Thor – Page 11 – Now Read This!

August 29, 2013August 28, 2013

Thor: Siege Aftermath

By Kieron Gillen, Richard Elson & Doug Braithwaite with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Neal Adams & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4638-4

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in monsters-and-mysteries anthology Journey into Mystery #83. The taleÂ Â introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

The series grew from formulaic beginnings battling aliens, commies and cheap thugs into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming the Mighty Thor where, after years of bombastic adventuring, the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined and finally clarified to explain how the immortal godling could also be locked within frail Don Blake.

The epic saga took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassionâ€¦

Time passed; Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image Comics instigators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched in brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later.

After many phenomenal adventures the second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004) which once-and-for-all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end a ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who had manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

You can’t keep a profitable property down or a great comics character unresurrected, so he was reborn again as a mysterious voice summoned Thor back to life â€“ and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) â€“ in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary Lord of Asgard swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts and set up Asgard on Earth a few paltry feet above the ground of Broxton, Oklahomaâ€¦

As this small, simple community with some intriguing neighbours increasingly became the focus of cosmic events, expatriate big city doctor Don Blake was corporeally merged with Thor and became the mortal host for the God of Thunderâ€¦

What you need to know: trickster god Loki is dead but his legacy of malign machinations continues to affect the earthbound Asgardians as they begin to rebuild their devastated city following an appalling assault by the massed forces of out-of-control American Security Czar Norman Osborn in Siegeâ€¦

Balder the Brave is the latest leader of the displaced deities but the populace is far from united behind him, with factions forming advocating the accession of Thor or his brother Tyr, God of War. Neither blood-son of lost Odin wants the job or feels worthy of the throneâ€¦

When Asgard materialised on Earth, the afterlife realms of Hel and Valhalla were displaced and Hela, caretaker of the dead, allowed Loki to broker a deal which sublet a portion of Mephisto‘s Hell as a home for the wandering Norse dead. Hela feared her phantom charges would become prey to an ancient pre-Asgardian horror which consumed the spirits of fallen heroes, but she was unaware that the dire Disir were also pawns of the turbulent, troubled God of Evil who was her fatherâ€¦

Nor was she privy to the fact that, to seal the deal, Loki had given Mephisto mastery of the voracious, vile and utterly debased Dead-eatersâ€¦

Collecting issues #611-614 of Thor (from August to November 2010), this grim fury tale of Hells without a Heaven also includes a classic 3-part saga of Asgardians in the Underworld first seen in Thor #179-181 at the end of the 1960s.

‘The Fine Print’ consists of four chapters scripted by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Richard Elson & Doug Braithwaite and begins with Thor, Balder and Tyr officiating at a mass pyre for the hundreds who fell in defence of Asgard and Broxton. Meanwhile in Mephisto’s blazing inferno, lesser demons ousted from their hellish lands prepare to oust Hela and her transplanted Hall of Heroes, but are completely eradicated by the Disir â€“ despised proto-Valkyries who served primordial god Bor until they acquired a taste for the flesh and souls of fallen warriors and were condemned for all eternity.

Simply to speak their communal name summons them from eternity to kill and consume. As none has done so in an age, most Asgardians believe them to be mythâ€¦

Now, with upheaval in the Realms of the Gods, the horrors are free to sate their insatiable hungers, first upon the demon armies and after on the hallowed Asgardian dead. First, however, they must gain the sanction of their new master Mephisto.

The arch deceiver won’t say yes – but he doesn’t say no eitherâ€¦

When the â€œEver-Hungry Onesâ€ raid Valhalla, the only place Hela can turn is to the living world where hopefully flesh and blood still honours the sanctity of the fallenâ€¦

In Asgard, Balder is uneasy with his stewardship and seeks comfort in the wisdom of weather goddess Kelda Stormrider, who sacrificed so much – including her mortal beloved Bill and briefly her own life – to defend the kingdom. He is completely unaware what Loki’s magics have made of her nowâ€¦

When Hela materialises amongst the ashes of the recent dead and begs for aid, she is naturally rebuffed until one foolhardy warrior utters the forbidden name of the damned and is instantly rent to shreds by the terrifying harpiesâ€¦

Rather than kill them all, BrÃ¼n of the Disir leaves with a warning: her kind prefers meals seasoned by life’s ending and would prefer to dine on souls that have expired. After all, they are patient and have all the time in the worldâ€¦

With the weakened Hela only able to carry two warriors, Thor and Tyr ignore their suspicious misgivings and return with her to rescue their departed friends and family. The War God goes with Hela to defend the embattled shades of Valhalla whilst the Thunderer prepares to fight his way across all Hell in search of the sword Eir-Gram, forged by Loki through despicable rite and ritual and the only weapon capable of harming Disirâ€¦

The puissant blade is lodged in Mephisto’s Great Hall but Thor wisely chooses to force his way to it rather than accept a sly offer of assistance from the Tempter to simply collect itâ€¦

Ferocious, grandly scaled, truly epic and astoundingly clever, this is a superb tale of operatic tone and proportions, full of twists and turns and surprises that adds volumes to the modern mythology of the Thunder God and will delight fans of comics and the cosmic.

This dark and brutal tome continues with a masterful changing of the guard and sign of the times which originally appeared in Thor #179-181, August to October 1970.

In #179 ‘No More the Thunder God!’ saw Thor, Sif and Balder dispatched to Earth to arrest Loki. This story was Kirby’s (and inker Vince Colletta’s) last: the entire vast unfolding new mythology was left on an artistic cliffhanger as the Thunder God was ambushed by his wicked step-brother who used infernal magic to trade places with his shining-souled half-brotherâ€¦

By switching bodies, the Lord of Evil gained safety and the power of the Storm whilst Thor was doomed to endure whatever punishment Odin decreedâ€¦

‘When Gods Go Mad!’ introduced the totally different style of Neal Adams to the mix, inked by the comfortably familiar Joe Sinnott, as the true Thunder God was sent to Hell and the tender mercies of Mephisto, whilst on Earth Loki used his brother’s body to terrorise the UN Assembly and declare himself Master of the Worldâ€¦

In #181 ‘One God Must Fall’ Sif led Warriors Three Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg on a rescue mission to the Infernal Realm, whilst Balder struggled to combat the combined power of Thor and malice of Loki, until Mephisto was finally thwarted and a cataclysmic battle of brothers on embattled Earth set the world at last to rights.

Dark, brooding and ferocious, this is a breathtaking Costumed Drama that will enthral and delight fans of both comic and filmic Asgardian iterations which also includes covers and variants by Mico Suayan, Laura Martin, Adams, Sinnott, John Romita Sr., Marie Severin, John Buscema & Chris Stevens plus a beautiful selection of pencilled original art by Braithwaite.
Â© 1970, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

June 3, 2013June 22, 2013

Thor God of Thunder: The God Butcher

By Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-533-8

In the wake of the game-changing Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the more than 50-year old universe interesting to readers old and new alike.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, I’m sure, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Collecting Thor, God of Thunder #1-5 (cover-dated January-April 2013) by Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic, this big, bold blockbuster saga simultaneously unfolds over three separate eras and offers a spectacular clash as the bellicose Lord of Lightning faces his ultimate adversaryâ€¦

It begins in Iceland in 893AD where a young god revels amongst his Viking worshippers, slaying monsters and bedding mortal maids in the days before he proved himself worthy enough to wield the mystic mallet Mjolnir.

During his revels a dismembered corpse washes up, terrifying the valiant Norsemen. They have never seen the like but Thor recognises it as a god from another pantheon, slaughtered and dismembered like meatâ€¦

In the now, Thor is summoned into deep space and the parched planet Indigarr. The Thunderer has mystically heard the desperate prayer of a little girl and on his arrival brings rain and salvation to her dying world.

