By Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Agustin Alessio, Ive Svorcina & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-603-8
Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, The Mighty Thor began his stellar career in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), delivering an unceasing procession of spectacular adventures which encompassed everything from crushing crime capers and smashing sinister super-villains to saving entire universes from cosmic doom.
As the decades passed he survived numerous reboots and re-imaginings to keep the wonders of fabled Asgard appealing to an increasingly jaded readership. An already exceedingly broad range of scenarios spawned even greater visual variety after the Thunderer’s introduction to the pantheon of cinematic Marvels and his ongoing triumphs as a bona fide burgeoning movie franchise.
The most recent publishing iteration of Marvel’s most tempestuous hero began by simultaneously focusing on the Storm Lord in the past, present and future with this compilation (gathering Thor, God of Thunder #19.NOW to 24, cover-dated April to September 2014) bringing that conceit to its natural, if staggeringly apocalyptic, conclusion.
Crafted primarily by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, this chronicle visits two vastly separated eras as the Lord of Storms tackles two ultimate enemies of Earth in two distinctly different times.
‘The Last Days of Midgard’ opens with an appraisal of how, across the universe, many worlds are inexplicably dying, whilst on Earth Thor is renewing his ineffable bond with the blue planet he loves so much. Having recently made the acquaintance of junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Rosalind Solomon and been more than a little impressed, he is thus on hand when she begins her job in the agency’s new Environmental Hazard division by uncovering a high-tech underwater Japanese whaling fleet hunting inside a UN undersea preserve.
As her solo assault fails Solomon is surprised – and a little annoyed – to be rescued by the almighty storm god who soon routs and destroys the poachers. Meanwhile in Alaska the new CEO of super-corporation Roxxon is unveiling his latest moneymaking scheme.
Unctuous wunderkind Dario Agger is proudly publicising his new project to bring clean – if exorbitantly expensive – mined ice for drinking water from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Of course he fails to mention his company’s covert activities: deliberately polluting water tables, melting Earth’s icecaps and befouling the atmosphere.
Under his new business model Roxxon intends to ecologically destabilise the planet so that they can monetise their brand of high-tech stopgap solutions…
Agger’s first foray goes embarrassingly awry when Thor hijacks his press launch; hand-delivering an entire mountain of clean ice and promising all the Earth might ever need…
Furiously brushing aside Agent Solomon’s thinly veiled threat that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on to him, the self-proclaimed god of money vows vengeance and brings in his lawyers and lobbyists. Superheroes and even S.H.I.E.L.D. enforce laws, but corporations own the politicians who make and – where necessary – rewrite them…
In the far distant future the universe is winding down and All-father Thor is a weary, maimed but still stubborn god. The end of time has almost no deities left in it, save the aged, one-eyed, one-armed Last King of Asgard, with only his (recently liberated from slavery yet ferociously independent) granddaughters Atli, Ellisiv and Frigg for company.
He spends his days sitting on and mourning the burned out, nigh-dead Earth he loves so much, but his ancient passions for the planet are stoked back to blazing fury when world-devourer Galactus arrives determined to consume at last the only celestial morsel ever to frustrate his unending hunger…
As the second issue opens King Thor banishes his fiery granddaughters back to Asgard whilst he prepares to die at long last defending his barren charge even as back in the Now his younger self has returned to the town of Broxton, Oklahoma; a place he sometimes calls home.
