"Super heroes with human problems.", I once heard the comic book stylings of Stan Lee summed up to me. Spider Man still has to deal with his asshole boss, Mr. Fantastic was still too smart for his own marriage, and Wolverine seemed well adjusted by comparison. He knew what he did, he knew what he liked, and he knew when to fuck off for awhile.
Greek mythological heroes were big on these flaws too. Especially the "Idiot joyriding kid" flaw, which inevitably leads to crashing daddy's car.
Debatably the first person to do this was Phaeton. Phaeton was one of Apollo's trust fund kids, who generally screwed around confident that his dad's reputation for moving the sun around would get him out of anything. He thought he was the hot shit, and was pretty much uncontested as the local prick until he met another kid who was one of Zeus's bastards. Chip off the old block, this guy was pretty much a scion of Lebowski. He wore the bathrobe too, but you really couldn't tell the way the Greeks dressed back then. Phaeton's whining got on his nerves.
"You better not fuck with me, I'm Apollo's son!"
"Whatever man. My dad's Zeus, and you don't see me making a big deal about it."
"What's so great about Zeus?"
"He controls the skies and the lightning. Pretty much says it all."
"What has he ever done for you?"
"He gave me my own mighty lightning bolt to throw around." (He was talking about his penis. This was the misunderstanding that began a whole lot of bad shit.)
"Oh yeah? Well my dad lets me drive the sun!"
"Ok, prove it."
"um..."
So they came to the sgreement that Phaeton would drive the sun the next day, and pull off a really sick skid at noon to prove it was him.
Trying to make good on his boast, Phaeton immediately started whining to daddy Apollo to let him drive the sun. Apollo got sick of it, and agreed, but gave him very specific instructions. He had to drive between the yellow lines. If he tried to pass any other celestial bodies on the right, the earth would freeze, and on the left, he might run into it, burning crap up. Phaeton, ignoring all of this, grabbed the keys and took off.
He fucked up BAD. The earth froze a bit some places, got volcanoes scorched in it in others, he dinged the paint, and fell out trying to perform a stunt he saw on "Jackass".
Zeus's son shook his head sadly and went bowling.
Apollo had to use OnStar to find the sun after all this, and is still pissed about the poor attempt at a power slide fucking up the alignment. Which together with Demeter's little stunt to get an Amber Alert put out on Persephone, resulted in winter. He has yet to get it fixed.
Edit: forgot some words. I'm not telling you which ones.
Nice.
QuoteMy dad's Zeus, and you don't see me making a big deal about it.
Heh, who wasn't one of Zeuss's kids, back then?
:mittens:
I love this!
Loving the series. :D Can't wait to see who's next!
Quote from: Luna on February 17, 2011, 03:24:15 PM
Nice.
QuoteMy dad's Zeus, and you don't see me making a big deal about it.
Heh, who wasn't one of Zeuss's kids, back then?
He kept busy....
Another awesomeness.
:mittens:
Really Cool! Got a name for Zeus' genius slackbaby?
Really enjoying these, Richter! Looking forward to the next one. :-)