The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 03

The epigraph for The Immortal Thor #3 still comes from The Elder Eddas per the citation, which, for me, is The Poetic Edda, specifically, the “Sayings of the High One,” which Al Ewing sometimes lists as “Odin’s Rune-Song” Fittingly, this section of the Edda is a mixture of elements, including general wisdom/advice, as described by Carolyne Larrington: “Human social wisdom, teasing allusion to runic mysteries, spells, and charms combine in this poem to give a conspectus of different types of wisdom.” Where else would you look for a nice, tidy quote to kick off a story about Thor seeking the wisdom needed to meet Loki’s trial?

While not always the case, I think the translation that Ewing uses for the epigraph is more fitting than the one in my translation. Specifically, Ewing’s quote ends with “But he knows not what to answer, if to the test he is put,” while the Larrington translation ends with “he doesn’t know what he can say in return if people ask him questions.” The latter makes more sense within the context of the poem where a big chunk of the first half or so are stanzas that act as little pearls of advice for living life. In both quotes, it’s about a foolish man thinking himself wise until actually pressed, at which point he reveals his foolishness. Ewing’s quote makes more sense within the context of the comic where it’s not so much a social situation where a foolish speaker is finally made to confront his true self, it’s a larger trial, one where having the wisdom to escape is the difference between life and death.

Beyond the obvious aptness of the epigraph, Ewing selecting a bit of an advice column basically but with dressed up language connects to the purpose of these stories, at their root. They may have involved giants and trolls and life and death, but they were meant, in part, to teach lessons about life, and how to live it. “Sayings of the High One” transitions between stanzas of social advice and magical runes with ease, all meant to be part of the wisdom of Odin. While he’s the king of the Aesir, ruler of Asgard, Odin One-Eye who gave it as sacrifice to gain knowledge beyond knowledge, wisdom beyond wisdom, he’s also the face you give a collection of social instruction because he’s All-Wise and would know things like this just as easily as he knows rune magic. The mundane and the fantastic rubbing up against one another, feeding into one another... the world outside your window, albeit with a muscular man flying with a hammer...

The mixture of ‘high’ and ‘low’ shows up in the issue, like the scene where Thor, having crafted Tormod, the ax-head meant to represent his wisdom, tests the sharpness of the blade by shaving the beard he grew during the All-Sleep. While the wisdom usually represented by a weapon like Tormod is the brutal kind, if it is meant to be a practical sort of wisdom, it needs to solve any problem that requires a sharp point, like a face full of whiskers. Even the solution to Loki’s trial comes at the other end of a walking stick... the riddle solved via a tool to assist in a journey... that takes Thor back to the moment he left the moon. At its core, this issue is about direct, practical knowledge – lateral thinking.

The solution to Loki’s trial isn’t particularly clever or hard to figure out. When Thor crafts the walking stick with the rune at its head, it almost seems foolish that the entire thing rested upon an answer so basic. But, that’s how these stories go. Big life and death stakes resolved with a ‘clever’ twist that any of us could have thought of. Because these gods are just like us. They may learn these lessons in fantastical realms like Skornheim, Skartheim, Utgard, or the unnamed world of this issue but the lessons are, at their core, the same.

This wasn’t the first (or second...) time that Thor had found himself in a far off realm, put to the trial to prove himself. Beyond it being a common trope in myths and stories for the hero to venture into the wilderness to prove himself against nature or another or simply himself, it’s an idea that’s popped up from time to time in Thor comics. The one that immediately sprang to mind was Thor #338 where Thor and Beta Ray Bill are sent to Skartheim to battle to the death to determine who is worthy of Mjolnir. A more fitting comparison for The Immortal Thor #3, though, is Journey into Mystery #116 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Vince Colletta. “The Trial of the Gods!” has Odin sending Thor and Loki to Skornheim, a place where gods can die, in a race through a treacherous wilderness where the winner will be proven to be honest and right before the All-Father. It’s a patently stupid way to determine which of the two is being honest, particularly at this point in Thor history where, obviously, Loki was lying. He was always lying! But, that was the odd frustrating experience of Odin during this time, meant to mimic the unfair ‘fairness’ of a typical dad who never seemed to notice that one sibling always started it.

