The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 12

Originally introduced in Thor #355 by Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema, Tiwaz was a familiar-yet-mysterious stranger who saved Thor’s life after he seemed to perish in an avalanche at the end of the previous issue. Living in a home of ice in the seemingly barren area far north of Asgard, he and his ice creations nursed Thor back to health – both physically and emotionally following the death of Odin in the fight against Surtur at the end of issue 353. Over the course of several days, Tiwaz gave Thor various bits of advice and, before supper each day, made Thor wrestle him to earn his food. Before Thor leaves, he finally bests Tiwaz (a task only two before had accomplished) and, after, Thor has left, the punchline is when the giant of a god talking to his eagle says that Thor is his great-grandson, making him Buri, the originator of the Asgardian lineage.

In The Immortal Thor, that makes him the Utgard-Odin in another retcon. While I find Al Ewing’s interpretation of Tiwaz a little less charming, a little more obvious and open, he retains a bit of playfulness in the spirit of the Simonson version, and he provides a helpful counterbalance to the other Elder Gods that we’ve encountered. Funny, charming, caring, and not trying to kill everyone are but a few of the defining characteristics of Tiwaz, a contrast to the main three Elder Gods we’ve encountered so far. You’d almost fear for a Gaea-like makeover for Tiwaz at this point. In the place of Tiwaz’s wrestling matches, his request for a battle of wits in exchange for Tyr’s rune (which is also that of Tiwaz) is never a serious impediment. He’s the kindly old (great-) grandfather who wants to pull a coin out from behind your ear or take you on a nature walk to share his wisdom. Beyond a retcon to work him into the pantheon of Elder Gods, his role is to narrow the conflict to a certain sect of those beings.

This is not a war between the new and the old necessarily, it’s one between the new and the old-that-think-themselves relevant. In Thor #355, Tiwaz told Thor that he was once a sky god that wearied of that role and had retired from being a god – was this, in part, how he defeat Atum? In Thor annual 10, the other side of Atum, the Demigorge, was not able to digest and absorb Thor into his being, because it was not his time. Atum defeated and slew numerous Elder Gods because it was their time. According to Tiwaz, he “WON WITH WILE AND WIT—AND WENT MY WAY,” suggesting that it’s possible that he won, in part, because he had no intention of remaining a god (and said with some impressive alliteration). Instead, he got frozen, was licked free by a cow, founded the Asgardian lineage and, at the right time, bowed out respectfully. Tiwaz is a lively old god that believes in and champions life, much like Gaea.

Or, alternatively, there’s a simpler explanation presented: he shares a rune with Tyr, the god of war and he sired a warrior’s lineage of gods. Tiwaz is presented as a summation, to an extent, of Asgard. The wandering and wisdom of Odin, the strength of Thor, the wit of Loki... the war of Tyr? While Tiwaz emphasises “wile and wit” as the keys to victory, in what aspect? It would be easy to assume that it’s the sort that we see in Loki, but it could easily be the “wile and wit” of war. He defeated Atum not through overwhelming power; he won through strategy and tactics. That doesn’t necessarily clash with my first explanation, if that was his strategy, after all. More to indicate that, underneath the (great-) grandfatherly image of Tiwaz, his rune is also that of a god of war. In his first meeting with Thor, he made him wrestle and, here, it’s a battle of wits. The epigraph of this issue points to the full description of Tiwaz and the children of Odin with the combination of serious, thoughtful, and joyful, “and in war daring,” hitting the nail on the head.

As for Tyr, my focus remains on why exactly Loki fed him to the In-Betweener and the Skinner box. There’s a clue, I believe, in the moment when Tyr’s rune is returned to him, causing the aspect of Oblivion inside to flee. (“If something’s there, nothing cannot remain.”) Bragi, narrating as the poet Skald, describes Tyr’s scream turning into a physical form: “The Serpent of the End made his escape.” A poetic manner to describe part of the physical manifestation of Oblivion, it’s the word ‘serpent’ that caught my eye, notably pointing towards the Midgard Serpent. In the story of Ragnarok, Thor dies in battle with the Midgard Serpent – the same being that corrupted and tied itself to Donald Blake. The connected imagery of Blake and the Serpent continues in The Mortal Thor, but it points to the Midgard Serpent being a servant of Oblivion (or aspect/representation), a creature of destruction.

