The Mighty Thor Vol. 2
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| When Thor eats cheese before bed, his dreams get super wierd. |
Writer: Matt
Fraction
Artist: Pascal Ferry and Pepe Larraz
Read as trade paperback.
Background Info:
You may not know Thor if you’ve been living under a rock for
a while. I mean, the dude’s been in three movies so far, not to mention that
there’s a whole tradition of Norse mythology that focuses on the God of
Thunder.
What you may not be familiar with, however, is the event Fear Itself, in which Thor’s uncle, The
Serpent, decided to raise hell on earth. The crossover-event saw Thor killed at
the end of the story, which is possibly the second favourite pastime of
superheroes.
Review:
Credit goes to Marvel to not trying to trick us into
thinking Thor’s death was permanent. C’mon, man, it’s the superhero genre;
nobody’s buying that “dead means dead” shtick. In fact, Marvel goes the
opposite way in The Mighty Thor and
gives us a return of Thor only a few issues after Fear Itself. Thankfully, lest this be an “over in one issue” story,
writer Matt Fraction decides to draw it out a bit by giving us a plot that,
while interesting, is grossly underutilised.
Immediately following Thor’s funeral, a new god of thunder
emerges. This year’s model is Tanarus. And not only does he replace the thunder
god, but his presence wipes Thor’s memory completely out of the memory of
almost every Asgardian. The only one is Asgard or Earth who seems to remember
Thor is the now child Loki, who takes it upon himself to set matters right.
If Fraction had chosen to stick solely with that part of the
plot, I think we would have had a much better plot than we do now. Instead,
though, Fraction decides to let us know what Thor’s doing at the time as well.
Thor is on his way to be eaten by a creature called the Demogorge. Naturally,
that would be a bad thing, so he has to escape. It’s these parts of the book
that feel profoundly uninspired. The Demogorge has no personality. I get it
that he’s a monster, but even for a monster the Demorgorge has no personality.
He’s as blandly drawn as he is written; looking more like a developing baby in
utero than anything fearsome. What makes it worse is that Fraction fails to
convince anyone that Thor is in any real danger. It’s obvious from the get-go
that Thor’s going to make it out and get back to Asgard without even getting
blood on his golden locks.
That said, Fraction and the volume’s multiple artists do a
fantastic job at creating Tanarus. At first glance, Tanarus appears almost to
be an alternate universe version of Thor. But as the story progresses, very
real differences set in. Tanarus’ squat facial features and inhuman expressions
become a world apart from the more noble-looking Thor. What’s more, Tanarus’
attitude is appalling. He’s brash, misogynistic and completely uncouth. It’s a
nice way to get the reader behind Thor, but it’s one of those things that just
make’s Thor’s battle against the Demogorge even more tedious; you just want to
see whether Thor’s nobility really can defeat Tanarus’ brutality.
The Mighty Thor is
by no means a fantastic book, but it does its job; it brings Thor back from the
dead. The main story is told well enough, but it’s marred by elements too
ridiculous and predictable to be truly enjoyable it gets a two and a half out
of five rocks to live under.
** ½
+ Tanarus is great.
+ Half the story is really quite interesting
- The Demogorge is pathetic.
- Predictable to the end.
Alternate Option: Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon
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