Celebrated as a saviour, the Storm Lord wonders aloud why the people did not pray to their own gods – across the entire universe, all civilisations and peoples have deities – and learns they are dead. Investigating further he locates Indigarr’s god-palace and discovers the entire pantheon was tortured to death ages agoâ€¦

As a monstrous black beast ambushes him he remembers a horrific experience more than a millennium past and knows fearâ€¦

In the furthest future, an aged Thor sits in a shattered Great Hall of Asgard. He has only one arm and one eye and is the last god – perhaps the last being – in existence â€¦except for the uncountable hordes of savage black beasts that surround himâ€¦

The cosmic conundrum continues in ‘A World without Gods’ as, in Iceland, Thor leads a bold band of worshipful reivers on a quest into what will one day be Russia and encounters a being who has killed all the gods of the Slavs.

Appropriating one of the perished pantheon’s flying horses Thor soars aloft to challenge the mysterious God Butcher and, amidst a welter of ‘Blood in the Clouds’, eventually defeats the maniacal alien Gorrâ€¦

In the present, an enraged Thunder God, having honourably disposed of the celestial corpses, sets off to discover the truth of the situationâ€¦

Arriving at the pan-cosmic metropolis of Omnipotence City, where gods of every world and time have met since the universe began, the Thunderer discovers that over the eons many divinities have gradually stopped visiting.

After consulting the infinitude of scrolls in ‘The Hall of the Lost’, Thor journeys to many of the worlds and finds the same thing over and again: slaughtered, desecrated corpses and planets bereft of godly life. Each of them does harbour a brutal black beast thoughâ€¦

In ancient Russia the Thunder godling recovers after seven days in a coma, tended by his faithful Vikings. Seeking to confirm his victory, Thor subsequently searches the icy wastes and finds the last of the Slavic Celestials, left as a swiftly expiring signpost to a rematch with the diabolical divinity-slayerâ€¦

In our time Thor and Avenger ally Iron Man visit the same region, scouting the cave where Thor ended the menace of Gorr, the God Butcher in the 9^th century.

After all he has seen in space, however, the Thunderer is questioning his memory and conclusions. Wiser and warier than his youthful incarnation, the Prince of Asgard dispatches the Golden Avenger to warn Earth’s other pantheons of their imminent peril before entering the cave he’d last visited more than a thousand years agoâ€¦

At the very end of days the dotard Thunder God continues to slay black beasts, hungry for the honourable death they will not allow himâ€¦

And in the 21^st century the Lord of Storms finds not his foe, but a pathetically broken alien god the Butcher has left with a personal message â€“ â€œIt’s all your fault, Thorâ€¦â€

At the end of time ‘The Last God in Asgard’ is left to fight again but never die, as in the now, Thor and broken alien deity Shadrak return to Omnipotence City following a slipped reference to something called â€œChronuxâ€ and stumble into a raid by beast creatures determined to erase all reference to it from the infinite library of the eternal omnopolis.

In 893AD the awful truth of what occurred in Gorr’s cavern is revealed, as the present-day Thor follows a faint hope to the planet of the Time Gods and learns the impossibly grandiose, history-shredding scheme of the Butcher.

Gorr meanwhile has uncovered the true origin-story of universal life and invades the corridors of time to achieve his ‘Dream of a Godless Age’â€¦

The Celestial Slaughterman is even more elated when his 21^st century nemesis is catapulted to Asgard at the end of eternity. Now the chronal marauder has two Thors to play with – for as long as he wishesâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Dark, complex, expansive and disturbing, this cruelly compelling yarn perfectly capitalises on the Thunder’s God’s key conceptual strengths to offer a decidedly different take on the venerable hero – one that should delight fans who think they’ve seen it all.

Also included herein are swathes of extra content for tech-savvy consumers via the AR icon option (described as â€œcode for a free digital copy on the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app – including cover recaps, behind the scenes features and moreâ€) as well as the usual available-to-all expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Ribic, Skott Young, Daniel AcuÃ±a, Joe Quesada, Olivier Coipel & Rajko Milosevic Guera.

April 16, 2013April 19, 2013

Essential Thor volume 5

By Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Don Perlin, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5093-0

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

By the time of this fifth Essential monochrome compendium, an unthinkable Changing of the Guard had seen the King of Comics jump ship from the House of (His) Ideas to arch-rival DC where he crafted the unfinished Magnum Opus of the Fourth World series as well as a number of other game-changing concepts.

The Thunder God suffered a sharp, sudden loss of imaginative impetus, however, which left the series floundering, despite the best efforts of (arguably) the company’s greatest remaining illustrators, Neal Adams and John Buscema. More than any other Marvel feature, The Mighty Thor was the strip where Kirby’s creative brilliance had always found its greatest release in cosmic wandering and questing exploration of an infinite and dangerous universe.

His dreaming, extrapolating and honing of a dazzling new kind of storytelling and graphic symbology, wedded to soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe – and all within the limited confines of a 20-page action adventure – was an impossible act to follow.

Although his successors mimicked the trappings of that incredible conceptual juggling act, the heart, soul and soaring, unfettered wonder just were not there any longer – nor would they be until 1983 when Walt Simonson assumed creative control with #337 (see Mighty Thor: the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill).

By the time these monthly episodes (from issues #196-220, February 1972 to February 1974) saw print, the Thunder God and his Asgardian companions were slowly devolving into a muddled, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe under the earnest but uninspired governance of young science fiction novelist Gerry Conway and a dedicated, talented but still somehow inappropriate string of artists.

The previous volume had seen Asgard again imperilled by mystic monstrosity Mangog with Thor and friends dispatched on another extended odyssey to the ends of the Universe in search of succour and water from The Twilight Well. In his righteous rage Odin had previously banished God of Evil Loki to a fantastic world, momentarily forgetting that once there the Prince of Evil could awaken the most vicious, unbeatable monster in the universeâ€¦

Now the Thunderer, with Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim, found himself lost ‘Within the Realm of Kartag!’ (illustrated by John Buscema & Vince Colletta): facing slug-men and bewitching temptress Satrina even as the All-Father and the hosts of the Shining City struggled to hold Mangog at bay. Meanwhile on the planet Blackworld Lady Sif and her muscular shield-maiden Hildegarde were undertaking another Odinian quest and found themselves caught up in a time-bending nightmareâ€¦

Thor #197 saw the heroes overcome all odds to find ‘The Well at the Edge of the World!’ meeting the conniving, all-powerful Norns and recruiting the colossal Kartag for their desperate return to shattered Asgard.

On Blackworld Sif and Hildegarde encountered monsters and men making uncontrollable evolutionary leaps towards an unguessable future, but found an unlikely ally and guide in aged sailor Silas Grant.

The male heroes returned to find Asgard in flaming ruins and the cataclysmic confrontation with the Mangog nearing an apocalyptic end, whilst on Blackworld Sif, Hildegarde and Silas met alien Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile and the horrendous creature behind the evolutionary jumps. Simultaneously the battle in Asgard reached a horrific climax when Mangog was at last defeated ‘â€¦And Odin Dies!’

Issue #199 saw the ravaged home of the gods adrift in a dimensional void, allowing Thor – clutching to a desperate last hope – to cocoon his deceased father in a timeless forcefield, preventing Dark Goddess Hela from claiming his soul. However she wasn’t the only deity hungry for the All Father’s spirit and ‘If This Be Death…!’ revealed Grecian netherlord Pluto invading the broken realm to take Odin into his own dire domain.

â€¦And, on Blackworld, Tana Nile hinted at the origin of the monstrous Ego-Prime and how it can force such terrifying uncontrollable time-warpsâ€¦

Back in free-floating Asgard, things went from bad to worse as brave Balder‘s beloved Karnilla deserted him just as invincible Pluto defeated Hela and aimed a killing blow at Thorâ€¦

The denouement was aggravatingly delayed as anniversary issue #200 hit the pause button to flashback to an earlier age. ‘Beware! If This Beâ€¦ Ragnarok!’ was crafted by Stan Lee, John Buscema & John Verpoorten and spectacularly depicted the fall of the gods through the mystic visions of Volla the Prophetess, with only a bridging Prologue and Epilogue by Conway & Buscema revealing the Norns saving Thor’s life just in time for the concluding battle against Pluto in #201 (with Jim Mooney providing lush finished art over Buscema’s layouts).