To take it further and, once again, place it in the possible context of Loki’s larger scheme: the Serpent inhabiting Tyr freed his rune (soul) from his body, killing him, in a sense, but also distilling him to the pure essence of his idea. The immortal Tyr, if you will. But, that also left the danger of the physical remains inhabited by the Serpent. Thor already has this opposite number tied to his soul: Donald Blake, corrupted by the Serpent. As we see in The Immortal Thor #25, even after Thor dies, Blake continues to try to kill him. Blake/the Serpent is destruction incarnate and the question is how to free Thor from Thor without unleashing this dark form already tied to him? The experiment of Tyr in the box to learn “how a god must die,” seems like a failed attempt to thread this particular needle.

But, that’s my too literal logical attempt to fit everything into a neat little box. Next week, I’ll not doubt try to do the same with The Immortal Thor #13 and Giant-Size Thor #1.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 11

G.O.D.S. is a series by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, Marte Gracia, and Travis Lanheim that sought to work that ol’ Hickman magic on the magic/high level cosmic side of the Marvel Universe that he had just recently done for the X-Men, was in the midst of doing for the Ultimate Universe, and, is currently, doing for the low level cosmic side of the Marvel Universe in Imperial. It launched with a triple-sized ten dollar first issue and was done after eight issues – not the plan. It kinda hit the market poorly and fell somewhat flat on the rebound. Slow, featuring mostly new characters, and about an area that Marvel has always struggled to sell (as they soon reconfigure it again in the wake of their latest event), it never quite caught on. It didn’t have the juice of the X-Men or the Ultimate Universe, while was a little to constrained to hit like Hickman’s creator owned work... too square for the cool kids, too cool for the square kids, y’know?

Me, I always kinda dug it. It was different. Weird. Didn’t know where it was going. And, because I’m that sort, I enjoyed trying to see where it was just DC characters with the serial numbers filed off.

Before Hickman returned to Marvel to take over the X-Men line of the books, he had one foot in the door at DC, set to take over the Legion of Super-Heroes and who knows what else. Now, when you see that G.O.D.S. stars a roughish magician with great hair and a trenchcoat, it’s not too hard to see who Wyn is meant to be. Pay attention and you can see bits of the Fourth World and Dr. Fate and Eclipso amongst other elements of DC’s magic/high cosmic side. Trying to match everyone up in G.O.D.S. with their possible DC counterpart could be a fun game for another time. I mention this for two reasons: I enjoy pointing it out since I didn’t see nearly enough people (aka everyone who read it) do so and it could be part of the book’s flaw that led to its decisive commercial failure. (A failure I’m apt to point out that stems not just from sales, but from the creative team involved. This is an A-List (for Marvel) creative team and much like a book like Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., it’s not simply a matter of sales alone, but sales that don’t justify the page rates of the people making the comic. It’s important to remember details like that if you’re going to wade into the sales side of the industry... which I’m not.)

While I’m sure that Hickman took whatever germs of an idea for the never-happened DC book and changed them enough for Marvel, G.O.D.S. is, at its core, still rooted in those DC ideas of an organised magical system. You would think that with its roots in the grounded, real world sensibility that Marvel would lend itself to systems that explain the organisation of the Natural Order of Things and the Powers that Be and concepts of magic and gods, because organising these things into systems with the boxes and labels and neat charts make it all make sense in a clean, practical, material way. But that’s wrong. That’s what you do in DC with its roots in large mythological beings where you’d think that clear explanations would kill the magic, drag it down to Earth, and sully the whole appeal. That, too, is wrong.

