by Jarrod Jones. It is 1821. It is 2019. A time of upheaval, falling empires, lives destroyed, the future in disarray. The more things change, et cetera, et cetera.
Sons of Chaos is a staggering historical epic that dwells in the former age, but it is as relevant to today as anything you’ll read in the news. For over 400 years the Ottoman Empire ruled over Greece until, after a seemingly endless wave of failed revolts, profound acts of open defiance led to the rise of the Peloponnese rebellion and the Greek Revolution had begun. It was the start of a domino effect that would radically change the world, with the ensuing carnage reverberating across generations to inform the makeup of current geopolitics. Ahead of the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution in 2021 IDW has published Sons of Chaos, which for some readers will be their first experience learning about one of the defining conflicts in human history.
“Nearly a decade of work has gone into creating Sons of Chaos, and the masterfully gifted, international individuals involved have created an experience that I’m eternally blessed to be a part of,” Chris Jaymes, the writer of Sons of Chaos, said in the official press release. “It’s epic, it’s vulnerable, it’s vicious… and it brings pivotal events from our recent past to light, exposing the circumstances responsible for shaping our present-day conflicts.”
Courtesy of IDW Publishing, DoomRocket has published the first 44 pages of this 192-page triumph from Jaymes, Jordan Beckett, Alejandro Aragon, Hi-Fi Design, and Pablo Ayala. The dimensions of this hardcover (13.5” by 10.5”) and its rager of a cover suggest the epic insanity of 300, but its gory innards contain the sobering tapestry of humankind, where war is begat by want, a tale as old as time itself.
SONS OF CHAOS
Written by Chris Jaymes.
Story by Chris Jaymes, Jordan Beckett.
Art by Alejandro Aragon.
Color by Hi-Fi Design.
Letters by Pablo Ayala.
Cover by David Palumbo.
$39.99 | M | JULY 17
From IDW Publishing: Oversized, panoramic graphic novel ‘Sons of Chaos’ exposes the quiet agenda of the Ottoman Empire’s most brutal dictator, and his fascination with a young Greek boy that led to a war that would define the Western World.
An immersion into the moments we never see, and the self-serving motivations that convince a nation that violence is warranted, and that war is necessary.
In honor of the 200 Year anniversary of the Greek War for Independence, ‘Sons of Chaos’ presents the story of 1821 through the eyes of Marcos Botsaris, the son of a respected Greek leader taken prisoner as a child and raised within the dungeons of history’s most infamous Ottoman Pasha, known as the “Napoleon of the East”–Ali Pasha of Ioannina. Over the next ten years, the bond formed between them would define history.
The Greek War for Independence was a conflict that quietly influenced the entire world and participants ranged from the London Stock Exchange to celebrities such as Lord Byron, as well as average impassioned Americans willing to transport themselves across the Atlantic to fight alongside the Greeks.
This conflict was the pinnacle of what we now know as the Romantic Period and yet, it’s a war that few know ever existed outside of the Greek and Turkish cultures; a war that stimulated the fall of the Ottoman Empire and shaped Western Civilization as we now know it, and in a sense is being fought today under a different heading amongst today’s political world leaders.
Hundreds of years of Ottoman rule gave the Greeks a reason to fight. Marcos Botsaris gave them a leader.
