Aside from his silly colorful costume and winged helmet, he's a freakin God for Chrissakes. An actual Norse god. What the Hell is he doing in the Marvel universe? Not to mention the fact that he says "thou" enough to make you wish he could get kicked in the gnads a few times.
Most people that haven't read comics don't want to read about a character like that, which seriously makes me wonder if the Thor movie will have any success with a mainstream audience. People want to read about badass superheroes with cool costumes and powers. People want to read about Wolverine and Spider-Man. People don't want to read about a character that wears an American flag on his costume, a blaxpoitation superhero, or a kung fu superhero that compresses chi into his hand.
And yet, a funny thing has happened at Marvel over the last 5 or 6 years. Imagine if Republicans started coming out in support of gay marriage and supporting socialized medicine and Democrats reacted by merely slapping the cover of a leatherbound bible with the backs of their hands. It would be a topsy turvy world, which is exactly what was happening with the characters at Marvel. Loser characters were being handled by the best talent in the company and consistently making the top 10, whereas staples like Spider-Man and the X-Men stagnated and slipped into the 50,000's in sales.
Bendis started throwing Luke Cage into all his books and made people realize he's actually cool. Fraction and Brubaker took on Iron Fist and turned a campy 70's kung fu hero an turned his book into a multi-generational mythological machine. Brubaker started scripting and "death and return of..." story for Captain America that brought people to tears. And just a few years ago, J. Michael Straczynski took on the Norse god of thunder in a revamp for the ages. The book sold in the 100,000's, earned JMS a "Best Writer" nomination at this year's Eisners, and had people scrambling for collections of the classic Thor stories from the heyday.
Thor was cool again.
I must confess that as much critical acclaim as JMS's new THOR reboot has been garnering, I still haven't read beyond the first six issues. I know, I know... that's a big blow to my credibility as a comic book blogger. But I just have a sneaking suspicion that his whole run (which will be concluding shortly) will be collected in a giant gorgeous hardcover omnibus edition. One so pretty that all my friends will want to come over and just look at it, touch it. Okay, maybe not. But I do like to fantasize about things like that sometimes.
But then, at a comic book store, somebody warned me that there was critical plot information contained in the series of one-shot Thor stories that Matt Fraction had been writing, all collected in the Ages of Thunder volume. So I had some catching up to do. I also kinda figured I could pretend I was a real scholar researching a mythological figure while I was at it.
Now, Thor was an entertaining read and all, but he still seemed like a goody two shoes. I mean, what the hell was a god doing on Earth on the Avengers, getting involved with Earthly drama? It just doesn't seem like a god's style. Then, I read these stories, which take place in Asgard before Thor ever got involved with the Earth.Man, was that guy badass.
This guy puts every man to shame. You could write more facts about this guy than you could about Chuck Norris. I can't remember how many times his face got completely covered with the fresh blood from a Frost Giant's corpse. And as if leaping through a Frost Giant's head with his hammer wasn't enough, I just can't tell you how awesome it was when Thor single handedly won a war against entire armies of the Undead when he single handedly piloted a giant Blood Colossus.
Oh man. Just that image slowly sinking into the blood from the battlefield, about to rise within the Colossus's skeleton. Chilling, I tell you. Chilling!
But the biggest surprise wasn't Thor's toughness. Everybody knew he was strong. What this story surprised me about is that the guy was actually a huge asshole. The three one-shots contained within are all essentially three acts about Thor's arrogance and the detriment it has on Asgard and the humans of Midgard. I mean, during Asgard's famine, the guy had hoarded golden apples and refused to share them with his starving comrades. What a cold-hearted bastard.
The climax of the book is actually the match of eternity. Thor vs. his own father, Odin. If you thought Thor was menacing, just look at the fully armored Odin brandishing his gargantuan sword. Holy shit.
Pick up this book if you'd like to see an awesome badass big mythological fall from heaven type of story. Matt Fraction, I salute you.
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