In Marvel, these attempts at explanations and ordering fall flat, because these are things well beyond the world outside your window. Gods and magic are beyond us, so trying to bring them down to that level in that manner doesn’t work. Dr. Strange works because he’s just a dude. Brief glimpses/encounters with the likes of the High Tribunal work because it’s just a fleeting moment with this immense otherworldly power that remains aloof and mysterious whose actual existence is unknowable. You try to ground that too much and it loses that real world sense of wonder and terror. It becomes just another beaurocracy but in space or something. I think that Hickman understood this to an extent and tried to keep the focus of the book as much as he could on the human-level elements. But, even then, it often felt a little bit too much like Sandman and Hellblazer for it to work completely in this context. DC is just endless pantheons and no one loves a good chart outlining name, rank, and serial number like pantheons. Read the Eddas and, half the time, that’s all either of them are: lists of names and relationships. A universe of pantheons welcomes organisation and explanation. Trying to fit everything into a neat spreadsheet is not how the real world works and, as much as it is decidedly not the real world, Marvel’s heart is always that gentle lie.

Which brings me to Al Ewing, a writer who has dedicated a not insignificant portion of his time at Marvel to trying to force it all to make sense. Part of the reason why I’ve always struggled to get into Ewing’s work at Marvel is that my previous attempts all seemed to occur on books where part of the goal was to be this generation’s Roy Thomas or Mark Gruenwald, trying to deliver a unified theory of how it all works on a cosmic level. While I have no doubt that he truly loves the work of Jim Starlin, one of the things that Starlin is great at is not over-explaining a lot of the concepts that he just let loose at Marvel. He’s never given Thanos a detailed origin story or gotten into the workings of Eternity and Infinity. His stories were always filtered through Thanos and Adam Warlock with the larger mysteries remaining. Even stories that posited to suggest some tidy origin usually revealed themselves as a red herring with something larger lurking above. Or, to put it another way, Starlin didn’t do a proper Star Fox story until 40 years after he created the character.

Now, there are lots of people who love what Ewing has done at Marvel and I can see why. It sounds inventive and inspired, logical and neat and tidy, and, for the reasons outline above, that bores me. It doesn’t fit. In The Immortal Thor #11, Bragi gives a brief explanation of what seems to be the broad concept of G.O.D.S., but also the order of things as established by Ewing:

THE COSMIC CHANGED, FROM SEVEN INTO EIGHT--FROM ODD TO EVEN, POETRY TO PROSE. / THIS NEW REALITY, A SCIENTIST CHOSE--SO THERE’S A SYSTEM TO THE WEAVE OF FATE, A HIERARCHY BROKEN INTO TWOS. / THE MAGIC FIGHTS THE SCIENCE, TIME FIGHTS SPACE, OBLIVION’S AGAINST THE TRIPLE FACE OF JUDGMENT. (WHO WE HOPE CAN NEVER LOSE.)

Part of this actually comes from Hickman as Ewing alludes to the destruction of the old universe and creation of a new one in Secret Wars by Hickman and Esad Ribić (the scientist is Reed Richards). The series of destruction/rebirth attributed to the nature of the Marvel Universe, while accurate to existing continuity, being put into a system resembles the endless Crises of DC and the way that those have been numbered in the years preceding this issue. That that has become such a central tenet of DC is a hint right away that it doesn’t necessarily belong at Marvel.

An apparent contradiction that exists by bringing the lore of G.O.D.S. into The Immortal Thor is reconciling one set of higher beings with another set. Namely, who came first: the High Tribunal and company or the Elder Gods? You can fit this conflict into the duality described in the issue, one set of creator/elder gods against another to determine from whom all flows... But it seems like, in this book, Ewing runs up against a wall of fitting everything into a tidy explanation. It’s an odd series of contradictions that traditional mythology is all about trying to explain the unknowable, yet often leaves the relationships vague in the grand scheme. The Asgardians are gods and, yet, not. One of many pantheons that seems to shift and change depending on the run. Very rarely organised in any real fashion.