Where the Thor/Beta Ray Bill trial was one of straight combat, the Thor/Loki one is a race through a deadly obstacle course where Loki smuggles in Norn Stones to cheat his way along. Despite that, Thor always keeps up through his strength, agility, and smarts. The practical lateral thinking is on display best when both encounter these hard, spiky crystalline trees. Loki uses the Norn Stones to make himself intangible and walk through the forest unscathed. Thor, with no way to safely sneak through, puts his helmet on his hand, wraps his cape tightly around it and up his arm, and runs, smashing his way through, using the helmet fastened tight to his arm. It may not be exceedingly clever, but it’s the closest we get to solving a riddle in that particular trial.

There’s a bit of mirroring between the two stories in Thor’s lashing out in anger. In The Immortal Thor #3, it happens at the beginning; in Journey into Mystery #116, it happens at the end as Thor bursts through a host of carnivorous plants. In both cases, it’s frustration over the actions of Loki and their trickster ways that could leave Thor dead on some far away world. (Fittingly, that early story also has a subplot about Skurge and Enchantress causing mischief on Earth... though, we haven’t gotten there quite yet.)

In a broad sense, this sort of story recurs throughout The Immortal Thor, playing off the idea of the Ten Realms, and far away lands, and these self-contained story boxes. Like panels on pages in issues... Or stanzas in poems in Eddas.

Next week, The Immortal Thor #4 and a brief history of the Thor Corps (Thor #438-441, Thor Corps #1-4, and maybe even a word or two on Thors #1-4).

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 02

It’s the second issue of the new Thor series. Thor faces a threat more powerful than he alone can handle. He tries the storm, it doesn’t work. He tries his physical strength, it doesn’t work. He tries the might of Mjolnir, it doesn’t work. In desperation, he gathers the last of his strength to create a dimensional portal to send away this enemy too powerful to defeat. The best that the Thunder God can hope for is a draw, of sorts. Send the threat away and hope that, if/when it returns, he’s able to muster the strength to defeat it.

In 1999’s Thor #2 by Dan Jurgens and John Romita, Jr., the threat was the Destroyer powered by the spirit of a US Army Colonel. In 2023’s Immortal Thor #2 by Al Ewing and Martín Cóccolo, the threat is Toranos, the Utgard-Thor, the god of the superstorm, the holder of the wheel of fate. Cycles repeat.

The 1999 Thor relaunch by Jurgens and Romita came after a period of no Thor comics. The previous series had ended during the Onslaught event that took the non-mutant/non-Spider-Man heroes off the board for the Heroes Reborn line by Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld where Thor was simply a character in Avengers with no solo series. Thor became Journey into Mystery and followed the plight of Asgardians as mortals on Earth while Asgard sat in ruins. When Heroes Reborn became Heroes Return, the four title of that line were relaunched, but Thor remained without his own series. This was partly to not launch more than four new titles at the same time, partly to build up anticipation and demand. To make people want a Thor series more. It would follow around five or six months later (an eternity in mainstream superhero comicbooks) to make its own big splash free of any other launches.

The first year of the title revolved around two plots: Thor trying to balance his life with that of a human, Jake Olsen, whose soul he’d been bonded with to return both from the dead; and the destruction of Asgard and missing Asgardians. I won’t go too in-depth into the former, except to say that it never really worked. It seemed to be an attempt to recreate Donald Blake, while also doing an inversion of Eric Masterson’s time as Thor where, instead of Masterson retaining his mind when he transformed into Thor, Thor retains his mind when he transforms into Olsen. It’s an idea with some legs, but never really cohered. It made for a lot of Parker-esque mishaps that didn’t go anywhere.

The second main plot of that first year wasn’t just about the destruction of Asgard and its missing citizenry, it was about the threat of the Dark Gods. A forgotten threat from Asgard’s past, the Dark Gods are presented as a pantheon that’s the opposite of Asgard’s shining golden city and its supposed code of honour. A destructive, greedy, evil pantheon that nearly defeated Asgard in war until Thor’s childhood determination inspired Odin to rally for victory. The trauma of their threat was so great that Odin erased them from all memory save his own, and this threat was now returned. They had Odin in chains and were using the other Asgardians as slaves after they transformed Asgard into their new home. There isn’t much more to the Dark Gods, no real depth or underlying motives beyond being evil, the opposite of Asgard. They’re eventually defeated via Thor’s determination and planning, along with the always lamentable Deux Ex Odin finish where the All-Father regains his power and uses it to finish off the matriarch of the Dark Gods and restore Asgard to its former glory.

