By Jeff Limke & David Witt (Graphic Universe)
ISBN: 978-1-58013-320-3, 978-0-82256-570-3
The heroic tales and beliefs of ancient cultures have for centuries formed an integral part of children’s educational development – and a good thing too. These days though, those magnificently inspiring and unforgettably visual yarns are as likely to be disseminated via graphic novel as through the sparsely illustrated prose books which had such a formative influence on my early days.
Isis & Osiris: To the Ends of the Earth was released in 2007, one self-contained chronicle in a larger series which similarly retold through sequential narrative many other myths and legends such as Jason’s Quest with the Argonauts, the Labours of Hercules or the Saga of King Arthur.
Packaged as full-colour, 48 page, card-cover booklets, they were designed to introduce kids to the magical riches of human history and imagination. This particular epic retells one of the oldest stories of our species, revealing a story of love, hate and the devotion of marriage, as well as describing the invention of Egypt’s infamous burial ceremony and system of justice.
The story begins in the most ancient of days as the divine Isis begins a holy ritual with the royal infant Dactyl, simultaneously regaling him with a tale of ‘A Party to End all Parties’. At that long-ago festival her beloved and revered husband Osiris was betrayed by his jealous, ambitious and infinitely wicked brother Set.
The dark plotter had brought a lavish and ornate stone sarcophagus carved from solid rock to the celebration and proposed a party game: whomever the beautiful bier best fitted would win it forever. Everybody tried and failed to settle into it until noble, jolly Osiris at last lay within, at which time it magically sealed itself, trapping the king of the gods within ‘A Stone-Cold Prize’…
His fate sealed, Osiris and the sarcophagus were hurled into the mighty Nile River by Set’s servants, to vanish from sight as the triumphant usurper assumed control of the world. Heartbroken but determined, Isis became a ‘Goddess Interrupted’ as she roamed the Earth for years, searching for her lost husband.
The Nile was the source of all life and Osiris’ magical passage had wrought wondrous changes and transformations Isis could track as she wearily walked the world. Eventually Isis arrived in the land ruled by Queen Astarte where she was made most welcome even as she saw the stump of a huge Tamarisk tree and felt the presence of he long-lost love.
The mighty growth was so impressive that the King had ordered it to be carved into a glorious imperial column for his palace, and when she travelled there Isis knew her quest was ended.
Arriving at our story’s starting point, the divine goddess, in her gratitude, was attempting to bless Astarte’s infant son Dactyl with her heavenly gifts when the suspicious queen inadvertently burst into her chamber and interrupted the benison. This contravention of the law of courtesy cost the mother and her son greatly…
Angered and impatient, Isis shattered the ceremonial column and released the hated sarcophagus from within it, before commandeering a boat and crew to take her beloved back up the Nile to his stolen kingdom.
‘A God Comes Home, a God Goes Missing’ found the reunited couple preparing to celebrate Osiris’ resurrection, with amazing new gifts for the people – such as farming tools and wheat – aided by their hawk-headed son Horus and Set’s jackal-headed boy Anubis. As they busied themselves, nobody saw a giant boar steal in and remove the still-slumbering Osiris…
When she discovered him missing the goddess exploded in fury, unleashing her wrath against the people until fair-minded Horus calmed her down and restored her reason.
By the banks of the river, the boar resumed his true shape and spiteful, jealous Set, determined never to lose or share the worship of mankind, cut his brother into many pieces and scattered them ‘To the Ends of the World’…
Shattered and disconsolate, Isis is comforted and encouraged by Set’s wife Nephthys, who urges her to find the strength to search for her husband again. With the aid of her sister-in-law, Anubis, and Horus, Isis once more roams the earth until all the scattered segments of Osiris are found and reconstituted. All but one…
With a vital fragment missing, Isis has a potter construct a clay replacement from the earth her husband had previously blessed, and undertakes a new ceremony to recombine, reunite and reanimate the pieces. By ‘Making a Mummy’ she and her priests totally heal the withered husk and bring Osiris back to vibrant life.
His journey to the Land of the Dead had greatly changed the mighty ruler and, restored to health and power, he has accepted a great burden. Henceforth he will judge all those going to the afterlife with a set of scales balancing the evil in men’s hearts against the weight of a heavenly feather…
All religious stories are devised to explain away contemporary unsolved questions and unknowable mysteries. The liturgical history lesson retold here was one people’s attempt to rationalise the course of their lives as farmers whilst explaining how and why their laws and customs began and, although grossly simplified here, works in an engaging manner that should certainly tempt readers to go and find out more.
Engrossing, dynamic, pretty and blessed with a light touch, this splendid introduction to mythology is designed for kids with a reading age of nine or above – that’s Year 4, I suspect – and also contains a full ‘Glossary’ of characters and concepts, suggested ‘Further Reading, Websites and Films’, creator biographies in ‘About the Author and the Artist’ and an ‘Index’.
They also read very well as sequential narrative in their own right and would serve not just as educational aid but as a smart way to get your youngsters into comics.
© 2007 Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved.