Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Thor, the God of Thunder

Isn't it amazing how Jack Kirby's TALES OF ASGARD (which he plotted 100% on his own from the beginning), with never more than 4 panels to a page, managed to tell more story in fewer pages than many modern writers?

Well, frankly, a lot of those Tales of Asgard backups were practically montages rather than stories, with great hallufin' time jumps between individual panels. Compare the 5-page "how Thor lifted the hammer" backup from JiM #102 to the ~66 page retelling in Thor: Son of Asgard #10-12. The latter actually has PACING.

In other news, Relaunch Alert .

^Yeah, I saw that. I wonder how long it'll take JiM to melt back into Thor for a numbering stunt again? Le barf.

Seeing Coipel back for the initial 5-issue arc is tempting, but one has to wonder how far ahead he is on the pencils. Given Marvel's track record, I'm not optimistic that the book's post-#1 issues will ship on time.

And apparently, the giant arc that's had all this build-up without anything actually happening will end in March? REALLY?!?!

The odds of me picking up tomorrow's issue just got that much slimmer....

Flipped thru Thor 619 today and decided to give it a pass. It looked like the action was picking up, but I feel it was still somehow more of the same. I'll just keep the $4 in my pocket, thank you.

Oddly enough, Fraction's Casanova is SO much better than his other stuff! Le sigh.

THOR 619: It's kind of a neat thing to read a 'skyfather god' telling a story to an assemblage of his 'charges'. I thought the art here was nicely evocative. I particularly liked the World Tree, though that image often does tend to bring out the best of an artist. Too bad the story ends in Odin having a giant hissy-fit directed at newly-young Loki and then another one at Thor. The former without the latter might've indicated a new approach at parenting Odin's Trickster godchild, one which might've resulted in a Norse god of mischief who isn't eeeeevil. But since there is the latter, I guess all that's signified is the pissed-offness of the King of Asgard.

Iron Man/Jane Foster/ what's his name-- their scene was amusing, but was it necessary? It's time for this story to kick into a higher gear. Thor fan admission- I've never liked Jane Foster. In Thor titles, I vastly prefer Sif as Thor's love interest. In other books, I've enjoyed Jane's appearances. There, I can appreciate the sense of tragedy that, to me, seems to cling to her. I like that a former nurse has become a doctor and I enjoy when that aspect to her is stressed. In Thor, to me, she'll always be the baffling love that Thor can't seem to leave alone.

The battle between Tyr, Balder and the evil gods (they're red! they must be evil!) ends murkily. *Is* Tyr dead? Did his wish come true? What about Balder? I hope Thor and Loki, shown to be on the way, can revive them.

I hope the red gods get some individual character devlopment. In every pantheon, there's a god or two who go against the grain of their peers. Might Loki's couterpart in the Uthana Thoth ally with the Asgardians?

As I near the end of a huge pile I was getting through for Comic Book Review Month, I finally got around to reading Warriors Three #2, after enjoying the first issue (and being a long time fan of the characters). While it wasn’t bad, something that stuck out was the revised origins of the Warriors Three which didn’t work for me. Particularly Hogan, who previously has been known to be a warrior from another kingdom (basically like the Huns). This was annoying enough to take me out of the story.

The Neil Edwards artwork is a lot like Bryan Hitch, which also means it has a lot of the problems Hitch’s art has. He also doesn’t quite capture the dynamic widescreen feel Hitch goes for.

I really want to like this series, but it’s been pretty ‘okay’ so far and not great. I’m not sure if I’ll finish the mini.

WARRIORS THREE #3: Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral are always good for a laugh and their dialogue here is written with that in mind. The premise of the story is that A.I.M. has recently captured the god-doggie, Fenris. Except, Fenris has escaped, destroying an A.I.M. installation while doing so. Fenris' time with A.I.M. wasn't strictly a period of imprisonment, though. There was a bit of a trade going on. A.I.M. taught Fenris how to access the power to shape-shift, apparently inherited from the wolf's sire, Loki. Funny, I always thought Loki's shape-changes were learned-magic in nature. Guess I shouldn't assume...!

In return, Fenris provided "blood and other biologics" for A.I.M.'s "project Valkyr", the goal of which was to create human/Asgardian hybrids.

Helen Gamble, sole survivor of Fenris' escape, is just such a hybrid. The last one, according to her. She aids the W3 as they pursue Fenris to Oklahoma, current home to Asgard. She seems like a capable, even likeable sort. Even helpful. She 'wants to clean up her own mess'. But the W3 shouldn't forget- SHE'S AN A.I.M. AGENT!

Actually, I kind of like that an Asgardian's sense of 'good and evil' isn't as cut and dried as our 'Midgardly' definitions. Hopefully, the W3 aren't *quite* as gullible as they come off here, even considering differences in moral evaluations.

I *do* think that crafting Asgardian/human hybrids should be much, much, MUCH more of a difficult thing that A.I.M. shouldn't come close to being able to accomplish with their science. Not even close to close.

While I'd be annoyed if they were able to craft human/skrull or human/eternal hybrids willy-nilly, the Asgardians do have a long history of being able to interbreed with just about anything that moves.

