The ancient Greeks and Romans were polytheists: they believed in numerous deities, organized in hierarchies and endowed with specific characteristics, powers, and symbols. Myths narrated the stories of these immortal beings and their relationship with humanity. According to cosmogony, everything originated from Chaos, from which Gaea and Uranus were born, parents of the Titans, including Cronus and Rhea, who in turn were parents of the Olympian gods such as Zeus.
The gods resided on Mount Olympus and occupied a central role in religious life: temples and sanctuaries, decorated with images and offerings, celebrated their cult. Alongside the great sanctuaries dedicated to the main deities, there were several other sacred places. In Roman times, the idea of a unity of gods also found expression in the Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the deities.
The gods of Greco-Roman myth have continued to live on in the contemporary imaginary, appearing repeatedly in comics and maintaining their traditional role, albeit reinterpreted in different graphic and narrative forms. The goddess Venus is among the first mythological figures to be the protagonist of modern stories: in 1948, she appeared in the comic book of the same name created by Stan Lee, Ken Bald, and Bill Everett, in which her father Jupiter also appears. In 1965, in the pages of Journey into Mystery, Hercules made his debut, introducing the entire world of the Olympian gods to the Marvel Universe.
They also appear in the DC Universe, but it is especially with the famous 1987 Wonder Woman series, created by George Pérez together with Greg Potter, Len Wein, and Bruce Patterson, that they are represented in a way that is particularly faithful to the classical tradition. In these stories, the aesthetics and iconography are directly inspired by Hellenistic sculpture, creating a powerful and coherent vision of the ancient myth.