God of War creator David Jaffe and SCEA have found themselves the targets of a lawsuit, as a pair of fiction writers have sued over alleged copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs, Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Barrette-Herzog, claim that God of War stole the ideas and concepts found in their work The Adventures of Owen: Owen’s Olympic Adventure. The pair claim that they turned their content over to agents claiming to represent Sony in 2002, and three years later the first God of War game was released containing similarities in plot, character relationships, themes, settings, mood, pace and dialogue.

For their part, Sony and Jaffe claim that all mythological content featured in God of War falls under public domain laws, and that they in no way copied from the plaintiffs’ work. The defense is counter suing for legal expenses incurred during the proceedings.

Having not read Owen’s Olympic Adventure I really can’t speak to the merit of this lawsuit, but if it’s like most others then I assume there isn’t much there. If the "infringement" consists of using Zeus, Athena and other gods and goddesses as central characters, I get the feeling this one won’t go far. However, if it turns out Owen accidentally killed his family in a rage, was covered in their ashes, swore revenge on Ares and fought bad guys with blades tethered to chains... well in that case Sony and Jaffe have got some explaining to do.