We got a preview copy of next week’s Thor #4 and I am so sorry.
I’m almost more sorry about this than I am about World War Hulk: Gamma Corps. As much of a huge waste of space that mini-series was, at least it was a mini. At least it dealt mostly with background characters and a few old names only die hard guys are going to care about. This is Thor. Thor.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: like the cover of a Led Zepplin album. Thor should come with righteous fury, battling the heavens from which he came and downing his success with lusty warrior-women hanging off his biceps and longing for the next change to test his godly mettle. Iron Fist has gone from Guy in Slippers to fan sensation just by upping his game and giving us action and adventure at the end of a thing like unto iron. I sell that book simply by showing people one of the last few pages in the trade where two guys kick each other so hard they cause an entire floor of a high rise to explode.
Thor is a no-brainer. He should be making entire buildings explode before breakfast. This issue… not so much. And the thing is, Thor does do something incredible in this issue, he does silhouette himself with lighting crackling in the background, but…there is just something missing. Something not right that maybe doesn’t translate well in single issue, maybe can’t wash the heavy handed soapboxing from the rest of the issue, maybe doesn’t have the same visceral punch I’m looking for artistically. Whatever it is, it’s just falling short of being Thor from on high and I am so sorry that some people are out there thinking that this is what Marvel’s God of Thunder is all about.
He should be about might and magic, epic tales of valor and destruction, things that make our lives small in comparison and let us dream of better worlds and high heroes than a mere mortal could attain. Donald Blake is the lighting rod through which the Conan soundtrack comes to life and rides down the blackest hearts that could only come from myth and legend. I want SO MUCH and, sad to say, I’m getting so little.
Spoilers Ahead, but if you already know that Thor will win any conflict he gets into and that he’s going to find some dudes who will turn out to be undiscovered Asgardians, then there you go.
We know JMS loves him some words and this issue starts right into dialog, exposition and narrative. Dude shows up at Blake’s Bed and Breakfast away from Asgard and calls him to battle! And by calling him to battle, I mean calls him to Doctors Without Borders to a sad state of affairs out in Africa.
And here’s where I run into my first problem: if I criticize this point of bringing in real world politics into a comic, I seem callous and uncaring about the situation and can instantly be called on being heartless to the plight of man. If I don’t, however, the book is given free reign to honestly trivialize a very serious real world issue by allowing a fictional character full reign over a situation he shouldn’t be in. Back at this year’s WonderCon, DC gave a great answer to if the Amazons Attack plotline would parallel real world events with a very clear ‘No’. If superheroes actively take part in something actually going on in our newspapers, if they show up in Iraq to fight or unite in Darfur to stop the very honest atrocities there, it not only is diminishing the hero by not actually solving the problem (I mean, if they can save a Kree-Skrull War, why couldn’t they stop genocide on their own planet?) but it’s diminishing the conflict you’re trying to call attention to. Between this and last issue’s walk through Katrina, I really wish JMS would get off his soapbox and give me some balls-to-the-wall Thor action. I know these political things should be called attention to and I know it’s important but if he wants to make a difference, do an interview. Devote personal time and energy and be a hero yourself. Don’t make Thor do it for you.
ANYWAYS… back to the comic. The situation in Africa is dire and deadly and sad and Donald Blake wonders who will pull mankind from the shadows when they fall to war. Or at least… I think Donald Blake wonders this as a fancy font layered directly on top of the artwork has been employed to do the narratives. This get difficult to read for one and, because of the font, makes me wonder who’s thinking here. Then again, Thor and Blake could be one and the same now, but Heaven forbid we get any character development on a personal level from Thor’s first issues. So far, we’ve got a lot of navel-gazing going on, so it’s just going to have to do.
Obviously, the bad guys are going to have to strike and they do in the most evil of fashions by strapping a crying woman with explosives and having her run at a village of infirmed and children. They burst from the bushes, masked and armed and evil and Blake pushes through the pain of being exploded, maybe shot, to transform into Thor. The God of Thunder throws around his hammer to knock people down , takes a lot of bullets and frightens evil back into the bushes. Three good-guy mercenary bodyguards, one of them portly, stand near by (I WONDER WHO THEY ARE?!?!) as Thor gives the innocents some time by creating a HUGE gap between their humble camp and where the bad guys had been coming from.