The Dark Gods were far from the first rival pantheon to challenge Asgard in one way or another – and far from the last. Up until the Dark Gods, most rival pantheons had a basis in other human mythologies, like the Olympians or the Egyptian and Celtic gods. In the first arc of the Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry run, they created a threat somewhat like the Dark Gods, a rival evil conquering pantheon that had no basis in existing mythology and was similarly dismissed. It’s an appealing idea, these variations on our heroes, challenging them in ways that only other gods truly can. And, as is always the case in superhero comics, the threat is best when greater in power than that of the hero. Thor only defeats the Dark Gods by allying himself with the exiled Destroyer, using his ability to transform between himself and Jake Olsen’s forms to rescue some Asgardians, and even use another threat he faced earlier in the run as a tool to free Odin. He has to go beyond himself and his capabilities, just as we will eventually see him do when he travels to Utgard, armed with two new mystical weapons and Skurge the Executioner at his side. Because the threat of Utgard is presented as incredibly large, well beyond Thor’s abilities, even as the king of Asgard.

It’s all variations on the same ideas. Al Ewing isn’t shy about that in The Immortal Thor, purposefully referencing old stories and characters, explicitly setting up the Utgardians as the Ur-gods with everything that follows flowing from them. The best trick Ewing pulls is treating the Utgardians like they have a strong basis in Norse mythology when, really, they’re just as much his and his collaborators’ creations as the Dark Gods were of Jurgens and Romita. From the epigraphs that pull from the Eddas, to the use of names like “Utgard-Thor” (in opposition to “Asa-Thor,” which does come from the Eddas), there’s a sense that Ewing is pulling on some mostly ignored elements of the mythological roots of Thor. He isn’t, though he does a pretty good job at covering his tracks by merging elements from mythology and Marvel history and past Thor comics and simple allusions. For Utgard, Ewing mashes it all up to create these older gods that can play the role of the Dark Gods. A new threat to Asgard and Midgard and the rest of the universe, forces of power and destruction that will require Thor to gather new resources and allies to stand a chance. Cycles repeat.

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The Immortal Thor #2 opens with a three page representation of Odin sacrificing his eye before Yggdrasil, the World-Tree, to gain knowledge. It’s an odd scene for the issue, which is not one that deals with sacrifice to gain knowledge. To delay/deter Toranos, Thor doesn’t sacrifice anything. He gains no knowledge save that he is not up to the task of actually defeating Toranos. Nor does it specifically relate to the final scene of the issue where Thor, on the moon, is confronted by Loki who discusses trust and reveals the new form of Loki the Enemy. It’s a scene that stands apart from the issue, although, I have to admit, that Loki’s narration ties it into the idea that Thor letting loose with the Thor-Power against Toranos, requiring the All-Sleep as a price paid for that power, but that’s a tenuous link. One that justifies the inclusion in this issue, but distracts from the larger picture.

It’s not uncommon for issue of The Immortal Thor to begin with short scenes that tie into the larger story more than the issue they begin. Little bits of thematic foreshadowing that Ewing drops in. That this is the first of such is meaningful as it points to the most obvious idea that The Immortal Thor revolves around: the idea of sacrifice for knowledge, power, freedom... The words of Yggdrasil could form the epigraph for the entirety of The Immortal Thor, to be honest:

YES

THIS IS THE LESSON

THIS IS THE PARABLE

THE STORY ALWAYS CHANGES

THE MEANING ALWAYS REMAINS

THERE IS ALWAYS A SACRIFICE

ALWAYS A COST, BOR-SON

FOR THE WINTER TO END

FOR SPRING TO COME AGAIN

YOU HAVE MADE YOUR SACRIFICE, BOR-SON

AND IN TIME TO COME

YOUR CHILDREN WILL MAKE THEIRS

These are words that will be repeated throughout The Immortal Thor in different combinations by different characters. And, as Ewing will reminds us, Thor has already made his sacrifice beyond Odin, back in the “Ragnarok” story where he sacrificed both eyes for the knowledge and power to end the cycles of Ragnarok, freeing Asgard from the endless birth and death pattern where they always stormed towards the same story. Yet, underlying all of this is a simple fact: that didn’t end the rebirth of Asgard. The story is different. But, here we are, with echoes of the past, repetitions and variations, and is the story actually different in the ways that count? Do the sacrifices ever truly end? Winter always comes anew, after all...

