God Complex (Image) is about Apollo hiding out in a human form to escape his family, the Greek Gods.

Athena (Dynamite) is about the goddess Athena in human form working as a detective/superhero something or other, not remembering her old life.

Olympus (IDW) is about Greek Gods hiding out on earth, waging a secret battle with fiends that have escaped from Hades.

Greek Street (Vertigo) is about the Greek Gods and mythic characters playing through the same stories they’ve previously experienced, in the modern day, in human form.

So obviously, there are differences in each story. And I want to stress, I’m not calling “stolen!” at any of these, things move in trends, and that’s my point: what’s with the focus on Greek myths all of a sudden? They’re certainly eternally fascinating stories with a large cast of built in interesting characters, so there’s that going for it. And it may be a bit of a reaction to the immense amount of Judeo-Christian mythology that has seeped into comics of late (Superman has to leave his people for a desert planet where he has conversations with Zod, aka The Devil? That doesn’t sound reminiscent of anything at all to me).

But four different publishers, with very similar ideas certainly indicates a trend. The question is, how long can the comic book market support so many titles about Greek Myths? This isn’t even taking into account Incredible Hercules, which deals with the subject intelligently and hilariously on a monthly basis. Or JMS’ Thor, which is possibly the genesis of this whole trend in the first place (Norse gods in human form).

And regardless, just to emphasize, a new Mike Oeming series is always an event, so regardless of any similarities, I can’t wait to check it out.

By the way, my new comic book, “Vampires vs. Olympus” should be announced any day now. It’s about vampires hiding out in Olympus as Greek Gods. Should be a blast.