"Father Issues"

I've not been a huge fan of this revamp thus far. It's taken far too long to get to any sort of point, and then there's been the weird stuff like Thor in Africa and the female Loki. This issue is a lot better. Now that we've finally got over the interminable set-up, there's a tighter focus in the plotting, and the story as a whole seems a bit more relevant and purposeful.

The current scenario, with Thor at the head of a newly-restored Asgard, is interesting, and it's good to see Straczynski finally starting to get to grips with the new status quo. The idea of gods trying to escape their mythic roles and act more independently is a fascinating one, and the Asgard-in-America setting makes a lot of sense from that perspective, with the gods being the latest in a long line of immigrants looking for a new life in the new world. It's still not the grand new direction Marvel and JMS promised, and I can't help but feel all that "new world" stuff is something of an outmoded cultural artifact from the previous century, but it's better than nothing.

(It's possible, I suppose, that there may be a parallel being drawn here between the old myths from which Thor sprang, and that more modern myth of America as a land of new hopes, but I may be reading too much into a comic about a big bloke who hits things with a stone hammer.)

The core of the issue is a look at Thor and his father Odin and Straczynski does a pretty good job of exploring their difficult relationship. It's not exactly subtle and nuanced, but it is nonetheless good solid character work, and there is some complexity to it, with Thor's reluctance to resurrect Odin stemming not from a selfish desire to keep his father's position for himself, or a lack of love for him, but from a confluence of more complicated emotions and responsibilities. Odin has his own suspicions regarding Thor's hesitation, and it will be interesting to see how the differences will be resolved, if at all.

It's not a flawless bit of writing, however. While the issue is quite well-structured and somewhat self-contained, it might have been handy to clarify why exactly Thor is in the sorry state he's in at the start of the issue. It's possible to work it out, but since Thor's incapacity is rather central to the issue, it should probably be made clear for new readers. The script is also a bit off, with Thor occasionally slipping into a modern, informal mode of speech for no apparent reason, unless he's been going to the same dialect coach as Bendis' Doctor Doom. Furthermore, a rather prominent monologue on Schrödinger's Cat seems to have been wedged in for no reason other than to make the comic look like it's dealing with clever and weighty ideas. Since this sequence doesn't do anything except further illustrate the same "between life and death" concept that Thor and friends had previously explained quite clearly, it's not only quite redundant, but bafflingly pretentious too. Straczynski seems to be merely showing off the breadth of his knowledge, without any care for whether it fits in the story. I mean really, what is the point of Don Blake explaining a quantum physics thought experiment to Balder?

(All that aside, Schrödinger's Cat must surely be invalid in this context, since it is designed to highlight a flaw in the theory of quantum physics that is rendered irrelevant by the existence of multiple realities, and multiple realities are commonly known to be in existence in the Marvel Universe. So Schrödinger's Cat, in the Marvel Universe, is equivalent to the Flat Earth theory in ours. See, JMS, I can be pointlessly clever too!)

Regular artist Olivier Coipel steps aside for this storyline in favor of penciller Marko Djurdjevic. Djurdjevic's linework is a bit more rugged and rough-edged than Coipel's, which fits in well with the issue's Asgardian setting and frequent flashbacks to the realm's savage past. His Thor doesn't have that interesting, vaguely Neanderthal, appearance that Coipel brings to the character, but he does at least manage to make the bizarre Coipel-designed Disco Chainmail look halfway plausible. The storytelling is also good throughout, aside from a couple of minor slip-ups (Thor needs help to walk on one page and stands unaided on the next, for example), and the big battle scenes work particularly well.

This is not bad at all. JMS has some good ideas about the nature of gods and their relationships both with each other and humankind, and I like that the writer is attempting to do something a bit different with Thor than a mere rehash of Kirby and Simonson and the rest. While it's not always entirely successful, at least he's trying. As well as that compelling central agenda, this issue also benefits from good art, a well written relationship between Thor and his father, and a definite sense that the title is starting to find its feet. It took a while to get to this point, but better late than never.

---

What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!

---