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In rereading the first year of the Dan Jurgens/John Romita, Jr. run, I’ve been thinking about the choice of line artists for these books. The Immortal Thor is headed up by Martín Cóccolo, an artist that I’ll admit I wasn’t too familiar with prior to this comic. He’s got a clean line and actually, together with colourist Matthew Wilson, manages to pull off the visual design of Toranos really well, capturing the look and feel of Alex Ross’s design/art. Ross is the other element of The Immortal Thor’s art by providing the main covers (of which I’ve got most throughout the run, but did have the odd variant given to me as my copy, alas) and some of the character designs, as shown in the back of this issue. He did the redesign of Thor along with designs for Utgard-Loki and Toranos, and I’ve been thinking about that within the context of a new volume of Thor and excitement over the visual element of the book.

As much as I’m a writer-focused critic and struggle with the visual side of things far too often, the artist on a book can be more appealing than the writer. When the Jurgens/Romita Thor comic was announced, I was far more excited about Romita’s art than Jurgens’s writing. I was fond of Jurgens, going back to his time writing and drawing Superman (I made an effort to get as many of those issues during “The Reign of the Supermen” period), but John Romita, Jr.’s Thor was epic. There was a cover of Wizard magazine that he did that I had a poster of on my wall and even used as the basis for this math assignment where you needed to take a drawing, trace it onto a grid, and plot its coordinates so, theoretically, someone could use your list of coordinates to draw it themselves. I was obsessed with the idea of Romita drawing this title, going back to his work on the Amalgam comic Thorion of the New Asgods #1 where he drew the mashup between the Asgardians and the New Gods. He was so good at having one foot in the aesthetic world of Kirby, even if I didn’t fully get that then, and giving a Thor that look like he was partly made out of rock, a being older than we can imagine, but solid and powerful. At that point, Romita was a solid veteran, someone proven, pretty much entering the period where he kind of became the Marvel artist where his presence on a book let you know that it was important in some way.

And meaning no disrespect to Cóccolo... he isn’t that. I really enjoy his work on The Immortal Thor and wish he’d been able to stick around longer. As I said, I look at the work he and Wilson did on Toranos and it’s stunning. But, going into this book, there’s nothing like the ‘Romita hype’ of 1999. I’ve been thinking if there is an artist that can produce that sort of excitement on a book like Thor at this point. Maybe it’s me, a quarter century on, and unable to recapture that excitement. I don’t know... 

But, if you do go back and read the first year (or two!) of the Jurgens/Romita Thor run, the time without a Thor comic definitely helped hype the book up, but the inclusion of Romita as artist did so much heavy lifting. 

* 

Next week, I’ll be discussing The Immortal Thor #3 along with Journey into Mystery #116.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 01

I used to write about comicbooks online. I guess I still do as evidenced by you reading these words about comicbooks on a website. What I meant was: I used to write about comicbooks online where lots of people would see and, hopefully, read what I wrote. While it’s turned into more of a generic popculture site full of listicles and random dives into history and trivia care of my friend Brian Cronin, CBR (Comic Book Resources) was once the most well known and trafficked site in comics. And I wrote for it in a few ways. Firstly, I had free reign to do as I wish at a sub-blog called Comics Should be Good (thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Cronin) where my main two ongoing pieces of writing were something called the Reread Reviews where I reread stuff and wrote about it, and a weekly bit of nonsense called Random Thoughts! where I (as you can guess), wrote down my literal random thoughts any given week. After a year or so, I got on as a reviewer for the main site and spent the next few years writing four to seven reviews every week of new comics. Most folks stopped at the star ratings posted at the time, but, sometimes, they’d actually read what I wrote and, even rarer, they’d let me know what they thought about my review. This was mostly well intentioned feedback, to be honest. People genuinely wanting to engage with what I wrote to agree, disagree, or just tell me I’m dumb. The comment I’d sometimes get there and in other places that always bugged me was when someone would respond with “That’s just your opinion.”

Yes. And?

It was all my opinion. Virtually everything I’ve ever written about comicbooks online has been exclusively and entirely my opinion at that moment. Maybe with a few facts sprinkled in (like who wrote or drew the comic, or the literal plot), but all in service of my opinion. Because that’s what this is about: my opinion, my interpretation, my translation. You come here to get my version of the work, how it hit me, what I think of it, how I view it, my insights, my thoughts... my opinion. As I’ve prepared for this series of writings, where I’ll be looking at The Immortal Thor issue by issue every Thursday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of translation and interpretation. The Immortal Thor is a comicbook very much concerned with that idea. About point of view and meaning and who tells the story and why.

