTEMPEST (MetaWars 3) releasing next
week, I thought it would be a fun challenge to look at this meme through the
lens of the MetaWars world. At first
glance, there aren't a lot of mythical influences in this world of distrusted
superheroes. No vampire legends or Norse
thunder gods to be found. The vast majority of my influences for MetaWars comes
from comic books and their various film/television adaptations. The books are about superheroes, after all.
would be a perfect fit. But with
Until I looked at the
roots of my own fascination with superheroes, which goes back to the
Wolfman/Perez run on "The New Teen Titans" in the early eighties. It
was a team book, like Justice League or X-Men, with a group of characters
working together toward a common goal.
But this series was unique in that it was about eighteen year-old former
sidekicks trying to make it without their mentors. The stories were action-packed, sometimes
dark, often funny, and I got very attached to some of those characters. And in many of those characters, you could
see glimpses of mythical archetypes: Aphrodite, Hermes, Athena, and others. Wonder Girl's backstory was rewritten
multiple times, but it always circled back to Greek mythology.
It didn't hurt, too,
that the Teen Titans once battled the actual, mythical Titans. That was pretty epic.
The Greek Titans were
the descendants of Gaia and Uranus (Earth and Sky). They were the first pantheon of powerful
beings, immortals with incredible strength and supernatural abilities. The Titans were eventually overthrown after a
ten year war in Thessaly, and imprisoned by Zeus and the other Olympians.
For centuries, long
before Superman and Wolverine, man had superheroes in the forms of mythical
gods. Whether you look at the
Greek/Roman pantheons, Norse myths, or Japanese myths, you'll find powerful
beings whose battles against themselves and against mankind have spawned hundreds
of stories and legends. These
"superheroes" threw lightning bolts, raced the wind, moved the
oceans, and held the fate of thousands in their powerful hands—not unlike
modern day superheroes.
In the MetaWars world,
constant warring between heroes and villains devastated the country and its
economy, leaving many cities in ruins.
It's up to a new generation of superheroes to win back the public trust
and support that their predecessors destroyed.
So while I can't pinpoint one specific myth or being that directly
influenced the MetaWars, the indirect influence is definitely present.
You can find Kelly:
Twitter: @KellyMeding
Facebook: ww.facebook.com/pages/Kelly-Meding
Web: www.kellymeding.com
The First two books in MetaWars:
