Perseus - Modern Uses of The Theme and Pop Culture

Modern Uses of The Theme and Pop Culture

In Hermann Melville's Moby-Dick, the narrator asserts that Perseus was the first whaleman, when he killed Cetus to save Andromeda. Operatic treatments of the subject include Persée by Lully (1682) and Persée et Andromède by Ibert (1921).

Chimera, the 1972 National Book Award-winning novel by John Barth, includes a novella called Perseid that is an inventive, postmodern retelling of the myth of Perseus.

In Rick Riordan's fantasy series Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2005–2009), the protagonist Percy Jackson, a son of Poseidon, is named after Perseus.

In film, the myth of Perseus was loosely adapted numerous times. The first being the 1963 Italian film Perseus The Invincible (which was dubbed and released to the U.S as Medusa Against The Son of Hercules in 1964). The second was the 1981 fantasy/adventure film Clash of the Titans, and the third was that film's 2010 remake Clash of the Titans, which was followed by a sequel called Wrath of the Titans in 2012.

Perseus was also featured in comics. Outside of a comic book adaptation of the 1981 Clash of the Titans film published by Western Publishing and a graphic novel called Perseus: Destiny's Call published in 2012 by Campfire Books, the story of Perseus continued in a couple of comic book series from Bluewater Comics. The first was the 2007 miniseries Wrath of the Titans, (which also spawned a one-shot comic called Wrath of the Titans: Cyclops), while the second is the 2011 miniseries Wrath of the Titans: Revenge of Medusa.

In Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya comic book, which is inspired by Greek myths, the character Perseus Algol is one of the warriors known as the Saints of Athena, and he wears an armor known as the Perseus Cloth, which represents the mythological figure and also his constellation.