Funny / The Odyssey

• When Telemachus asks Odysseus what kind of help they have for taking down the suitors, Odysseus basically says, "We've got Zeus and Athena on our side. Are you sure that'll be enough?"
• "Brother, who blinded you?" "Nobody! Nobody did!" "...Then we're going to go back to sleep."
  • Taken to the logical extreme in a comic book adaptation where Odysseus and his men gave him fake names:
    "Brother, who blinded you?"
    "Nobody! Idontknow! Idontcare! Or maybe... Idontremember!"
    "So that's why they called him Polyfool."
• After his crew opened the bag of winds thinking it had treasure and caused a huge storm, Odysseus briefly considers suicide as valid as an option to preserving through hardship.
• The sheer, mind-boggling, testicle-shriveling amount of crap that Odysseus and his crew get put through when trying to get back to Ithaca can be viewed as hilarious in a cringe comedy kind of way. By the time Odysseus gets home and realizes that his wife has been badgered and harangued by suitors for a decade one could be forgiven for thinking that his wanton slaughter of them all was less about their violation of guest rights and more just blowing off some steam on a morally unambiguous target.
• When briefly visiting the Underworld, Persephone allows Odysseus to talk with his mother and other dead people. Odysseus is absolutely terrified of her and dreads staying too long and incurring her wrath, running back to his ship fearful that she'll sic Medusa's head on him.
• One of Odysseus's crew randomly dies by falling off a roof after a night of heavy drinking. Everyone else gets to be killed by horrible monsters and the wrath of the gods, but he instead gets to be a posthumous reminder about the dangers of alcoholism. Even better, after his death he berates Odysseus for not burying him properly when our hero goes to Hades!
• On the way back to Ithaca, Telemachus asks a favor of Nestor's son Pisistratus, and proceeds to invoke two generations of friendship to get some help dodging Nestor's aggressive hospitality.
• Penelope asks a disguised Odysseus to interpret a dream she had. It turns out that during the dream, one of its characters explicitly explained what it all represented, and Odysseus just repeats it back to her.
• While disguised as a human, Athena goes to the trouble of giving a plausible explanation for her departure... then promptly blows her cover by turning into a bird and flying away in front of a boggling Nestor and Telemachus.
• Penelope's tricks against the suitors, of which the two best known are:
  • At one point, she told the suitors she'd choose her next husband after she'd finish weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's father Laërtes... And every night, she'd undo her work. She strung them along for three years and would have continued had an unfaithful maid not exposed her.
  • On page we see her daring them to replicate one of Odysseus's feats: she put twelve axes on the ground so that the rings in the handle would align and gave them Odysseus' unstrung bow and arrows, and told them that whoever could use that bow to shoot an arrow through all the rings would be her next husband. She also forgot to tell them it was a recurve bow that the suitors wouldn't even recognize when at rest, let alone string.
    • After they miserably failed, the suitors let this random beggar try so they could at least have a good laugh at his arrogance... Not knowing he's actually Odysseus in disguise. Their shock when he effortlessly strings the bow and shoots an arrow through the rings is priceless... Just as their shock when the beggar reveals his identity and starts killing them.
  • A lesser-known ploy is when she calls out the suitors for freeloading off her husband's estate instead of courting her with lavish gifts. They rush to present her with gifts, while the disguised Odysseus watches with delight.