{"id":3567,"date":"2009-06-11T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=3567"},"modified":"2009-06-11T07:58:53","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T07:58:53","slug":"thor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2009\/06\/11\/thor\/","title":{"rendered":"Thor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy J. Michael Straczynski<\/strong>, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-1722-3<\/p>\n

I’m always a little dubious about high-profile, big-name relaunches, coming as I do from that curmudgeonly old school which believes that “there are no bad characters”, “Iconoclasm isn’t Creativity” and especially “Famous doesn’t mean Good”.<\/p>\n

So it’s rather refreshing to be able to say that the newest incarnation of Marvel’s God of Thunder is a delightfully good read. Collecting issues #1-6 of the monthly comicbook it finds all the entities of Asgard dead and gone (see Avengers Disassembled: Thor<\/strong>, <\/strong>ISBN: 978-0-7851-1599-1 for the startling details) until a mysterious voice summons 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 sets about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, scattered and hidden inside human hosts – or perhaps incubators?<\/p>\n

There’s a welcome reappearance and significant role for Thor’s early alter-ego Don Blake when the Thunderer rebuilds Asgard in the wilds of Oklahoma and plenty of action as the immortal hero adapts to a world that has radically changed since his demise. Even with cataclysmic battles against former ally Iron Man and the Dread Demolisher, plus a radical new look for the hero’s oldest and most implacable foe, the real joy here is the savvy script, especially the interactions between the resurrected gods and their new neighbours the ordinary folks of Broxton, Oklahoma,.<\/p>\n

Beautiful to look at, engagingly written and with a welcome dose of political intrigue and social commentary, this “cosmic comic” has a lot of earthy resonance to balance the scope of its own mythology and, despite ending on an annoying cliffhanger, is a book to recommend to complete neophytes as well as dedicated fans. If you’ve never seen Thor before, you should now…<\/p>\n