The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Thor
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Why do I even talk? Why do I ever say nice things like Ragnarök isn’t going to be some non-Marvel Thor knock-off? Because I then end up with egg on my face when Simonson does the big reveal this issue. No, the comic’s not about the lady elf who kicks butt or whatever, it’s actually…
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It's not a complicated story–writer Roger Langridge sends Captain America (from World War II) and Thor (from the present day) back to Camelot. They discover Loki has wormed his way into King Arthur's court and there's some trouble. Good thing there are a couple superheroes to deal with it. Langridge doesn't worry about establishing the…
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Someone, either at IDW or Walt Simonson himself, is doing everyone the great disservice of suggesting Ragnarök is some kind of Thor rip-off IDW is doing just because the character is a Norse god and in the public domain. It isn’t. It’s some barbarian comic where a blue snow witch or some such thing sees…
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I guess it’s been a while since I’ve read a new Marvel comic. I didn’t realize they’ve done everything possible to make the Avengers as much like the movie Avengers… down to this young hot Loki. Writer Al Ewing makes references back to old Marvel comics and events and so on, but he’s really going…
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Thor has two problems to overcome. Director Branagh is successful at one of them. The first problem is half the film takes place in mythological Asgard, which is an ancient place, but very modern with all the latest streamlined architecture—think if Art Deco molded with neon, some magical stuff and then inexplicable horse-based transit. For…
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Cornfields. It ends in a cornfield. I’m not sure there’s anything more perfect. Well, obviously, not being canceled would be more perfect, but for what they have to do… Langridge and Samnee end it beautifully. The issue does not play like a final issue (I’m assuming Marvel did not give them time)—the big bad is…
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It’s hard not to be depressed. And not just because Langridge ends on the series’s first (and last) real cliffhanger. This issue is the second-to-last Thor: The Mighty Avenger. Langridge opens the issue with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beeker (I suppose Samnee does have something to do with it). Things weren’t working out in the…
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The issue ends with Thor and Jane’s first kiss. I wasn’t sure it was going to because Langridge was hinting at it a couple times and it didn’t happen. The last few pages, leading up to the kiss, are some great talking heads stuff. Except Samnee doesn’t just do talking heads, he does these medium…
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Langridge ought to write the Marvel story bible on how characters should be portrayed. His Namor is at once more regal and more human than any other portrayal I’ve read. Langridge’s Namor isn’t the mass anarchist (or a jerk) and it makes for a great guest appearance. Interestingly, in the same issue, we’re treated to…
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This issue, featuring the Warriors Three—they’re checking up on Thor for his father, unaware he doesn’t remember the details of his banishment—might be the best issue of Thor yet. It’s hard to say. It doesn’t do much with the Thor and Jane romance, which Langridge is pacing beautifully, but it’s just such a joy… one…
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It’s a Thor comic, but it’s kind of Henry Pym’s issue. Giant-Man and the Wasp guest-star this issue and Langridge goes far in giving them their nicest portrayal in many years. Flashbacks to Pym’s past bookend the issue; Langridge uses them to give the character a resonance totally unrelated to the events Thor’s experiencing in…
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As much as I love Samnee’s art—and Mighty Avenger is, to some degree, all about Samnee’s art (he manages to capture the wonderment factor of superheroes, a lost art… even though it’s set in Oklahoma)—one cannot ignore Langridge. The issue opens with a great summary of the previous issue, then it continues a few hours…
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Langridge’s approach is to make Jane Foster the lead, something I wasn’t expecting, but it makes perfect sense. Recasting Thor as a mute homeless guy (at least in her view) for half the issue was a little more questionable. As is the scene with Thor defending a woman’s honor against a ruffian… the joke, it…
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So, for a forty year old comic, originally serialized in back-ups (and a double sized reprint), this issue is essentially a done in one. Thor and his sidekicks (are they called the Warriors Three?) hunt down this bad guy (called Mogul, no relation to the intergalactic Superman villain–this Mogul is from the Mystic Mountain, or…
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It’s Thor versus Fanfir for the (first?) time and Odin busts out his awesome “Star Trek” viewscreen to see everything going on. The way Lee lays out the story… while it was originally serialized, plays well read in a sitting. Thor and his sidekicks have to go fight Ragnarök’s coming–by preventing an arms race it…
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How did Stan Lee–I mean, seriously–how did he okay Colletta’s inks? I mean, I’m not a salivating Kirby enthusiast, but Colletta just sucks the life out of his art here. I’m thinking the eighties Super Powers books from DC to tie in to the action figures had more merit. And it’s really a darn shame,…
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Did Marvel get Matt Milla to recolor these stories to try to sell them to a broader audience (I mean, isn’t the trade just going to be a Thor product pre-movie release) or to try to make the Vince Colletta inks less horrific? I want to talk about the stories, but… after reading this issue–the…
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Included in this issue (and the previous one) are some Marvel Universe entries relating to Thor and Asgard. It’s sort of amazing to see where everything stemmed from these stories (well, not just these stories, but in part these stories). Lee’s storytelling is somewhat reductive. It’s a big world he’s telling a story in, but…
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Stan Lee writes these stories with such enthusiasm, it’s hard not to get involved with them… even when there are glaring continuity errors (Lee has Heimdall taking the assignment of guarding the Rainbow Bridge after Thor’s come of age, when just a few stories earlier, young Thor is on the bridge with an already assigned…
The Stop Button 