Well! Welcome back, all Comic Con attendees to their respective homes, I’m sure we’re all glad to be sleeping in our own beds and not having to sardine ourselves with thousands upon thousands of fans to walk half a block. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of San Diego Comic Con, but … *whew* it’s good to be home.
Thor #2 hits stands today, reminding me that one of many things I heard at a Marvel panel was that it’s just going to take some time for J. Michael Straczynski to fully integrate Thor back with the Marvel Universe. And while I’m not too thrilled at waiting six or so issues for the God of Thunder to really take a hand in the world around him… I think I might be able to wait this out.
So, Thor #1 came and went, no real hullabaloo. I’m sorry to say that for the triumphant return of a major Marvel character, it really was more of a whimper than a bang. Slow, decompressed art pages, a wandering conversation between Donald Blake (yeah, what’s HE been up to since Thor ascended and all that? Can you really go back to your day job, even when you’re a doctor? I can’t say I got a chance to read all of Oeming’s run on Thor, but I’d say there’s a story there: Blake dealing with the loss of the godly powers and the whole darned pantheon to begin with-… but I’m not writing this book. Back to the show, sorry to barge in there.)
Blake tells Thor that if he doesn’t want to deal with Oeming’s awesome Ragnarok story, he doesn’t have to. Screw continuity, man! Just make it up! Don’t get me wrong, he has a point what with the idea that man decides whether gods exist more than gods themselves, but still. Basically, how do you call out a God of Thunder? You call him a chump. Donald Blake calls Thor a chump for sitting on his butt in the Void (wait, THE VOID?! That’s gotta be little ‘v’.) when he could get up and start living again. It works, Thor does, and Donald Blake checks into a little bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. There’s a bit of a gag about his I.D., some chatter, and then he goes to his room, cracks a stick on the ground and we’re left with a shot of lighting with a great thunder sound effect.
I dunno. Maybe I’m a little weird,but I thought when Thor would come back to the Marvel U, he’d come in a like a frikkin’ Zepplin album cover, just RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!, lighting everywhere and beatin’ fools with a big ol’ hammer. Come back as he left us, part of some greater story that has legend wrapped around it like a little kid’s super-hero cape. Instead, we get an existentially split monologue telling us that while the Earth has been going to Heck (everyone thank Tony, kids), that while Captain America was shot like a horse in the street, Thor’s been kicking it in nowheresville, land of the semi-spacescape background.
And yeah, I was pissed off about this when I read the preview. Where’s freakin’ Thor? Why isn’t he bashing anyone in the present tense? What’s with all this “And then…” captioning?
Every once and awhile, there comes a time when one has to step back and looking at things from a broader perspective. My perspective wanted Thor hitting fools upside the head. Marvel, in general, has to take things another way. He’s been gone for so long, a lot of the groundwork for this story has been laid by Neil Gaiman and is being written by J. Michael Straczynski, two men not known for their balls-to-the-wall action. It’s going to be a more cerebral book. It’s going to have a lot of repetition because we’re catching Average Joe Reader up with years and years and years of story. This is a #1 issue and by it’s very nature should be accessible to everyone and that’s got to take some time.
As much as I’d like to start with some heavy hero action, it all has to start somewhere and if their going for a more of a tale of yore than an adventure comic, they did a pretty good job and laying some groundwork. And you know what? I can wait. I’m a fan and I have all the background and information I need to know that eventually, Thor is going to meet up with Tony Stark and kick his metal hiney. The Average Joe Reader? He has no idea about Civil War yet, all he knows is Thor looks cool, hey it’s a #1, let’s get the Turner cover.
That reader can’t wait to catch up with the rest of us, but I think it’s pretty cool for us to wait for them.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:39 pm
No, No, No! Thor’s return SHOULD be the Zepplin cover! He’s the god of lightning/storms, his pantheon is mainly known for being worshipped by Vikings…which part of that says “cerebral”?
If an intro is necessary, fold it in after we see him in action. His return was not anticipated by new readers, after all. It was the fans who remember the guy who flew by throwing his hammer and then hanging on to it! Verily!
Besides which, if a new reader picks up a #1, does “decompressed art” and a “wandering story” pull in the new reader? No! Thor hitting someone so hard they are coughing up spine fragments…That’s what pulls in a new reader!
Don’t rationalize disappointment! Demand better!
August 1st, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Thor should have never been a clone in Civil War…and spun his return out of there somehow, as his initial presence in it was pretty powerful/unnerving, like an old school god should have…I haven’t read the JMS issues yet, so I’m not “dissing,” it might be rather good.
August 1st, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Pretty much agree with the criticisms here – I also felt let down by the first issue – but I suppose I trust JMS enough to give him a few issues to win me over. I think I’m at an age now where mindless battle after mindless battle’s not going to entertain me anymore – although World War Hulk is surprisingly captivating to me! – so I’m glad there’s more to it than that. But six issues of navel-gazing also isn’t going to keep me enthralled, so hopefully JMS has more than that up his sleeve.
Oh, and I can’t help but ask: when did “every once in a while” become “every once and awhile”? That kind of reminds me of the time I saw someone use “for all intensive purposes”…
August 1st, 2007 at 10:38 pm
I love Thor, but JMS’s idea of storytelling involves issue after issue of backstory, stuff that should be given a page or two, in a flashback. At this rate Thor will get to the smiting sometime next year.
The stuff that made Thor great was the smiting part, not the ‘finding your inner hero’ part.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:30 am
Yeah, the “gods inside of us all” bit is pretty lame. JMS is a bizarre match for Thor….though I’m sure he’ll be gone after a year and we can get back to the smiting.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:28 am
I can understand everyone’s want for smiting and butt-kickery, but I think that’s why they added Ares to the Avengers lineup. Now they can bring back one of the most Legendary characters to Marvel in a more story driven, less Hulk-ish type of life. I for one am a much bigger fan of the galactic [Silver Surfer, Star Wars, GLC, etc.] type of story [surprisingly WWH isn't on my list], and so it’s odd that this one is something I already seem to enjoy. JMS is going to do a great job with it, and Mark is right, after he’s done bringing Thor back they’ll bring in a writer more equipped to handle a full-powered Thor.
As for Kimota94′s comments, I’m not entirely sure that a fan’s take on a comic book is the best place for Engrish bashing. Try to keep it to the WoW forums.