When Hela relinquished her claim to the father of the gods and Odin enjoyed a miraculous ‘Resurrection!’, on Earth absentee Asgardians Heimdall and Kamorr began seeking out mortals for a another Odinian master-plan even before the battle with Pluto was fully concluded. As they scoured Midgard, on Blackworld Ego-Prime advanced the civilisation into atomic Armageddon and Sif barely transported her companions to Earth in time to escape the thermonuclear conflagration.

Luckily Thor, Balder, and the Warriors Three were in New York City to meet the refugees, since the deadly, now self-evolving, Ego-Prime had followed themâ€¦

Thor #202 boasted ‘â€¦And None Dare Stand ‘Gainst Ego-Prime!’ (Buscema & Colletta) although Silas, Tana Nile and the assembled Asgardians tried their best as the now-sentient shard of Ego, the Living Planet rampaged across the city making monsters and shattering entire streets, whilst Odin calmly observed the carnage and destruction and Heimdall and Kamorr gathered their human targets for the concluding ‘They Walk Like Gods!’, wherein all Odin’s machinations were finally revealed as Ego-Prime inadvertently created a new race of 20^th century deities. Sadly the All-Father’s long and single-minded scheme appalled his son and weary, war-torn subjects, whose understandable rebukes led to them all being ‘Exiled on Earth!’ in #204 (Buscema & Mooney) and soon targeted by terrifying satanic tempter Mephistoâ€¦

Soon only the Thunderer was left to oppose the devil invading his private hell and liberating hundreds of demon-possessed humans from ‘A World Gone Mad!’ (Colletta inks), after which the Earth-bound godling clashed brutally but inconclusively with the uncharacteristically amok Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaced in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

Tracking the escaped Creel to Rutland, Vermont during their annual Halloween festival, Thor, Sif and Hildegarde clashed with the malevolent Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of comic creator cameos with the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to Buscema & Colletta’s workmanlike illustration. Another extended sub-ploy opened here as Sif vanished, spirited away by the love-lorn Karnilla to the ends of the universeâ€¦

Sci fi themes took the lead again in Thor #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifested, stealing the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly they were insufficient and the malevolent Mercurio needed to tap his source directly resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gave way to the despair of exile and constant lossâ€¦

Incessantly searching for Sif, Thor stopped in London (not one any Briton would ever recognise though) in #209 long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge. The resultant clash between Thunder God and â€œDemon Druidâ€ devastated much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’ before being ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210 ‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!‘ (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta). They were merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik had decided to conquer both his own people and Earth and moved pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equationâ€¦

With New York invaded by Troll warriors, #211 revealed ‘The End of the Battle!’ (Buscema, Perlin & Colletta) as the fighting mad Asgardians routed the underworld insurgents just as an insane Balder returned to warn that Asgard had been conquered. With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions were soon hot on the trail of their missing race. Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, they undertook a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 and discovered their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction blockâ€¦

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ saw Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a war between slaver races before discovering Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his father. He also obtained a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging his small dedicated party of heroes recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (by Conway, Sal Buscema & Mooney) to rescue the missing maidens from the asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They found their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who were intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events took an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbed the women into its crystalline mass and took off, intent on dominating all life in the universeâ€¦

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strove together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’ to free the women and stop the rapacious gem-god, but even after eventual victory found them tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials were not done.

Returning in triumph to a mysteriously rebuilt Asgard in #217, the wanderers found ‘All Swords Against Them!’ (Sal Buscema inking brother John), as impossible doppelgangers of Odin, Thor and the rest greeted them with murderous hostility. Whilst the Thunder God furiously battled to unravel this latest mystery, in another sector of the universe the all-conquering Colonizers of Rigel were put to flight and abandoned their worlds to an all-consuming force of sheer destructionâ€¦

Thor #218 proved there was no rest for the weary as the victorious Asgardians again took ship for deep space to prevent the Rigellians’ doom from reaching Earth. ‘Where Pass the Black Stars There Also Passesâ€¦ Death!’ (J. Buscema & Mooney) found the hard-travelling heroes discovering a nomadic race of colossal, decadent star-farers who fuelled their unending flight by recycling thriving civilisations into food and power.

In distant Asgard, Hildegarde’s young sister Krista was slowly falling under the sway of sinister seductive evil even as her hereditary protectors were a cosmos away, infiltrating one of the Black Stars’ cosmic scoops and encountering a race of mechanical slaves in

#219’s ‘A Galaxy Consumed!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) before this volume’s story-portion ends with #220, wherein the slaves and their charismatic messiah Avalon are at last freed and untold galaxies subsequently saved from callous consumption in ‘Behold! The Land of Doom!’

This collection also includes fact-filled Marvel Universe Handbook pages on Pluto, Tana Nile, and Mercurio, the 4-D Man.

The Kirby Thor will always be a high-point in graphic fantasy, all the more impressive for the sheer imagination and timeless readability of the tales. With his departure the series foundered for the longest time before finding a new identity, but his successors did their honest best to follow in his Brobdingnagian footsteps.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of The King but fans of cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite mustÂ for all fans of the character and the genre.

January 27, 2013January 25, 2013

The Incredible Hercules: the New Prince of Power

By Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Ariel Olivetti, Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown, Jason Paz, Terry Pallot, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4370-3

Comicbook Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas are serious business – but they don’t have to be.

There are too few light-hearted adventure comics around for my liking. Have readers become so sullen, depressed and angst-ridden that it takes nothing but oceans of blood and devastating cosmic trauma to rouse them?

Let’s hope not since we all adore a modicum of mirth with our mayhem, and let’s be honest, there are lashings of sheer comedic potential to play with when men-in-tights Â – or in the Lion of Olympus’ case, a very short skirt and leather bondage-leggings – start hitting each other with clubs and cars and buildings.

The contemporary Marvel iteration of Hercules first appeared in 1965’s Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein Thor, God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods and ended up swapping bombastic blows with the happy-go-lucky but easily-riled Hellenic Prince of Power in the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby landmark ‘When Titans Clash! Thor Vs. Hercules!’

Since then the bombastic immortal warrior has bounced around the Marvel Universe seeking out other heroes and heated fisticuffs as an Avenger, Defender, Champion, Renegade, Hero for Hire and any other super-squad prepared to take the big lug and his constant, perpetual boozing, wenching, bragging and blathering about the â€œGood Old Daysâ€â€¦

In recent years Herc got a good deal more serious, becoming a far more conventionally po-faced world-saver and even found himself a protÃ©gÃ© – don’t call him â€œsidekickâ€ – in keen teen Amadeus Cho, notionally the Seventh Smartest Person on Earth.

This deliciously wicked and engaging collection, gathering often inappropriate and simultaneously stirring and uproarious contents of Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1-2 and the follow-up 4-issue miniseries Heroic Age: Prince of Power from 2010, is actually the prequel to a larger epic event but self-contained enough and so entertaining that readers won’t mind or feel short-changed.

The drama unfolds in the aftermath of the mighty man-god’s apparent death with the aforementioned ‘Hercules: Fall of an Avenger’, by writers Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente with art by Ariel Olivetti, as many of the Gods and mortals touched by the life of the departed legend gather at the Parthenon for a wondrous wake to memorialise his passing.

Athena now rules the gods ofOlympus and turns up stylishly late as the gathering share personal tales of the departed legend.

Whilst the he-man heroes such as Thor, Bruce Banner, Skaar, Son of Hulk, the Warriors Three, Wolverine, Angel, and Sub-Mariner dwell on their comrade’s fighting spirit, the women such as Namora, Black Widow, Inuit goddess Snowbird and Alflyse, Queen of the Dark Elves prefer to share fond reminiscences of his other prowess – despite the blushes of the congregation.