Now, that’s points for not solving the issue at hand but buying the good guys some time, but still, it just doesn’t sit right with me. Anyways, the three warriors turn out to be the Warriors Three (NO WAI!) and a wise old man from the camp says that Africa’s problems must be solved by Africa and no white men could not solve their constant conflict. Thanks for the save and giving Thor an out to go back home, wise old man. So Thor and the Warriors Three go back home, marvel at the big non-Viking palace they have now and look to getting the next whomever next issue. Oh man, is that ever going to get old.
All you need to know, dear reader? The Warriors Three are back and if that’s good enough for the ISB, that’s good enough for me.
6 Comments
Oh dear.
I liked the Katrina reference last issue, because as exploitative as it sounds I think it put guest star Iron Man and the whole Civil War nonsense in perspective by calling to attention the sort of issues heroes should really concern themselves with … rather than registration, etc.
Plus, if it reminded a few Marvel zombies out there that New Orleans is STILL a mess and maybe prompt somebody to educate themselves on the situation and possibly do something … well, we can always hope, right?
But two issues in a row? And upping the ante by going, I presume, to Darfur???? That is substituting pontificating for storytelling, and super-heroes aren’t really the best forum for delving into such issues in depth.
I liked the first three issues, so I will read this. But if it is as bad as you say, I may be jumping ship.
Sure, it brings attention and puts things in perspective regarding superheroic priorities, but I don’t want to think of Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America (who may or may not have have been dead at the time) as schmucks for not running to the scene to save the innocent people who died horrifically and who are currently not saving the people who still don’t have a home and are suffering from the government’s mistake. This is something I want to take care of in the real world, and the fictional world should be saved for things that really do need someone with superpowers to handle. Otherwise, Iron Man looks like a chump not for selling out his friends, but for not being a hero for the people reading the comic, a hallmark of Marvel as I see it.
Again, this is why I like talking comics and not politics. If I misspeak or chose the wrong word on a comic, I just get harassed nerd-ically. =)
But again, if you liked the first three issues, maybe Thor is not as bad as I make it out to be. It’s not for me personally, and I know I want a lot from that book and that’s it’s mostly my disappointment on what I’m missing on the line. JMS doesn’t go in depth on the issue, just generalizes how bad it all is and then sends Thor home. Maybe this will bring people’s attention to Darfur?
“I liked the Katrina reference last issue, because as exploitative as it sounds I think it put guest star Iron Man and the whole Civil War nonsense in perspective by calling to attention the sort of issues heroes should really concern themselves with … rather than registration, etc.”
First, you can just as easily turn it around and blame Thor for every death caused by a hurricane, tornado, or other meteorological phenomena.
Secondly, the problems you call trivial, are only trivial to you because they only occur in comics. To those in comics, they are very real. For example, far more people have been killed by, say, Magneto than Katrina in the Marvel U. How are you supposed to have the characters react, when you confront them with this? Will you have them diminish the real world or themselves?
The Superhero genre is a romantic one, and romances can’t endure much reality without falling to pieces.
Well said, Cap’n. Thanks.
“He should be about might and magic, epic tales of valor and destruction, things that make our lives small in comparison and let us dream of better worlds and high heroes than a mere mortal could attain.”
Absolutely! Sad thing is, I knew the stories would be like this the second I heard JMS’s name attached to the project. He did the same kind of low-wattage stories for his Fantastic Four run as well. The guy’s definitely not suited for high adventure comics. What kind of hold does he have over the Marvel Powers That Be? Blackmail photos?
I gave the issue bit of a whippin’ the other day, too. Looks like I’ll be dropping the title….at least until JMS moves on to yet another adventure hero to leech the fun out of.
I agree that this stuff doesn’t really have much place in comics, let alone one about a superhero-fied Norse God of Thunder. I could buy it when JMS was whipping this sort of thing out in Supreme Power and Squadron Supreme, since that’s kind of expected when you have a book that boils down to “What if superheroes were in a realer world?”
Same time, though, I’m not sure we can go back to those halcyon days when Thor was running around fighting trolls and stuff.