"Greek Street" is a sixteen issue comic book series by writer Peter Milligan and artist Davide Gianfelice, and published by DC Comics Vertigo imprint in 2009 and 2010. As it name suggests, it was an attempt to use the characters from Greek mythology in contemporary times, specifically in London, England. Since this is under the Vertigo imprint, and involves Greek myths, it also has some very strong content, which is confirmed by the front cover, which tells us this is for mature readers.
The story follows several characters who are named for, or parallel, characters in Greek mythology, although often the parallels are different than they are in Greek mythology. The lead male character is Oedipus, and the lead female character is Cassandra, although (in an example of departure from the traditional myths) Cassandra is the daughter of Agamemmon, who is a wealthy and sadistic Lord. The background conflict involves gang wars in London. The story also mixes together the mundane and the supernatural: some of the characters seem to be a parallel version of a mythological character, while other characters are clearly supernatural. Apparently, there is times when both co-exist: there are a family of characters called "Furay" (who are men) and also supernatural entities called "The Furies". I think. There is also a detective named Daedalus, who seems to have no connection to his mythological counterpart, and halfway through the series, when this becomes a police procedural, he gets a female Muslim partner, which doesn't really relate to anything in particular. Okay, I am both getting ahead of myself and making this sound worse than it is.
The story starts when "Eddie" returns home and meets an older woman, and has sex with her. And, of course, finds out she is his mother. She is then murdered, and this might be related to Menon, a wealthy aristocrat with odd sexual tastes, whose daughter Cassandra is kept locked away in the attic and drugged so she can't prophecise. Eventually, Eddie faces the psychic fallout of his sexual encounter with his mother, including blinding and castration, but also escapes with Cassandra as they are caught up in the murder investigation that Daedelus is investigating. There is a lot more to it then that, but this is basically film noir meets Greek myths. Obviously, just from this brief description, this is not going to be the thing for everyone. I found the premise interesting, but the execution, while stylish and multilayered, had some problems. The art is also well-done, mixing sensuality with horror. Given the strong subject matter, I actually think it was done tastefully.
Here is the basic problem I had with this work (I read 12 of the 16 issues): while I am not averse to transgressive or extreme subject matter, I do believe it has to be worked up to in a certain way to have any type of dramatic impact. As mentioned, in the first dozen pages of the first issue, Oedipus commits incest, and that doesn't leave the story a lot of places to go. This also opposed to the very idea of the tragic hero in Greek drama, because a tragic hero is an otherwise good or admirable person who has a fatal flaw. But the characters in this story aren't good, and it was a dozen issues of grim and nasty conflict with no dramatic structure or movement. It wasn't terrible: maybe the worst thing was that it was atmospheric enough, and the art and plotting were interesting enough, that I kept waiting for it to get good.
Another thing was a shadow over this: the basic idea (mythology mixed with a gothic punk world) was not a new idea, and had been there at the birth of Vertigo, with Neil Gaiman's Sandman. And so I was comparing this to The Sandman, which had more charm and creativity, and while having its extreme and scary moments as well, tended to have them in a less ugly way. I got the 12 issues of this comic from a Little Free Library, and so I didn't pay anything for them. For something I read for free, it was fairly entertaining, but I feel that the basic premise had its potential wasted by muddy and edgy execution.