However just as Cho prepares to speak his own thoughts, Athena and the remaining Hellenic Pantheon materialise and announce the boy is to be the new commander of the globe-spanning corporation known as the Olympus Group, becoming the next Prince of Power to act as the god’s representative on Earthâ€¦

Before Amadeus can react, Athena’s decree leads to a minor rebellion in her own ranks as Apollo challenges her and the assemblage degenerates into another epic brawl. Cho doesn’t care and uses the distraction to act on a suspicion that Hercules is not actually dead. His search of Hades, however, proves fruitlessâ€¦

One of the smartest humans alive, Amadeus acquiesces and takes control of the Olympus Group to further his own agenda, but makes no secret of his dislike and mistrust of Athenaâ€¦

Further repercussions of Hercules’ demise are seen when Namora and fellow Agent of Atlas Venus (a seductive Greek Siren, only recently promoted to actual love goddess) are dispatched by Athena to set the Man-God’s earthly affairs in order. Over the millennia the big-hearted, happy warrior accrued vast wealth and used it to set up businesses, trusts, foundations and charities, but now the Queen of Olympus wants to absorb the profitable ones and shut down the lame ducks.

As they track down his holdings and inform administrators of the situation, the grieving wonder women uncover an unsuspected ‘Greek Tragedy’ (by Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown & Jason Paz) on a lost Greek island – a cash-sucking black hole of an orphanage caring for children who just happen to be the innocent spawn of the many monsters Hercules slew in his voyages.

How then can Namora and Venus obey the dictates of the hard-hearted Athena and still honour the spirit of their soft-hearted former loverâ€¦?

‘Heroic Age: Prince of Power’ (Pak, Van Lente, Brown, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & Pallot) then occupies the major portion of this chronicle following the progress of Cho as he settles into the uncomfortable role of divine Prince of Power and mortal Chairman of the Board. His first order of business is to divert vast funds into searching the multiverse for Herculesâ€¦

Athena’s driving motivation for recruiting Amadeus is that an Age has passed on Earth: where once brute strength was the defining characteristic of the era, the Modern Age is subject to the force of intellect. The new Prince of Power must reflect the reliance on Reason and Intelligence, especially since a long-prophesied â€œGreat Chaosâ€ is comingâ€¦

A cosmic congress of pantheons convenes to select a mortal to lead the fight against the on-coming threat and, after much debate, Athena gets her way: clever kid Amadeus Cho is expected to save the entirety of creationâ€¦

On Earth the unsuspecting and intolerably obnoxious seventeen-year-old is dealing with lesser problems whilst working towards his own ultimate goal – rescuing Hercules from wherever he’s goneâ€¦

The most pressing of these daily duties is defeating mutated maniac the Griffin and saving an amusement park from becoming lunch, just the latest in a procession of monsters acting as vanguards for the approaching Chaos Kingâ€¦

Another problem is that he’s had to lock up his girlfriend Delphyne – Queen of the Gorgons – for trying to assassinate Athena, so when Vali Halfling (son of Asgardian god of Evil Loki) comes calling offering the secret of ultimate divine power, the distracted Cho is understandably intrigued, although not enough to fall for the trickster’s devious schemeâ€¦

The vile demigod wants to gather mystical elements from assorted pantheons (Greek, Norse, Egyptian and Hindu) to create a potion that will deliver ultimate divine power and enable the upstart kids to eliminate all other deities, but Cho isn’t fooled and rather than fall for a dishonest alliance he sets out to beat Vali to the ingredients – Hellenic Ambrosia, the Apples of Idunn, the Book of Thoth and Moon-cup of Dhanvantari. The race commences in ‘Blasphemy Can be Fun’ and, after pausing for ‘The Origin of Hercules’ by Van Lente, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski, continues with Cho’s one-man invasion of Asgard in ‘Valhalla Blues’.

The neophyte Prince of Power has no idea that he’s been played, and whilst clashing with former idol Thor for the Apples his rival already possesses, Halfling and his super-powered human Pantheon invades and seizes control of the Olympus Group headquarters to grab the Nectar of the Godsâ€¦

After a spectacularly pointless battle Thor and Cho unite to stop Vali, heading to the EgyptianLandof the Dead to grab the Book. Again they are too late and their outrageous clash with cat-goddess Sekhmet in ‘Our Lady of Slaughter’ only allows Halfling to come closer to his ultimate goal.

With the old gods on the back foot and Athena close to death, the fate of Cho’s people falls to the furious and lethally ticked off Delphyneâ€¦

It all comes to a shattering close in ‘Omnipotence for Dummies’ as Cho ultimately and brilliantly outwits everybody, wins ultimate power, retrieves Hercules from his uncanny fate and promptly surrenders all his divine might to the returned Man-god. He has to: the Chaos King has arrived to annihilate All Of Reality and the situation demands a real heroâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers and variants by Olivetti, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Khoi Pham, Carlo Pagulayan, Paz, Peter Steigerwald, Salva Espin & Beth Sotelo plus pages of character designs by Brown, this bombastic, action-packed thriller also offers scenes of genuine tear-jerking poignancy and hilarious moments of mirth (the tale is especially stuffed with saucy moments of the sort that make grandmothers smirk knowingly, and teenaged boys go as red as Captain America’s boots). An absolute joy for older fans, this epic is also a great example of self-contained Marvel Magic, funny, outrageous, charming and full of good-natured punch-ups.

This is a rare but welcome instance of the company using the continuity without unnecessarily exposing newcomers to the excess baggage which may deter some casual readers from approaching long-running comics material, and if you’re looking for something fresh but traditional, you couldn’t do better than this superb slice of modern mythology.
Â© 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

December 29, 2012December 27, 2012

Thor: Latverian Prometheus

By Kieron Gillen, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Stan Lee, Billy Tan, Ryan Stegman, David Aja & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4372-7

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The taleÂ Â introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

Time passed; Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later. After many phenomenal adventures the second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004) which once-and-for-all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end an ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who had manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

You can’t keep a profitable property down or a great comics character unresurrected, so he was reborn again as a mysterious voice summoned Thor back to life – and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) – in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary Lord of Asgard swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts and set up Asgard on Earth a few paltry feet above the ground ofBroxton,Oklahomaâ€¦

As this small, simple community with some intriguing neighbours increasingly became the focus of cosmic events, newly arrived big city doctor Don Blake was corporeally merged with Thor and became the mortal host for the God of Thunderâ€¦

What you need to know: when wicked trickster god Loki orchestrated his half-brother Thor’s exile from Asgard, Balder the Brave became the latest leader of the displaced deities. However the real power was always the skulking schemer who slowly convinced the new king to relocate the population of the floating kingdom to Latveria: absolute fiefdom of malign technological tyrant Doctor Doom.

No one knew then that the trickster had long been Doom’s ally in a cabal of ultimate evilâ€¦

The Iron Dictator, adept in science and sorcery, had always been gripped by a voracious lust for power and quickly began to kidnap and vivisect his Asgardian guests, determined to divine the secrets of their immortality and powers. The clandestine campaign of terror was only exposed by Bill Junior, the mortal beloved of goddess Kelda Stormrider, who sacrificed his life to tell Balder the truth about their unctuous host.

Meanwhile in Broxton, ravening Doombots attacked and almost killed Don Blake in an attempt to destroy his Thunderous alter egoâ€¦

Collecting issues #604-606 of Thor from 2009, this grim fairytale also includes a solo story of the Prince of Asgard’s sometime paramour from the Sif one-shot and portions of the anniversary Thor #600.

The tale (by Kieron Gillen, Billy Tan & Batt) resumes here with the vengeance-crazed Kelda invading Doom’s fortress only to become his latest victim and test subject. In the Asgardian camp Balder marshals his forces to rescue his stolen subjects, unaware that Loki has prevented Thor from heeding the clarion summons. In Broxton, however, the maimed Blake has already pieced together evidence and deduced where his attackers originated with a little help from his friends in the metahuman communityâ€¦

The God of Mischief has been arrested by Balder but still schemes to save his neck and cause further hurt where he can. Dragged along as the enraged Asgardians assault Castle Doom, he witnesses the horrors the Master of Latveria has wrought when hideous technologically augmented corpses attack the besiegers at the Doctor’s imperious command. The shocking abominations swiftly gain the upper hand until a furious Thor appears and directly engages with Doom, but the battle is halted when the villain produces Kelda’s ravaged corpse and Loki gleans a way to restore her to life.

