Assault on New Olympus One Shot and Incredible Hercules #138-141 (2010): Series ends, Hercules, Hera and Zeus “die”

Hera has a master plan to replace Earth 616 with one that will be filled with humans who worship Hera. 

To stop her, Hercules leads a band of his own, including his own father (who died and was reborn as a child called “Kid Zeus”) and several members of the Avengers teams.

New Olympians featuring Arachne, Typhon and Huntsman

The skinny dude with the spear and the hipster beard is Huntsman.  Apparently, he appeared several decades earlier in Champions, but I didn’t tag it back then.  I’m tagging him here in case I ever go back and fix my mistake.  Big-Guy-With-Axe is Typhon.

Hera has her own bunch of “Gods” called the New Olympians.  They are what they are.  Most are never seen again.  The spider-looking woman in the upper left, Arachne, will be back many years later. 

She’s obviously tailor-made for Spidey.

Hera is eventually betrayed by Typhon.  He literally blows her head off.

Typhon kills Hera

In the big finale, Typhon kills Kid Zeus.  

Kid Zeus dies

Not too sad about that. This series worked well as a big/little guy style team-up with Herc and Amadeus. Kid Zeus is just annoying.

To stop Typhon from merging universes, Athena blasts Hercules into vapor to seal the portal between Earth 616 and the encroaching universe.

Hercules “dies”

But right before she kills him, she claims to be Hercules’ real mommy.

This is a disappointing end to a series that was always good and often great.  Hercules OBVIOUSLY isn’t really dead, and even the characters themselves seem relatively unphased by his being vaporized.

Mourning Hercules

I mean, his wife Hebe and his real mom are crying.  And Spider-Man is holding his own head.  But the only hero shedding a tear is … US Agent???  

Anyway, that’s a minor quibble.  The joy of this series was the developing bromance between Amadeus and Hercules, and how both of their egos continually clashed and challenged true connection.  There’s little of that here, and it’s certainly not clear on that final page.  This “big” finale feels like a weak comparison to the Siege event, wherein the Marvel heroes storm Asgard, which ran concurrently.

The Agents of Atlas are featured in a multi-part back-up that connects with the main story.  In it, Venus becomes a Goddess again.  It’s a better read than the main story, but really is just a one-shot broken into several stories of about 8 pages per issue.  Like the main story, there’s not much to sink your teeth into.