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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

THOR: Marvel's Return to Greatness


I have just read the first 12 issues of Thor and the finale, as well as Thor 600 & 601 (going along with Marvel's return to original numbering, the flipside to the constant new issue #1s). This run by J. Michael Straczynski, drawn by Olivier Coipel & Marko Djurdjevic, chronicles the return of Thor and all of Asgard from the post-Ragnarok void that the God's rested in when I guess Marvel didn't know what to do with the character (along with the Avengers) and killed them all off.

JMS does an amazing job resetting continuity while moving the series forward story-wise. Thor is called forth to protect Midgard (Earth) and is once again bonded to Dr. Donald Blake (who are two seperate conscious beings). He's got the gnarled walking staff which he uses to transform into the God of Thunder. And he's brought back into Man's world to re-create Asgard on Earth to reconnect with humanity.

Heimdall, Balder, Loki, the Warriors Three, they're all back (although Loki in female form which works to unsettle and regain trust with the Asgardians just enough to manipulate them all, and later is revealed as a plot to keep Lady Sif from Thor). Everyone is back except Odin.

Though it appears Thor is purposefully not bringing back his father, he tells himself it is so the kingdom may not repeat the cycle of Ragnarok once more. It will be a fresh start for the Asgardians. But perhaps it is because Thor truly wishes to lead, to come into his own, to surpass his father.

To that end Thor journeys via Odinsleep, into the realm that now houses Odin and Surtur, who are locked in eternally repetitious cycles of violence against each other. Here we are told a tale of Bor, Odin's father, and how in defiance of him Odin created man, who his father plagued with monsters and beasts to punish his son and his creation. Odin understands the need for the cycle to begin anew with new leadership.

This tale of Bor also sets up an interesting twist on the origin of Loki and how he came to be adopted son of Odin, the guilty poison let into the kingdom. I won't spoil it past that as it is truly one of the most clever bits in this run. It also sets up the return of Bor who is brought to NYC dis at the hands of Loki, and then beset by Thor, who ends up killing his own grandfather.

A move that allows Loki to place Balder as King (after slyly revealing the truth that Balder is half-brother to Thor), and to have Thor exiled. This brings the Asgardians into Latveria, and Doom experiments on them, and there's a big fight with Doom's own version of the Destroyer suit. It's pure comic book here.

But it also has nice moments of the Gods interacting with humans, and even sets up a heroic death for Bill Jr. (aka William the Third) who fell in love with a female winter goddess. It's pretty well done and you really do root for the character and his death is handled exceptionally well if not blunt. But these are gods here. Depowered a bit on Earth, but gods among mortals.

There's even a bit at the end which makes it so Dr. Donald Blake once again is wounded and left with a limp so he needs the cane. It's all very neatly tied up with a bow, leaving us with a well developed story, an entertaining and engaging return of the great characters from this part of Marvel, and prepares us for Siege.

A small plot hole I found was, what was Loki's plan for Sif, it almost seemed as if he were just using her to distract Thor, or perhaps just using her mortal form to regain trust? I'm not sure, but it wasn't to remove her from him forever. Ahh wait, maybe it was in hope that Thor would use all of Odin's power to drain him somehow? For on his way to save her, Mjolnir damaged from the fight with Bor, he must go to Dr. Strange to repair the hammer by removing the Odinpower from himself and imbue it into his hammer, thereby linking him to his hammer as never before. Hmmm.

Either way, it's great to have Thor back, and the scene where Thor gives Iron Man what's coming to him for the Civil War/Thor clone debacle, and the Captain America memorial, well this really helps build up the need for a return of the Avengers.

3 comments:

  1. JMS is a good writer but his work on Thor seemed to receive a mixed reception among the truly hard core Thor fans.

    For many JMS moved far too slowly, there were too many delays on production and he appeared to shy away from the foght action that a lot of Thor fans crave.

    As an Aussie science fiction writer I’ve been a Marvel Thor fan since the original Journey into Mystery of August 1962.

    If you get a chance check out some of my Marvel (mainly Thor) fan fiction. Just scroll down below my author profile and you will see over 40 fan fiction stories here:

    http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1276881/David_Scholes

    I tend to write Thor as a more powerful, more cosmic character than Marvel writers have.

    Maybe also check out my new novella. Only just released as an e-book on Xlibris and also now available in Kindle edition on Amazon:

    http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-of-the-Brell-ebook/dp/B003XF1HJW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A24IB90LPZJ0BS&s=digital-text&qid=1280200074&sr=1-1

    http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=721437

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Greetings from Los angeles! I'm bored at work so I decided to check out your blog on my iphone during lunch break. I enjoy the info you provide here and can't wait to take a look when I get home. I'm shocked at how fast your blog loaded on my phone .. I'm not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, fantastic blog!return America to greatness

    ReplyDelete

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