Let the show begin.

The Immortal Thor #1 opens, as all issues of the series do, with an epigraph. Most of them are attributed to coming from some part of The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson or, as my copy is titled, The Poetic Edda (Oxford World’s Classics edition translated by Carolyne Larrington). This is in contrast/complement to The Young Eddas by Snorri Sturluson or, as my copy is titled, The Prose Edda (Penguin Classics edition translated by Jesse Byock). These two volumes make up the source for a large amount of the Norse mythology by which we get Thor, Loki, Odin, and Asgard. The Marvel Comics version is inspired by these stories, sometimes quite literally and mostly only through the use of broad ideas. It’s an interpretation, a translation...

The epigraph to The Immortal Thor #1 comes from The Elder Eddas:

He is sated with the last breath of dying men.

The god’s seat he with red gore defiles.

Swart is the sunshine then for summers after.

All weather turns to storm.

Understand ye yet, or what?

The text here is meant to relate to the coming of Toranos, the elder storm god from Utgard; the Utgard-Thor, as it were. He kills, he brings destruction to New York, which is on Earth, one of Thor’s homes. He blots out the sun, he brings the storm, and Thor sees that there are larger gods. That’s how it seems to relate to this issue. Pretty easy to see (Al Ewing starts us off with kid gloves) and understand. But, this is, of course, not what this text actually means. It may surprise you to learn, but The Elder Eddas do not tell the story of the Utgard gods coming to destroy the Aesir and the Earth. It may surprise you to learn that there are no ‘Utgard gods’ in so many words. It may surprise you to learn that my copy of The Poetic Edda has a slightly different text:

It gluts itself on doomed men’s lives,

reddens the gods’ dwellings with crimson blood;

sunshine becomes black all the next summers,

weather all vicious––do you want to know more: and what?

Same basic idea, yet different. ‘Gluts’ is not ‘sated;’ ‘doomed’ is not ‘dying;’ ‘reddens’ is not ‘defiled;’ ‘crimson blood’ is not ‘gore;’ ‘black’ is not ‘swart;’ ‘vicious’ is not ‘storm;’ ‘do you want to know more; and what?’ is not ‘understand ye yet, or what?’ It’s all translation, interpretation, read and thought upon, and put to paper with a specific intention and audience. Is one better? More accurate? Do you know which?

It’s from the first text in The Poetic Edda, titled “The Seeress’s Prophecy” in my edition and is the words of a seeress telling Odin the history of the world before the gods and, then, into the future of Ragnarok and beyond. It’s a quick summation of the broad strokes of the entire story of the Aesir and the world. Other stories in The Poetic Edda fill in details and the same into The Prose Edda. You can ignore most of the differences as, while they have different meanings (synonyms are, of course, no synonymous), the general idea is the same throughout the passage. What caught my attention was the difference in the final line, as Ewing repeats it at various times during the run of The Immortal Thor and, in fact, before the run, uses a variation.

The story of The Immortal Thor actually begins in Thor annual #1 from the previous volume of the comicbook with a five-page prologue done with the full team of Al Ewing, Martín Cóccolo, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Sabino that begins with the line that’s also the title of the story: “Would you know more?” That’s very close to the final line of the translation of the epigraph from The Poetic Edda “do you want to know more: and what?” and a bit of a jump from Ewing’s Elder Eddas line “Understand ye yet, or what?” Put them next to one another and it’s easy to see the difference...

“Would you know more?” is a question posed somewhat gently. It’s an invitation almost, teasing you into stepping deeper to gain knowledge. It places the emphasis on the action and the taking of said action to learn more, even if it’s turning a page – or buying the first issue of a new series.

“Understand ye yet, or what?” is a question posed somewhat condescendingly. There’s a sneer behind it. Maybe a playful one. Maybe not. It’s a challenge for you to grasp the meaning of what you’ve already learned. It’s inward-looking, contemplative. It suggests a riddle to be solved.

“Do you want to know more: and what?” is a question posed somewhat directly. It fits with what we know of “The Seeress’s Prophecy” where the seeress is telling Odin of what she sees with his questions directing her focus. It’s not just about gaining more knowledge, it’s about specific knowledge. Ask and you shall receive.

