Thor HC

Marvel comics’ very own version of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, spent decades hanging around with the Avengers, hitting evildoers with his hammer while indulging in verbal jousts in a faux old-English tongue (“verily art thee villain, so sayeth Thor”). Then, the powers-that-be decided to make short work of him by destroying all the Norse gods in the comic version of the Twilight of the Gods.  However, like all popular franchise characters, Thor returns from the dead in a brand new avatar, courtesy Babylon-5 writer JM Straczynski. A lot of portentous dialogues announce his return, none of which make much sense. Sample this: “I have known passion, I have known war, I have known the end of all things, and then I”¦and then I”¦and then we”¦.went to sleep”¦and went away.” (Just so you know, it takes three pages and quite a few caption-ridden panels to narrate the aforementioned words.) Called back from the void by his alter-ego Donald Blake, Thor establishes a new Asgard on the outskirts of a small Oklahoma town and sets about finding his fellow gods, all of whom are conveniently hiding around America.

The book could be a little more fun if it were at least coherent, but Straczynski apparently knows that his target audience is the handful of people who were interested in Thor in the first place, and paces the piece as if he has all the time in the world to tell his non-story. The reactions of the townspeople at the sudden appearance of a bunch of gods in their neighborhood provide for a degree of humor; a fight with Iron Man in the third chapter is thrown in to satisfy the peanut gallery, and that’s it really. Oliver Coipel’s sharp pencils and splashy images are sadly wasted on this tedious, plodding waste of money and time.