Until you get an issue like The Immortal Thor #11 that brings together a very specific portion of the pantheon: Gathering of Odin’s Daughters and Sons. It seems apropos that, as the series revisits the G.O.D.S. teaser at the end of the first issue where Tyr got into the box that it jumps its furthest into something that recalls, if only vaguely, a meeting of the Endless. Prose becomes poetry and it doesn’t feel quite right anymore, particularly when Ullr shows up. There’s a definitive tonal shift with a big bearded poet taking over narration. This issue (and the next) fight against the established way this series functions as Loki’s narrative is hijacked by Bragi the former Skald of Asgard, the poet who immediately undercuts Loki. After all, Bragi is the one who raises the absence of Tyr to the group and sends them on their quest to find and, if necessary, rescue their lost brother.

A small thing about this issue: while it becomes about seeking out Tyr, we’re never actually told explicitly why Thor brought together the children of Odin. It flows into Bragi bringing up Tyr and Thor seemingly aware of Tyr’s absence and ready to seek him out, but it’s never stated outright that that’s what Thor gathered them to do (though is heavily implied, albeit at the same moment that Bragi enters the story and exerts control). In fact, Thor seems surprised by the arrival of Bragi and, then, downright shocked by Ullr, the god of doom. If, when he said that all of the children of Odin weren’t there yet and that he wanted to wait, and only three children were missing... well, why was Thor surprised at the arrival of two if the purpose was to find the third?

These two issues are as much about the conflict between Loki and Bragi as anything. The key phrase comes shortly after Bragi’s arrival and he begins to duel with Loki over the narration of the story – the telling of the story we’re reading and the characters experience: “Each story told is wover as a lie.../...all poetry is spun to speak a truth.” Bragi arrives along with Ullr, seeking to thwart some elements of Loki’s larger scheme. What happens? They seek out Tyr who was put in the box by Loki to learn something Loki wants to know – and save Tyr from that knowledge, while revealing Loki’s schemes for Thor. There’s only so much that can be done to aid their brother against the schemes of their sibling as it is a battle of narratives. Bragi narrates that Loki wished “...to learn the trick of how a God must die” and it’s a curious phrasing. Not ‘might’ or ‘could’ or anything less definitive than ‘must.’ The emphasis may be on ‘die,’ but it’s the ‘must’ that catches my eye. The version of Tyr that is in the Skinner Box is Tyr and not. As we see, the essence of Tyr is gone, replaced by oblivion – basically, Tyr dies a death of sorts and is free of himself (from himself?). Later, Thor dies at Loki’s hand and becomes free of himself as well. The idea of Tyr lives on, as we’ll see next issue, but is separate from the god; we see that Thor lives in on, but the idea of Thor is also separate. While Tyr is separated by Oblivion, Thor is separated by Eternity... nothing versus everything... another duality.

I don’t intend to always make these pieces about the grand schemes of Loki, it just sort of becomes that. I’m a bit of a one-track-minded fellow, a little too literal, meant more for prose than poetry, honestly. And, on that, I’ll end this here. Next week, we’ll continue with The Immortal Thor #12 and also pay Tiwaz a visit in Thor #355.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 10

In The Immortal Thor #24, Thor dies. This is confirmed in The Immortal Thor #25 when he most definitely passes on into a realm beyond the one of the living and finds a way back to Earth via Donald Blake, currently living life as Sigurd Jarlson in The Mortal Thor. So, Thor is, as far as we can tell, very much not immortal. Maybe, once, you could have considered him such when the cycles of Ragnarok occurred and every death led to a new version of life. But, Thor ended those cycles (we think) and that means that there is no cosmic resurrection coming. And, yet, he lives. So... how is Thor immortal and what does that have to do with The Immortal Thor #9-10 and Roxxon Presents Thor #1?

If you haven’t already sussed it out, it simply this: the idea of Thor is immortal.