Odin has knocked up a giantess, and, in the comics, a goddess of another pantheon entirely (Gaia), Loki has done the deed with humans, giants and farm animals (being the 'mother' of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, as well as the father of Fenris, Jormungandr and Hel), etc. Asgardian (and Olympian, etc.) 'genetics' might be particularly well-suited to blending with others.

Yeah- if a god does the breeding. But in A.I.M.'s test tubes? I don't think so.

I'm really finding Fraction's dialogue for Thor and Odin annoying. In fact, Fraction is starting to become a writer
I avoid entirely (which there very few).

^Casanova's better than anything Fraction's done in the MU, IMO.

You know, I just couldn't get into Casanova for some reason. It had a lot of things I like about comics, uniqueness being one of those things, but I didn't really enjoy the first two issues. Still, I appreciated what they were trying to do.

But Fraction's Thor is quickly becoming like his Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men. Namely: bad.

I had to drop the book a few months ago when Fraction brought Loki back. It just seems like all he is doing is setting the big reset button for the movie. Bring back Loki, bring bakc Odin, making Thor act like a haflwitted moron for rbing back Loki.

Just a really horrible book write now, and it looks so much worse since Gillen had such a great run before Fraction came in and stunk up the place.

Is there a Thor movie thread? If not, this is the closest I saw with a Search.

Just saw it, and it was pretty awesome. Not quite Iron Man or Spider-Man levels of geekgasm, but a step above the Hulk stuff or, IMO, anything DC has yet brought to the screen.

Just got back from taking Sam and Carol to see it. Same was suitably impressed, while Carol was impressed by the shirtless scene and the one in the rain.

I thought it was exactly what it was supposed to be, a fun summer movie. Lots of action, lots of good performances, including Elba's as Heimdall. Russo was pretty much wasted in the movie, though.

Okay, this is gonna go against all current conventional opinion pretty much, I'm sure, but the woman playing Sif... much prettier and more interesting than the "Jane" character played by Natalie Portman in my opinion.

Hemsworth played Thor with a good swagger, but it came across as a little light to me at points.

Still, I'd give it a solid B+.

and I gotta say one last thing. Whoever did the CGI on the rainbow bridge...well, as Sam said about the movie... Freakin' Awesome. A fun special effects movie that worked. The Destroyer seemed suitably powerful. It all worked.

If there was a weak point, it was all the gleepy smiling / not-quite-flirting between Thor and Jane Foster. So, so tedious.

And yeah, if liking Sif's character a zillion times more than Portman's version of Jane Foster is unconventional, then I join you in unconventional-land.

Loki, Heimdall and Sif were some of my favorite characters. And to heck with those complaining about Heimdall's skin color, the *real* scandal is that Volstagg wasn't nearly fat enough!

I cannot believe they made Loki's crazy taste in horny helmets work so effectively. Amazing.

There was *huge* potential for the various Asgardians (particularly the Warriors Three) to look dorktacular, and take the viewer right out of the scene, but the costume department deserves some sort of medal for making the suits work. Major kudos for using Coipel's design, which translated a hell of a lot better to the screen than tights would have.

Looking forward to Captain America a lot, too.

X-Men: First Class, with trepidation. I don't care if it's consistent with anything, I just want it to not suck. About the only thing that makes me want to love it is that Wolverine isn't going to dominate it the way he has the last four 'X-Men' movies.

Green Lantern, I'll go see, 'cause it's a superhero movie, but, yeah. Whatever.

I´m not a Thor fan at all, and I liked the movie. Still, I´m somewhat confused about the secondary characters. Volstagg eats, Sif is the lady warrior, and I think Heimdall is the guy who 'sees' (right?). But who were the other two guys with Sif and Volstagg? The asian-looking guy and the one with the pointy beard? And does Thor´s mom have a name?

This Avenger business is turning out to be quite interesting, I think. So Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America, each one with his own movie. And we saw Hawkseye in the Thor movie. Anybody else waiting in the wings? Spider-Man is not an Avenger, right? Or Wolverine? As you can see I´m not at all a Marvel person...

Thor's mom (or, more properly, Odin's wife, since she's not really Thor's mom...) is Frigga, who got absolutely short shrift in Norse mythology, being pretty much 'that chick who stands next to Odin,' and getting little more development than that in the comic books either. I think she got more speaking lines in this movie than in either the last thirty years of Thor comics or the last 2500 years of Norse mythology.

Heimdall is indeed the 'one who sees,' having senses sharp enough that he's supposed to hear the sound of wool growing on a sheep's back, down on Midgard, which is *another dimension,* from way up on Asgard. Crazy awesome senses.

The 'Warriors Three' were a comic-book invention, with 'Fandral the Dashing' being an Errol Flynn swashbucklery clone, 'Hogun the Grim' being a surly Mongol-looking dude (here played by an asian), and 'Volstagg the Voluminous' being a colossally fat and jolly Falstaffian buffoon, who is heavy enough that the average Asgardian god (able to lift 20 to 40 *tons*) can't budge him.