All Thor has to do is defeat Doom, invade his citadel and recover her still beating heart from the monster’s laboratoryâ€¦

Unfortunately standing in the way is the ultimate expression of the Devil Doctor’s Asgardian researches: a new and deadly iteration of science and sorcery patterned on Odin’s ultimate weaponâ€¦ the Destroyer.

As Thor battles furiously for his immortal life, Balder takes advantage of the distraction to enter Doom’s lair and grant tragic final rest to the abused remains of the subjects he so grievously failed before rescuing and restoring Keldaâ€¦

Even after the heroes have won their most inconclusive victory the diabolical duo of Loki and Doom are still at large, still unpunished and still plottingâ€¦ against each other as much as their heroic Asgardian enemiesâ€¦

This dark and brutal tome continues with ‘I am the Lady Sif’, a solo tale starring the warrior goddess Sif crafted by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Ryan Stegman, Tom Palmer & Victor Olazaba.

The war-maiden is in Broxton, recuperating and taking stock of her interminable life after an age of shame wherein Loki possessed her body and locked her soul in the withered frame of a dying mortal. The shame he brought to her reputation still burns and chokes even after she finally escaped his curseâ€¦

Although the Oklahomans are doing their best to raise her spirits, she remains downcast until old comrade Beta Ray Bill storms through the pub doors looking for Asgardian assistanceâ€¦

Bill first gained his own measure of Asgardian might when magic hammer Mjolnir deemed the Korbinite worthy and transformed the alien refugee into a warped duplicate of Thor, enabling him to save his space-faring race from a horde of demons who erased their civilisation and were implacably hunting them to extinctionâ€¦

Even after Bill, Thor, Sif and sentient starship Skuttlebutt defeated the threat and the homeless aliens voyaged on through the depths of space to some eventual Promised Land, a new insidious menace manifested and their once-trusty vessel has been possessed. Bill and his comely companion Ti Asha Ra desperately need a mighty non-Korbinite to scour the ship of its inimical infernal infestation and return hope to the remains of his race.

Just the job to perk up an ailing, down-in the-dumps sword-maidenâ€¦

Also included in this eclectic mix is a slight but pretty elegiac appreciation of the Thor canon by Stan Lee & David Aja celebrating the character’s stellar history in the manner of a lovely info-mercial, and the tome is topped off with a comedic cartoon â€œMini-Marvelsâ€ spoof ‘Welcome Back Thor’ by Chris Giarusso.

Dark, brooding and ferocious, this is a cosmic Costumed Drama that will enthral and delight fans of both comicbook and filmic iterations.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

December 20, 2012January 5, 2013

The Mighty Thor: Everything Burns

By Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Alan Davis, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Stephanie Hans, Barry Kitson, Mark Farmer & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-521-5

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-fantasy title Journey into Mystery #83. The tale introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

Time passed, Kirby left, and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues. The Thunder God reappeared a few weeks later. After many phenomenal adventures that second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004) which once-and-for-honestly-all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It! End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end a ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who had manipulated the exalted inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

You can’t keep a profitable property down or a great comics character un-resurrected, so he was reborn again when a mysterious voice summoned Thor back to life – and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) – in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary and reigning Lord of Asgard swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts before establishing Asgard on Earth, a few paltry feet above the ground of Broxton, Oklahomaâ€¦

This small and simple community had experienced a few intriguing neighbours before and eventually adapted to the newcomers despite the chaos, hell and Federal grief the Asgardians seemed to perpetually attract.

This spectacular game-changing epic was designed to celebrate the feature’s anniversary as part of the â€œ50 Years of Thunderâ€ event and collects The Mighty Thor #18-22 as it crossed over with issues #642-645 of sister-series Journey into Mystery through the latter half of 2012 and effectively clears the slate for a whole new approach in futureâ€¦

What you need to know: after millennia of doctrinaire double-dealing and abusive micro-management All-Father Odin is gone, banished to another dimension, with his puissant kingdom Asgard ruled by his wife Freyja and a council of sister goddesses who act as a co-operative â€œAll-Motherâ€.

Moreover the eternally capricious and malignant Loki has undergone a few shocking changes too. Resurrected from death and hell by his eternally optimistic half-brother Thor, the trickster has endured life as a woman and currently exists as a (presumably) innocent boy-child: his long-suffering and constantly betrayed family attempting one final gambit to reform the villain and raise a true and decent scion of Asgard.

It seems to be going quite wellâ€¦

With Matt Fraction, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer taking the Thor segments and Kieron Gillen & Carmine Di Giandomenico on the JiM chapters the saga opens in the newly re-named Asgardia where Freyja dreams of the dark days in prehistory when Odin and his race of Aesir battled her father Freyr, ruler of rival bellicose pantheon the Vanir.

The resulting war was so brutal than when Odin finally claimed victory and forcibly merged the tribes through arranged marriage to Freyja, the new â€œAsgardiansâ€ excised all mention of the conflict from the annals of the kingdom.

However, although a peacefully united god-tribe for uncounted eons, no participant on either side truly forgot the hideous pact which the hard-pressed Vanir had made with demonic fire-lord Surtur in their direst hour of need nor the appalling toll taken during that climactic final climactic clash with their Aesir opponentsâ€¦

On Earth today strange phenomena occur with disturbing frequency: dead birds fall from the skies in flames, spontaneous blazes and conflagrations erupt which not even weather god Thor can extinguish with storm or blizzardâ€¦

And in Hel, at the base of the Nine Realms, the roots of the world-ash Yggdrasil are engulfed in flameâ€¦

In Mephisto’s infernal domain the tempter believes he has discerned Loki’s grand scheme whilst in Vanaheim Freyja’s brooding unforgiving sister Gullveig receives an embassage and awesome gifts from an anonymous source. In Asgardia-above-Broxton a concerned council dispatches a party of warriors to investigate its Vanaheim province where the deeply symbolic Temple of Union is ablaze with flames that cannot be extinguished. However when Thor and his comrades Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral lead the mission to the distant conflagration they are attacked and routed by Gullveig and her Vanir troops using terrifying new weapons from another pantheon. The ancient feud is not only fully rekindled but spreading like wildfireâ€¦

Thor consults with his redeemed but still canny half-brother in Asgardia but, even as the juvenile sorcerer gropes to understand the machinations of trusted friends turned foe, Loki reveals his greatest mistake since resurrection, whilst in the metaphysical Otherworld which houses Britain’s communal subconscious, that nation’s newest deities â€œthe Manchester Godsâ€ reveal their unwitting and ill-conceived alliance with Reality’s greatest Enemy.

To empower their apotheosis, Wilson and his lords of steam and industry and commerce had employed the craftily offered gifts of the fire demon. The divine Engines of Albion’s Gods of the Cities were the products of Surtur’s hellish forge and now the Lord of Conflagration is exacting a deadly tithe; one increasingly turned against the embattled Aesirâ€¦

Following a stormy confrontation wherein Thor putsWilsonand his pantheon on warning, the Asgardian prepare for war against the Vanir. Their resolve is tested when evidence is found incriminating Freyja and the members of the All-Mother as traitorsâ€¦

With Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral leading, a lynch mob moves to arrest both the Queen and the always-guilty-of-something Loki and Thor is forced to defend the last members of his family from his oldest friendsâ€¦

Only the forceful presence of guardian god – and purebred Vanir-man – Heimdall contains the explosive situation and reunites the fractured Asgardians, subsequently dispatching them throughout the Nine Realms where Surtur’s demonic forces are laying waste to everything.

