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Hercules’ journey in the future wasn’t over for Bob Layton. This is the second half of his masterpiece with Hercules. He had two mini-series that were released in 1984 and 1986 and were collected in a previous Premiere Hardcover collection. There are a series of smaller tales that surround the graphic novel included here. The collection picks up in the pages of Marvel Tales #197 (March 1987), with Hercules making a bet and Skyppi helping him win the bet so that Herc can afford to make repairs to the Recorder. That was Layton warming up for his massive graphic novel released in 1988. It features our Hercules approximately thirty years after we left him. It’s a simple tale of Hercules coming into contact with his demi-god son (Arimathes) that he never knew he had with Layana Sweetwater. The story follows Hercules as we recap previous events documented in the mini-series. Galactus makes a cameo (albeit in a way you wouldn’t expect) but the story really thrives looking at the relationship between father and son and its parallels to Hercules own relationship with his father, Zeus. Hercules manages to stop his son’s villainous ways by besting him in battle and he manages to thwart a war in the process. Layton wasn’t done with Herc yet, coming back to the character in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents, in a three issue story spanning #’s 39-41 (01/90-03/90). Basically Layana escapes from her prison and tries one last time to put the kibosh on Hercules, but realizes the error of her ways when her son takes the brunt of the punishment.
-The Bottom Line- Layton proves once again that he had a great handle on the character of Hercules. The graphic novel was nothing short of great. I never enjoyed reading Hercules as much as I have here and Layton’s influence can be directly linked to what’s going on with the character now. Hercules was never much of a main player before this time and even though it would take some time before he would be the recipient of his own book, this started the momentum. Price-wise, the graphic novel is listed at $10 in the guide, but adding the other titles would definitely put this over the price of the book. There were two interviews with Layton that appeared in early Marvel Age comics that were a lot of fun to read. The supplementary stories also enabled readers who have both collections to have the complete Layton-Hercules epic. Taken as a whole, this is some character defining stuff for Hercules that any Herc fan will enjoy.
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