They didn't really get described very effectively in the movie, I fear, but in their movie role as 'Thor's drinking and fighting buddies,' they pretty much got the job done.

Sif, in the mythology, was a golden-haired (actual dwarf-spun magical gold for hair, after a prank by Loki led to the loss of her original black locks) 'wife of Thor' sort of figure, but in the comics, she's a black-haired warrior-goddess of swordsmanship who is on-again, off-again associated romantically with Thor, when he's not off on Earth, chatting up mortals...

Another common 'buddy' of Thor is Baldar, but it's probably for the best that they left him out of the movie, as it was already kind of packed with characters that didn't really have room for much in the way of introduction.

I do kind of like the shout-out to Norse myth with the drinking contest. During a prank on Thor, he was told to drain the ale from from a drinking-horn given him by a giant chieftan, who, unbeknownst to him, had magically linked it to the ocean itself. Thor drank and drank and drank, attempting to meet the challenge, but finally failed. He drank so much 'though, that the ocean had pulled back, and rushed back to fill the gap, and that's the Norse mythological explanation for the tides.

The ocean has tides because Thor lost a drinking contest!

And you can Google where Odin got his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, from, 'cause I'm not sure it's appropriate for a family friendly forum.

The original Avengers were the Hulk, Ant-Man/Giant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man and Thor. Captain America joined, like, five minutes later, so doesn't technically count as a founding member, but might as well be.

The Ant-Man movie never happened, so he's out, and with him the Wasp.

So far, it looks like the Avengers movie is going to have Thor (Hemsworth), Captain America (Evans), Iron Man (Downey, Jr.), the Black Widow (Johanssen), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, the dude we saw with a bow briefly in this movie) and the Hulk (yet another new Hulk actor, Mark Ruffalo).

I kinda would have liked to see Ant-Man/Giant-Man and the Wasp, instead of Black Widow and Hawkeye, but, without the lead-in that we've seen of Black Widow in Iron Man 2, and the forced cameo of Hawkeye here in Thor, they probably didn't want to deal with introducing them during a movie that's already going to be a nightmare to produce, with so many active figures needing their own dramatic scenes and stuff.

Plus the Wasp is dead at the moment, and comic book companies prefer to use characters on-screen that have comics that the viewers can go check out. It might look a little dubious if the one girl Avenger was the only character in the movie that was Miss-Not-Appearing-In-These-Comics on account of extreme deadness...

Just saw it. Big thumbs up!!

Wow, thanks, Set, for the detailed explanation. Now I think I´m going to go find out about Sleipnir...

You got to save something for the sequels, since Baldar pretty much has two roles and one of them involves dying. Baldar is pretty much the god of light and beauty in the mythology, and many have wondered why he doesn't have some sort of light powers in the comics. In any case, he seems to be the brother that Thor doesn't like lately.

I recommend Godchecker for brief references.

I saw Thor today. My thought "Meh". I thought Hemsworth did a very good job. Portman not a good job at all.

The special effect were good, but just more of the same stuff we see in all these action movies. I did see it in IMAX 3-D. Some of the title work made me think "I hope no one in the theater has epilepsy"

For me it is always all about the story. We all know the basic story of Odin sending Thor to Earth to learn humility and be less arrogant. But I didn't see where in the movie Thor learned humility. Was it <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">when he was captured by SHIELD</span></span> or <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> when Jane told him to stop breaking the dishes</span></span>? I would have had more time in the film showing Thor on Earth learning to put others ahead of himself.

And I didn't buy Thor falling in love with Jane. I can see why she fell for him <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">he comes to Earth through the phenomenon that she has been studying for years and he is ruggedly handsome</span></span>. While for Thor <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> she is a lower lifeform that he just met. She isn't particularly attractive. She isn't ugly, but as has been said here Sif looked a whole lot better. All she did for him was give him a fresh set of clothing, a meal, and a ride to his hammer.</span></span> Hardly the makings of a great romance. At least in the comics, Thor had gotten to know Jane Foster for years, albeit as Don Blake.

I did think they got the Characters of Loki & Odin spot on. And Loki's powers were shown very well and in a natural way. Loki's motivation was handled well too. I think that they didn't explain <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> the Odinsleep properly. A quick set-up scene where Odin explains to the young Thor & Loki about the Odinsleep as he is about to go into one would have made the scene of Odin's collapse a little more understandable</span></span> And I thought the use of the Destroyer was very well done.

I don't regret going to see it, especially on the big screen in IMAX 3-D. But it did not leave me wanting to see Thor 2.

and what about the Avengers movie? as I understand, there was an "Easter egg" at the end of the movie - as Tony Stark showed up and offered him a membership with the Avengers.

The 'easter egg' shown at our theatre was one of the secondary characters for the movie working with Sam Jackson/Nick Fury on a 'potentially unlimited power source' <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">(that looked a bit Cosmic Cube-like),</span></span> and a shot of someone sinister <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">(Loki)</span></span> spying on them.

It suggested a tie-in through the Captain America movie, this movie, and the upcoming Avengers movie.