For the sake of unity the assembled All-Mother go into voluntary house arrest but panicked Loki flees, convinced he can only trust himself to solve the crisisâ€¦

He travels to the land of the dead but abjectly fails to convince dark goddess Hela and her consort Tyr to assist in the war against the Fire Demon, whilst in Muspelheim Surtur and his mysterious ally debate their ultimate plans for the harried, overconfident and increasingly powerless Loki and are waiting when the rejuvenated Prince of Asgard inevitably sneaks into the Demon’s Realm in a vain effort to be the conquering heroâ€¦

Soon, in Asgardia valiant Volstagg begins to regret accepting the role of war-king as the conflict against Surtur and the Vanir goes from bad to worse.

In Muspelheim Loki has seemingly turned the situation to his advantage after debating with Surtur and his hidden ally, but it’s hard to find a position of advantage when the Fire Lord’s unswerving, unshakable goal is to burn all life in the universe to cold dead ashesâ€¦

However, even as a child Thor’s half-brother is still undoubtedly the wiliest, most cunning creature in creation and Loki has a plan â€¦but is he truly reformed and do his schemes benefit all the Asgardians or only, ultimately, himselfâ€¦?

The story then explodes into a fearsome melee on all fronts of existence that will enthral fans of cosmic carnage and spectacular action with shining heroism and base betrayal revealing all that is great and self-destructive in Thor and his warrior clan, but even with the last-minute return of a long-lost supernal saviour, the defeat of Surtur’s excoriating scheme and a semblance of normality restored, there is still drama and revelation aplenty in this epic and enchantingly bombastic tale.

The suspenseful aftermath concludes with telling re-examinations of both Loki and Thor (this last illustrated by Barry Kitson) and the disclosure of shocking surprises that will utterly change everything in the world of the godsâ€¦

With covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Stephanie Hans, Pasqual Ferry, Steve McNiven, and an eye-popping montage by most of the artists who’ve worked on the strip over the last five decades, this truly galvanic chronicle combines staggering conflict on a universal scale with fiercely probing characterisation and astounding revelations which add a subtle depth and intensity never before seen in these iconic comic heroes. Magnificently beguiling, this adventure extravaganza packs the proper punch to stun and subjugate comics-continuity veterans and film-fed fanboys alike and will delight Fights ‘n’ Tights followers for years to come

October 11, 2012October 9, 2012

Thor/Iron Man: God Complex

By Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Scot Eaton, Jaime Mendoza, Jeff Huet, Lorenzo Ruggiero & Veronica Gandini (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-936211-4911-8

Two of Marvel’s oldest stars and perennial fan favourites, the Norse God of Thunder and Armoured Avenger, have in their long and chequered careers been the staunchest of allies, fiercely squabbling brothers-in-arms and latterly sworn foes.

In this short, sweet and fabulously straight-shooting traditional team-up however, past grudges are largely forgotten as old foes return with a formidable new master on a fantastic crusade to forever change the world.

Re-presenting the bombastic 4-issue miniseries from 2010, God Complex opens with a horrific assault by a brooding brute on Baron Mordo, resulting in the theft of the evilest of magicians’ mightiest talisman. Simultaneously, the latest ultra-high tech orbital weapons platform of avaricious armaments magnate Moses Magnum is destroyed and its key systems stolen by a mysterious armoured figureâ€¦

In Oklahoma the rubble that was Asgard (see Siege and Siege: Dark Avengers) is being slowly checked and cleared by Earthling Emergency teams and latter-day Norse Gods when the workers free a very excitable and ticked-off dragon. Happily, recently reunited Avengers Thor and Iron Man are there to control the irked fire-drake until the beast’s owner Volstagg can calm the poor pet downâ€¦

With the infernal rampage suppressed, the work is then interrupted by Steve Rogers – former Captain America and current Chief of National Security – who dispatches the Armoured Avenger toRussia to investigate a runaway Particle Acceleratorâ€¦

It’s a trap and Iron Man is ambushed by the latest upgrade of the Crimson Dynamo just as back in Oklahoma, Thor is ambushed by ultimate troll Ulik, tasked with retrieving the formidable, unstoppable Asgardian war-armour dubbed the Destroyer.

Although more than a match for their old enemies, the heroes are surprised and subsequently defeated by hidden adversary Diablo and former ally the High Evolutionaryâ€¦

The latter – an obsessive human geneticist who evolved animals into New Men before turning himself into a cosmic deity – has long dreamed of creating his own gods and now, allied with the malign immortal alchemist, has embarked on his latest experiment: to marry science to sorcery to produce a new supreme being – the one true God of the 21^st Centuryâ€¦

For raw material his willing subordinates have been gathering magical artefacts and the most cutting-edge technological components. The last thing needed was a suitable human Petri-dish and vessel. Brilliant, bold Tony Stark ideally fits that billâ€¦

However even as the Evolutionary begins Iron Man’s enforced apotheosis, the hero counterattacks, whilst the bruised but unbowed Thor – and an unlikely ally – hunt for the villains who stole the Destroyer, tracking the sinister god-makers to their unlikely lairâ€¦

The consequent catastrophic clash looks set to end in victory for the heroes when the demonic Diablo turns the Avengers against each other with his mystic potionsâ€¦

Even as the triumphant High Evolutionary begins his the longed-for final transformation, Diablo finally shows his true colours and hijacks the metamorphosis, just as he’d always intended, transcending his merely human villainy to become an omnipotent modern God ofÂ Evilâ€¦

However even with the ambitions of centuries at last fulfilled, Diablo has not reckoned on the unfailing courage and determination of heroes or the anger of a master of science frustrated and betrayedâ€¦

Splendidly spectacular and visually stunning, this blistering action-epic concludes with one of the best and certainly most literal Deus ex Machina in comics to leave lovers of the genre breathless in wonder and appreciation.

This tumultuous tome also finds space to include text features from the movie tie-in Thor Spotlight, including ‘Abnett/Lanning on Iron Man/Thor: a DnA Q&A’ by Jess Harold, the comedic ‘Iron Man/Thor: Behind the Scenes’, a look at ‘Classic Thor/Iron Man Team-Ups’ from Dana Perkins and a fabulous sneak-peak at Scot Eaton’s many Design Sketches for Crimson Dynamo, Mordo’s Amulet, Ulik and his upgrades and the all-important Cloaking Circuitâ€¦

Impossibly recapturing and even improving upon those hallowed and traditional clear-cut, uncomplicated cataclysmic cosmic conflicts of yore, scripters Abnett and Lanning, penciller Eaton, inkers Jaime Mendoza, Jeff Huet & Lorenzo Ruggiero and colourist Veronica Gandini all splendidly combine here to make God Complex a pure joy that will delight fans and readers old and new.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 6, 2012October 5, 2012

Thor the Mighty Avenger volume 1: the God Who Fell to Earth

By Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Leiber, Joe Sinnott & Dick Ayers (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4121-1

For many older fans – and of course I mean me too – Thor was the comic that truly demonstrated the fevered and unfettered imagination of Jack Kirby – at least until he relocated to DC at the beginning of the 1970s and really let rip. Living galaxies, the conquest of Evolution: gods, heroes and aliens, machines with emotions and humans without, the strengths and liabilities of family ties and the inevitability of creation itself, all played out on the pages of the Thunder God’s action-packed comic-books.

Once the King left, the series struggled for decades, with only the Kirby-inspired pastiche by Walt Simonson in the mid-1980s offering any kind of quality continuation of action and imagination, although more recent years have certainly seen a few bold attempts to plough their own creative furrow.

