Thor NOW!

[Marvel Boy]

Issue #1 by new creative team of Jason Aaron and Esad Rabic.

Really enjoyed this issue. Aaron has set up a nice dynamic in telling this story through Thor at three different points in his life: his youth, current age, and future King. As he learns more of this new threat, so do we the readers. It's also interesting to see how Thor changes and matures during these three times.

This story appears more straight-forward fantasy and mythic, to which Rabic's art is well-suited, full of wonder, grandness, and epic. His version of Young Thor with his axe held certain elements of Conan to my eye, especially with the cut of his hair and facial expressions.

Excited for this, off to a good start.

[tomspasic]

It's certainly a nice looking book. The art is very nice.
The story seems to be off to a decent start. Of course it bugs me that Thor's speech patterns have now been retconned to exclude the old faux-shakespearian dialect. Especially as the writer who first ditched it explained it away as Thor adjusting to the modern idiom.
I think the religious parts are poorly thought out, or perhaps poorly explained. "Every planet has Gods" seems to clearly contradict dozens of planets we've seen that plainly do not have gods. Perhaps one of the many "god slayers" like the Demiurge, Desak or this new Naked Albino one are responsible for their being some planets without.
And I'm dubious about the value of the Gloomy Future Thor. If the only way to add weight to a threat is to devote several pages to "what the Future will be Like if They Win", comics are going to be dull-er. Either Thor will avert this threat, in which case that future becomes a mere "what-if?", or he doesn't avert it, in which case SPOILERS! Either way it adds nothing for me to retread Jurgen's work in this way, so far.
I'll have to see how it plays out.
To date Aaron has not been a writer who particularly impresses me. I would compare his work with the Likes of Wein or Conway, that is to say technically competent, professional, and enjoyable. But never "blowing me away", or particularly memorable.
Perhaps here he can rise a little in my ranking system, (which I'm sure will be enormously important to him. I know how to motivate people..)

All in all, a pretty decent start to the new series, and I'm mildly intrigued as to where it will go.

[Marvel Boy]

I like the Shakespearean dialect, makes everything they say more dramatic. The 'modern idiom' is okay, but I can live without reading why Thor likes lattes.

Gloomy King Thor, I think, helps deepen the mystery around this new foe. Young Thor may be a hot-head so he may not take this threat seriously or even underestimate it, since he believes he can handle anything. But current Thor is more mature, so the question becomes, Why didn't Current Thor stop or contain this threat then? By the time of King Thor, he appears to one of the few, if not, the sole god left anywhere. So how did this threat become so powerful and large? The plot thickens........

Minor, minor spoiler:











Did anyone else notice that King Thor's false arm looked remarkably like the arm from the Destroyer?





BTW, love Wein and especially Conway. Solid, stalwart professionals who know how to deliver a terrific comic story. As for any remarkable accomplishments of theirs, consider these:

Wein created Wolverine.........you're welcome.

Conway killed Gwen Stacy.......sorry, Peter.