After a previous Ragnarok brought the extra-dimensional realm of Asgard to destruction and scattered the souls of the gods, a mysterious voice summoned the deceased Thor back to life – on Earth – in a crack of shattering thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary godling swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow Aesir, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts, and set up Asgard-on-Earth a few paltry feet above the ground of Oklahoma…
Following many battles and conflicts the mystic floating city – now dubbed Asgardia – was officially declared an Embassy of the Gods by the US government, and life for the rural humans below settled down to a pattern of strangely heightened, intense friendly cooperation with their amazing neighbours…
Outraged at what Solomon has told him of Roxxon and contemptuous as ever of mortal laws, Thor then causes the destruction of all the corporation’s flying pollution factories, provoking Agger to move the hero up his agenda and retaliate…
In his corporate lair the billionaire revels in the power of money and science whilst murderously “inspiring†his ineffectual think-tank to find solutions to his god problem. The gory brainstorming session soon arrives at a perfect response but inadvertently reveals a stunning secret about the cruel plutocrat…
As Agger sets his plans into motion, at the end of time the last King of Asgard refuses to surrender his beloved Earth to Galactus and, as the battle ferociously escalates, readies himself to die gloriously with his wounded world…
The third chapter sees the apparent defeat of the elder god, whilst in his past the unstoppable power of money and influence as applied by Roxxon has moved clerical mountains and brought misery to the younger Thunderer.
The corporation has moved into Broxton with a spurious scheme to bring jobs, prosperity and progress to the isolated farming town. Of course the first step is buying up all the land they can and splitting up the community. That is quickly followed by establishing a second wave of atmosphere-poisoning flying factories over their bewildered heads…
Correctly assessing what Thor’s furious impatient response will be, smug Agger is waiting with a legion of lawyers and writs waiting to serve the god with injunctions, cease-&-desist orders and damages suits. After the CEO refuses the Asgardian’s offer to buy back Broxton with the unlimited wealth of the Eternal Realm, only Rosalind Solomon’s frantic pleading stops the enraged Thor from blowing his top and getting himself arrested or even deported from Earth…
In a distant Tomorrow Galactus has defeated the ancient Thunder Lord and thrown his battered body into space, whilst in the Now Agger initiates the next phase in his blueprint for vengeance, summoning monstrous troll Ulik and his troglodytic legions to literally undermine Broxton and Asgardia and slay Thor when he inevitably intervenes…
Issue #22 opens with the world-devourer preparing to render the defenceless future Earth to rubble when the incomparable and ever defiant Atli, Ellisiv and Frigg return, bearing an arsenal of god-killing weapons, whilst in present day Oklahoma Thor resorts to guile and patience – two things he is legendarily short of – as Rosalind leads the fight back against Roxxon.
Things soon go wrong though when she is targeted by hungry trolls…
As defeated King Thor rallies at the end of the universe and storms towards the place where the most ultimate of weapons is cached, in the present Thor confronts Agger and is astonished to see him transform into a bloodthirsty beast easily the match of a god…
The final chapter features even more spectacular cataclysmic combat on two time-fronts with ravening monsters equally served their just deserts, topped off with a brace of twist endings each serving to set the scene for forthcoming dramas, but the graphic drama does not quite end there.
Thor, God of Thunder #24 featured ‘The Last Days of Midgard Epilogue: Adieu, Midgard, Adieu’ (illustrated by Agustin Alessio & colourist Ive Svorcina with Ribic), and here offers a downbeat conclusion to the bombastic epic as beaten but undeterred Dario Agger pleads possession by uncanny forces and puts all Roxxon’s resources behind a campaign to remove the terrifying, alien, immigrant Asgardians from American – if not Earth’s – holy soil…
Amidst an aura of almost constant super-powered strife, it’s ludicrously easy to sway public opinion and All-Mother Freyja decides its time for the repaired and fully restored wonder city to leave for another, more welcoming place in the unending cosmos. But before they go Thor has one last invaluable gift for all the friends in Broxton he feels he has failed…
This blistering book of battles, trickery, triumphs and tragedies comes equipped with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Ribic, Alessio, Pascal Campion, Jenny Parks, Simone Bianchi, Nic Klein, Clay Mann and Ron Garney, plus bunches of extra content available via the AR icon option (providing special augmented reality content available exclusively through the Marvel AR app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop).
Furious, fun and fabulous Fights ‘n’ Tights furore no superhero fantasy fan could possibly resist.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.