In 2010, no doubt on the back of the major motion picture release, Marvel commissioned a superb new interpretation of the iconic but periodically unsustainable star and his convoluted mythos from the irrepressibly wonderful New Zealand writer/artist Roger Langridge (Judge Dredd Megazine, Batman, Star Wars, Fin Fang Four, The Muppet Show, Popeye and Snarked! as well as his own hilarious Fred the Clown and my personal favourite Knuckles the Malevolent Nun amongst so many others) and artist Chris Samnee (Mighty Avengers, Rocketeer, Daredevil etc.) which stripped away most of the baffling accumulated overblown ephemera and created a fresh vibrant new start â€“ which only coincidentally, I’m sure – initially resembled that filmic feelâ€¦

The saga unfolds in stormy Bergen, Oklahomawhen junior curator Jane Foster sees a twisted rainbow one night and a week later is suddenly promoted to head a department of the Bergen War Memorial Museum. Almost immediately she’s called on by Security to deal with a giant hobo trying to whack one of the exhibits with a gnarled old walking stickâ€¦

That night whilst strolling with her boyfriend Jim she encounters the young – and exceedingly well-mannered – bum again, hurtling through a bar window very much against his willâ€¦

The cause is a monstrous, hulking brute who had been harassing women in the hostelry, but even after Jane joins the fray the ugly thug easily overpowers them and beats the chivalrous vagabond near to death before inexplicably running awayâ€¦

Battered and grateful, Jane and Jim ignore their better judgement and help the dying blonde wanderer – who calls himself Thor – back to the Museum, where he finally and unexpectedly smashes the Viking urn he’d attacked earlier. Grasping a short-handled hammer the shabby lad is miraculously transformed in a flash of lightning and blast of thunderâ€¦

Jane has witnessed the impossible and has to accept that the amnesiac Thor may well be the legendarily mythic Scandinavian hero. He certainly isn’t sure: although possessed of incredible might, his memories are clouded and he only vaguely recalls a fight with his father Odin before waking up in a field, banished to this mortal realm of Midgardâ€¦

With nowhere else to go he accepts Jane’s offer to crash at her apartment even as elsewhere a frantic cloaked figure confronts local scientific sage Dr. Lewis Stephens.

Calvin Zabo is desperate for more of the savant’s transformative crystals and is prepared to kill for them, and once the sociopath has them he swiftly regains his hulking, brutish form and goes hunting for the fools who spoiled his fun in the bar last nightâ€¦

This series is simply stuffed with hilarious lines and comedy set-pieces and, following a delicious moment when the Thunder God encounters his first telephone answering machine, the exiled godling hurtles to the museum to spectacularly save Jane from the malevolent monster who calls himself ‘Hyde’â€¦

A cleverly reformulated Marvel Universe begins to impinge on the series with ‘Here be Giants’ when scientist Henry Pym (and his girlfriend Janet Van Dyne) comes to investigate the murder of his old mentor Dr. Stephens. Thor meanwhile has been plagued with nightmares and wakes to find his brother Loki implanting visions within his tousled head, whilst at the museum Jane’s antics have got her suspendedâ€¦

As she takes the Thunder God shopping to cheer herself up, Pym, in his dual identities of Ant-Man and Giant-Man, follows a chemical trail from the crime scene and intercepts the bemused boutiquers â€¦and that’s the moment when Loki’s hoodoo in the Thunderer’s head kicks in, causing the stranded Scion of Asgard to see the size-shifting scientist as a dreaded Frost Giantâ€¦

Fortunately Pym’s heroism and science proves more than a match for sinister ancient sorcery, else the magnificent concluding adventure of the re-imagined Storm Lord couldn’t happen – and it’s one of the most charming and gently amusing stories in all of Marvel’s seven-plus decades of publishing funnybooksâ€¦

Lost and lonely on a weird world of mortals, Thor’s spirits are inestimably raised when three old comrades from Asgard come calling, luring the dispirited Prince on a ‘Boys’ Night Out’â€¦

Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg are valiant and boisterous companions (who know more about Thor’s banishment than they let on) and so whilst Jane wisely decides to go out with her own gal pals, the Asgardians decide to check out the old country – courtesy of a magical flying goat chariot. Unfortunately old maps, fog and intoxication make for missed destinations and stopping in London for directions to Norway, the celestial carousers soon settle in for a night of bevies at a hostelry frequented by uptight and touchy superhero Captain Britain.

Cue ale-fuelled misunderstanding, inevitable punch-up and maudlin vows of eternal friendshipâ€¦

Collecting issues #1-4 (September-December 2010) of the rebooted series and also offering a host of stunning cover reproductions and variants by Samnee and Kirby, this sparkling tome ends with the first two appearances of the original iteration from Journey into Mystery.

Issue #83 (cover-dated August 1962) featured the tale of crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation inNorway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing, he was trapped in a cave where he found an old, gnarled walking stick. When in his frustration he smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his puny frame was transformed into Norse God of Thunder, the Mighty Thor!

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber and illustrated by Kirby & Joe Sinnott (at this juncture a full illustrator, Sinnott became Kirby’s primary inker for his Marvel work) ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ is pure early Marvel: bombastic, fast-paced, gloriously illogical and captivatingly action-packed. The hugely under-appreciated Art Simek was the letterer and logo designer.

They were making it up as they went along – not in itself a bad thing – and the infectious enthusiasm showed in the next adventure ‘The Mighty Thor Vs. the Executioner’ from JiM #84 and inked by Dick Ayers: a classic â€œcommie-bustingâ€ tale, very much of its time with a thinly disguised Fidel Castro wasting his formidable armies in battle against the earthbound immortal in a tale designed to display the vast power and varied abilities of the godly superman.

Most importantly Jane Foster was introduced here as Blake’s faithful nurse, a bland cipher adored from afar by the timid alter-ego of mighty hero.

Early death is a comic book tradition that strikes many brilliant series later deemed brilliant, groundbreaking or ahead of their time: past casualties have included the Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the first volume of the Silver Surfer, Steve Ditko’s Beware the Creeper and the Ditko/Gil Kane Hawk and the Dove as well as almost all of Kirby’s Fourth World Trilogy. Tragically cancelled after only 8 issues, Thor the Mighty Avenger still stands out asÂ sublime example of a contemporary revamp done right and will certainly only grow in renown as years go by. Moreover, if you’ve never tried Marvel’s fare or find superhero comics not to your taste this might well be a book to change your mindâ€¦
Â© 1962, 1963, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 23, 2012August 23, 2012

Thor volume 2

By Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr. with John Buscema, Klaus Janson & Jerry OrdwayÂ (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4632-2

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The taleÂ Â introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

Time passed, Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later.

In July Mighty Thor volume 2 opened with ‘In Search of the Gods’ by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, which with its ‘Deal with the Devil!’ depicted the return of the lost god and the Avengers after more than a year way from the home cosmos only to find that hallowed Asgard had been devastated and deserted.

Moreover, back on Earth the Thunderer was reinstated into the â€œrealâ€ world just in time to die in battle against the annihilating Asgardian artefact known as the Destroyer. Whilst the Avengers struggled on against the unstoppable creature, the godling’s spirit was snatched from the realm of death-goddess Hela by mysterious mystic powerhouse Marnot before being melded with the dying body of EMT Jake Olsen: an innocent killed during the struggle thanks to Thor’s negligence.

The resurrected Storm Lord again walked the Earth but only as the dormant-until-summoned alter-ego of another frail mortal host: duly defeating the Destroyer, battling sea-monsters of sea-goddess Sedna, sparring with Hercules and being framed for attacking and devastating Olympusâ€¦

The true architects of most of this mayhem were a pantheon of previously unknown Dark Gods – Perrikus, Adva, D’Chel, Slottoth, Tokkots and Majeston Zelia – so powerful that they managed to take possession of the fallen Fabled Realm and bar Thor’s return to Asgardâ€¦

This second compilation collects the contents of issues #9-13 and the 1999 Thor Annual and sees the end of that first extended story-arc beginning with ‘Answers’ by regular writer Dan Jurgens and guest illustrators John Buscema & Jerry Ordway as a very old robotic menace returns when a couple of young punks luck into the operating system for android bandit Replicus. Whilst the earthbound Thunder God is taking care of business in Asgard, the Dark usurpers are crowing over the ravaged, tortured bodies of his best friend Balder, betrothed Lady Sif and mighty sire Odin, all the while scheming how to destroy the last remaining free Asgardianâ€¦

Thor is just as keen on meeting his elusive tormentors and finally gains insight from the enigmatic Marnot who reveals a long ago day when the early Asgardians encountered the pantheon of cruel gods enslaving the realm of Narcisson and were propelled into a brutal all-out war.