The second is where Ewing chooses to rest his rhetoric, even if he uses the first to first entice us all. I don’t know what edition(s) of the Edda he’s drawing upon. I don’t know if he knew the third version was available, the one that walks the middle ground between the two. You may want to get yourself a copy of “The Seeress’s Prophecy” as it is the broader structure of these 25 issues. Thor learning about and dealing with what came before the beginning of the Aesir and the world as he knows it... forever moving closer and closer to his personal Ragnarok... and, then, the world after Ragnarok...

“The stories have their patterns. The Gods have their Ragnarok. Even Thor has a Black Winter hanging over him.”

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I would direct you at this time to my first piece on this issue, made available on this very blog.

*

As I didn’t discuss what’s up with Loki two years ago, let’s begin there. I’m not always a good or careful reader. I miss a lot. It’s one of the reasons why I write – to figure things out. It’s, as I said, a form of translation. Often, when I’m writing about something, I’m thinking it through in real time, figuring it out, letting all of this information that sits in the back of my head, just below the surface, to come out in a, hopefully, organised manner. Which is to say, I’m not convinced that I knew Loki is the narrator right away. Embarrassing, eh?

What puts the three quotes I discussed into a slightly different light. Loki would phrase that line in a manner that is teasing and somewhat condescending. It’s a game, a trick. A story with a purpose. As we’ll see in future issues, Loki the Skald is also not above altering the story to suit their needs, some of which seems to be laid out in this issue. Much of what proceeds from this issue is Loki pushing and prodding Thor in various directions, seemingly for his own good, even if in the moment it does not appear that way. Rereading this issue in light of the entire 25-issue series and knowing where things go, particularly with the Bifrost, the scene where Loki remakes the Rainbow Bridge seemed of heightened importance. One bit of Loki’s narration caught my eye:

“What if were free? / All of us. Gods and mortals. Me and you. / What couldn’t we do, on the day all our cages open? What would that look like? Tell me, if you can. / What does the bridge to anywhere look like?”

Once upon a time, Loki sought freedom. Freedom from himself, from his past, from the story that hung around him like an albatross. And he did the most diabolical things to break free from that story, moving past the God of Lies, becoming the God of Stories, free to write their future as they see fit. They first show up in this issue by breaking free from the previously defined role of ruler of Jotunheim, declaring themselves as the official Skald of Asgard, and offering to repair the Bifrost that Thor broke while Hulked out during the previous volume of the title. A new story to tell... And this comes after Thor seemingly changes his story in the annual short by returning to his former garb and restoring Mjolnir to its previous state. These are normal events in superhero comicbooks when a new creative team relaunches a title, so they don’t seem out of place and, yet...

In retrospect, it’s apparent that Loki not only sets the story into motion, they explain a possible motive. Having obtained their freedom, do they now see the bars that cage everyone else? Do they look upon the trapped with pity and seek to free them all? Thor broke the cycle of Ragnarok once, but, lurking out there are older gods whose own cycles still cage the Ten Realms. So, why not turn the wheel a little and push Thor in the direction of breaking another cycle?

At the end of the issue, Utgard-Loki mentions the various characters that use the Utgard-gods as talismans and act as ‘understudies’ to these ancient beings, positing them as greater, more powerful, more true versions of the ideas that came after them. But, let me ask you: in our current world, what versions of Thor and Loki hold the most sway? Not the versions that appear in the Eddas, not even the versions that appear in the comics. No, that honour belongs to the versions portrayed by Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston on screen. What came first is not necessarily what matters most, not with stories. You can see the influences the works of Kirby and Simonson had on Thor: Ragnarok if you know what you’re looking for, but there’s no doubt that the majority of people just saw the movie and nothing more.

Utgard-Loki thinks being first means being more powerful. This is a story about influence and translation and that what comes later can be a more potent story. And that’s what matters most here: the story. The irony is twofold in that Utgard-Loki cannot see that they are a part of the story and bound by its rules... For, as much as Loki wishes to free everyone, they first cage them in the story. Bound by words and pictures, panels and word balloons... In becoming the narrator, the Skald, Loki becomes the new jailer. It is them who rebuilds the bridge to Utgard, them who turns the wheel...

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Ever week, I’ll discuss the next issue of The Immortal Thor along with another work of some kind (which was the short story in Thor annual #1 here), maybe also dive into the epigraphs a bit. We’ve got 25 weeks of this ahead of us. Next week, in addition to The Immortal Thor #2, I’ll be discussing, in some manner, Thor (1998) #1-12. That’s the first year of the Dan Jurgens/John Romita, Jr. run.