DYUWOH

Hmm... that's hard to answer because I just can't recall very many good ones. I mean, there are depictions of Hades I like for their own merits, but very few of them really resemble the mythic figure. The Hades in Disney's Hercules is a really fun character, for example, but he's not really Hades so much as he is Satan with an Olympian coat of paint. I love the take on Hades that shows up in Stephen Sondheim's The Frogs, but he's specifically designed to be the opposite of the gloomy figure of Greek mythology both as the punchline to a joke and as part of the show's overall theme.

The closest character in modern fiction I can think of that captures what I like about the mythological Hades would probably be Death from Discworld, in that he's a decidedly gloomy and purposely neutral figure who comes for everyone, good and evil, alike, yet secretly has some mercy and humanity beneath that cold devotion to his duty as the personification of death. But he's also got so many of his own traits that you can't really call him an adaptation of Hades so much as a similar kind of psychopomp.

I like the Kid Icarus Uprising Hades too because hes a flamboyant, malevolent trickster. Like if Ian Malcolm was the devil. Hes the big bad of the game, but he spends the middle of the game mostly being a pest. He also has a fantastic totally asymmetrical asymmetrical characyer design.

Some more screening news for my fellow UK fans: I'm re-teaming with Archaeo-Heritage film to continue celebrating the 65th anniversary of Gorgo! We're kicking off with a massive screening at the Bristol Megascreen (a former IMAX). The screening also includes the excellent short film Waiting for Gorgo and an in-person introduction from me. More venues to be announced soon!

Jurassic Park preproduction illustrations by John Gurche