Against all logic the Narcisson’s won and were on the verge of eradicating the Asgardians until a juvenile Thor turned the tide and enabled Odin and his surviving warriors to carry the day. With the dark gods defeated and imprisoned the All-Father then wiped the memories of the triumphant warriors to spare them the trauma and loss of so many comrades and loved ones. But now somehow the Narcisson gods were free and had at last conquered the Eternal Realm.

Armed at last with knowledge, Thor began to prepare for the invasion and liberation of Asgardâ€¦

The campaign began in the three part saga ‘The Dark Wars’ by Jurgens, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson as the human Jake Olsen frantically began to set his complex human affairs in order. The conjoined hero was blithely unaware that Dr. Jane Foster – Don Blake’s first love – had deduced his godly secret and that an unknown hand was setting him up to take the fall for selling stolen hospital drugsâ€¦

Before the exiled prince was ready, however, Perrikus attacked New York demanding a duel with the Odin-son and threatening to kill the Lady Sif if the Thunderer didn’t show. With the gateway to Asgard clear, Thor charges in to find the city as bad as ever and his loved ones broken toys of the Dark Gods. Enraged he attacks but after a blockbusting battle his magic mallet is cloven in half and he feels himself impossibly transforming back into mortal Jake Olsenâ€¦

Forced to flee into a sewer drain, Olsen discovers a horrific underworld beneath the fallen city and is captured by trolls in the very bowels of Asgard. The frail human is being worked to death as far above the black pantheon are unable to detect any trace of the vanished Thor, but feels a burst of untrammelled hope and joy when he discovers that many of his missing comrades are also enslaved in the noisome pitsâ€¦

However before Olsen can attempt to rescue them the vile Tokkots appears and whisks him back to the throne-room and the waiting Narcissons, but Perrikus is furious that he cannot battle his true enemy but only a mortal shell, until the broken battered human falls on the remnant of mystic Mjolnir and is transformed into a fighting mad Storm Lordâ€¦

Unexpectedly Thor flees into inter-dimensional space, realising that pride and fury are not enough and that what he really needs are potent alliesâ€¦

The fearsome finale begins as Thor convinces the deadly Destroyer and Hercules to raid the once-Golden Realm in a blistering last charge against the Dark Ones and their massed minions whilst he raids the depths to free the Asgardian survivors and activates a cleverly concealed ally. Soon Odin, Sif and Balder are free too and the fall of the Narcissons is seemingly assured – but the malignant invaders still have one last nasty card to playâ€¦

It proves not enough and eventually the brutalised Asgardians are triumphant, after which the epilogue ‘The Work of Odin’ answers many questions – such as the true identity of manipulative schemer Marnot, the ultimate fate of the human trapped within the deadly Destroyer’s shell and the fate of both light and dark godsâ€¦

This excessively action-packed, if plot light, chronicle is completed by the inclusion of the 1999 Thor Annual which at last revealed why Thor arrived back in our universe so much later than his Avenging Allies.

Written and pencilled by Jurgens with inks from Janson ‘The Tears of a God’ found Thor visiting the Fantastic Four and describing the dimensional rip which left him partially amnesiac and filled with ineffable sadness, before – for our eyes only – the story was fully disclosedâ€¦

After battling Doctor Doom in the space between worlds, Thor and the Iron Dictator were cast onto an alien planet where the wounded Thunderer was nursed to health by a mysterious outcast named Ceranda. Somehow unable to leave the desolate world, the lost scion of Asgard grew slowly closer to the beautiful hermit, whilst elsewhere Doom was taking control of the a subterranean society and co-opting their technology and resources to his selfish needsâ€¦

The last thing the Lord of Latveria needed for escape was Thor’s dimension-spanning hammer and he knew the true reason why it wasn’t workingâ€¦

This tale of dark desire and selfish love ended badly all round so perhaps its best that after the battle and return to Earth Thor had no memory of the weeks spent with the bewitching Cerandaâ€¦

Whilst not to everyone’s taste, this blistering Fight’s ‘n’ Tights epic is a cosmic clash fan’s delight and the artwork is undeniably some of the best of the modern Marvel Age, so if you want your pulse to pound and your graphic senses to swim this is the ideal item for you.
Â© 1998, 1999, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

June 7, 2012June 6, 2012

Thor: the Deviants Saga

By Robert Rodi, Stephen Segovia, M. Jason Paz & Jeffrey Huet (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-511-6

Once again a major motion picture adaptation has generated a host of supplemental comics product and as Thor returns to the big screen in The Avengers movie there’s still plenty for established fans and freshly-interested parties to grapple with, such as this stirring and tempestuous epic featuring the final fate and rebirth of Jack Kirby’s other Marvel â€œgods and monstersâ€ seriesâ€¦

The Eternals debuted in 1976 in a series slightly at odds with and removed from the regular company continuity and revealed that giant Celestial aliens had visited Earth in Epochs past, gene-gineering proto-hominids into three distinct species: Human Beings; god-like super-beings who called themselves Eternals and monstrous, genetically unstable but highly intelligent creatures dubbed Deviants. Moreover the Space Gods had periodically returned to check up on their experimentâ€¦

Never a comfortable contemporary fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe, the comic explored Kirby’s fascinations with Deities, Space and Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended and Kirby left, other creators subsequently co-opted the concept into the regular continuity.

Skilfully remastered here by Robert Rodi and artists Stephen Segovia, M. Jason, Paz & Jeffrey Huet, the story picks up on elements of the 2007 collection Neil Gaiman’s Eternals and opens in the ruins of Asgard as Thor discovers ancient deposed, Deviant ruler Ereshkigal has crept in and is searching through the rubble.

The Deviants have fallen on hard times and face extinction from a deadly plague, inspiring the demonic ex-empress to seek Asgardian tools and weapons to facilitate her return to power. After an inconclusive battle, Ereshkigal escapes with the Unbinding Stone of Oshemar, an apparently innocuous globe which can literally unmake reality.

Utterly unaware of the power of her purloined prize, the Deviant tries and fails to usurp control from the current rulers of the Lemurian under-city which is their home whilst Thor, galvanised by the imminent destruction of the universe, seeks allies and the location of her hidden homeland amongst his old comrades in Olympia, cloaked Earthly citadel of his old Eternal comrades.

The city is all but deserted, with only resurrected hero Virako, master technician Phastos and â€œreformedâ€ Deviants Karkas and Ransak the Reject occupying the vast mountaintop metropolisâ€¦

Before the valiant band can formulate a plan, however, the city is invaded by a Deviant army led by immortal Warlord Kro and a coterie of elite monster warriors. After a spectacular battle the heroes are temporarily overwhelmed and Phastos captured: his incredible devices taken in the misguided belief that they can reverse the effects of the disease devastating the Deviant population.

With the Unbinding Stone still in Ereshkigal’s meddling hands and their friend in peril, Thor and his comrades must storm the very heart of Lemuria before personal tragedy becomes universal Armageddon, but at least they have a hidden ally in the heart of the enemy – the outcast Eternal known alternatively as Gilgamesh and the Forgotten Oneâ€¦

Also re-entering the mix are the space-scattered, missing Eternals, but even if they return in time what can anybody do against a doom-obsessed potentate possessing a device which destroys atomic bonds and has no off-switchâ€¦?

A grandiose old-fashioned blockbuster epic, this rousing yarn is craftily constructed so that even first-time readers can get right into the swing of things, whilst veteran followers will find plenty of old favourite characters and themes revisited and clarified, with the adventure rattling along to a perfect climax with the portentous promise of more to come.

Fast, furious, frantic fantasy fun for older kids that no Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic could possibly resist.
â„¢ & Â© 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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