Todd Jensen writes...

After reading LSZ's comments on the use of Norse mythology in "Gargoyles" (particularly with Odin) and your responses to them, I thought that I'd weigh in with my own thoughts on Odin as portrayed in the Gargoyles Universe.

As something of a Norse mythology buff (and, like you, I very much enjoyed the d'Aulaire book which was my big introduction to the Norse myths), I enjoyed Odin's showing up in "Gargoyles". The one detail that bothered me in "Eye of the Storm", though, I confess, was when both Odin and Goliath in his "Eye of Odin" form were wearing horned helmets. This was because I'd read that the Vikings never actually wore those kinds of helmets, and, even more significantly, Hakon and his Vikings in "Awakening" weren't portrayed as wearing horned helmets but the sort of outfits that Vikings wore in actual history. So I felt a bit disturbed by the horned helmets in "Eye of the Storm", on the grounds of "They know better, because of how they drew Hakon and his followers."

Admittedly, since Odin and the "Odinized" Goliath weren't human flesh-and-blood Norsemen like Hakon, but fantasy beings, maybe the horned helmet concept does work for them, in that their appearance would be reflecting the popular imagination view of Vikings.