When looking at the larger story of The Immortal Thor, which only truly becomes a little clearer in that final issue, it’s about Loki’s struggle to free everyone. Except, of course, to do so, they must be Thor’s enemy. It’s a largescale manipulation of Thor to slowly erode the very idea of Thor. First, when fighting Toranos, part of the idea is to define Thor and who Thor is. Thor defeats Toranos by giving him the idea of Thor, spreading it to the retroactively-imbedded ur-Thor, while also demonstrating how it is shared amongst many others. Then, when telling the tale of how Thor and Loki journeyed to Utgard once upon a time, Loki manipulates the story to alter the idea of who Thor is. Doubt is raised as Thor confronts a supposed younger/earlier version of himself, before he ‘learned’ humility, further emphasising the idea that who Thor is can change. Thor can be an African mutant; Thor can be an alien warrior; Thor can be an Elder God; Thor can be a selfish arrogant lout.

And, now, Thor can be a corporate shill.

Dario Agger and Amora the Enchantress, possibly under unseen manipulation/assistance from Loki, further call into question who Thor is by seeding the idea of a different version on Earth. While we, the reader, know who the real Thor is, would the average person in the Marvel Universe? As the issue progresses and Thor fights Thor, how would they know which is the real deal? One looks just like the new Roxxon reboot of the god, after all. While it seems like the point of this entire conflict is to frame Thor for murder, that’s only partly what’s happening. Thor battling Thor ends with the real Thor killing the fake Thor... but, if people think that’s the real Thor, then... Thor is dead.

When put into the larger context, it seems like there are two tracks of magic running parallel with Loki using Amora’s efforts to discredit Thor’s name and isolate him from Earth to their own ends, which relies on Amora’s spell, but has a longer view in mind. Thor no longer having a home on Earth because he killed Dario Agger and another Thor is good – people questioning the existence of a real Thor (or thinking him dead) is better. You can’t kill an idea like you can a living being, but you can discredit it, muddy it with competing ideas, and call its truth into question.

Part of Loki’s plan is when, in the form of Thor’s enemy, they trick Thor into crafting a weapon that contains his wisdom, Tormod the ax. During his battle with Roxxon’s Thor, the Odinson does not possess his ax. His mind is muddled by the belief that he’s a callow corporate shill, which causes him to not act as himself. Without his wisdom – the wisdom of restraint and humility – he lashes out in anger at the fake Thor and kills him. It’s not much different than Thor, in frustration, bringing his ax down on the forehead of the sleeping Skrymir in the lands of giants. The spell doesn’t only work because of Amora’s magic; it works because Thor believes his wisdom is (in at least part) held in his ax and that, somewhere inside, he’s capable of lashing out in that sort of anger. The seeds of this sort of muddled thought were planted earlier.

The 25 issues of The Immortal Thor break down the Odinson into pieces, picking out things that make him who he is and trying to separate them from the living being until he dies and, as we see in The Mortal Thor, the idea of him is vaguer, more abstract and distant. Here, he becomes something of a fictional being, infected by the storytelling of comics (with the playful thought bubbles) and faced with a twisted version of himself... that, as much as we and he would deny, is also Thor. It’s a hard idea to fully reconcile, but there is a basis in the history of the being that Amora uses to create this Roxxon Thor, the Keep, for it to lay claim to being, in part, Thor.

Introduced in the penultimate storyarc of Matt Fraction’s Thor run (The Mighty Thor #13-17), the Keep was created by Amora to be her perfect man. She accomplished this after Donald Blake (somehow separated from Thor when he died in Fear Itself) came to her, wanting to be made into a god in his own right. She feeds him a golden apple, casts a spell, chops off his head, and what spills out of his insides is the Keep. If Donald Blake and Thor are one being, at their core, and the Keep was created from Blake, then the Keep is, in part, Thor. By having Amora use the Keep to become the Roxxon Thor, Al Ewing is taking the initial idea of the Keep and Amora’s simmering feelings for Thor to their logical end. In the Fraction issues, the Keep is somewhat monstrous looking, like an Asgardian Swamp Thing to a certain extent – but wouldn’t her ideal man be her very own Thor?

Beyond that bit of playfulness with the idea of the Keep, its origins lying in Blake (Thor) means that, when Thor kills it, he is killing Thor. While Amora’s (Loki’s?) magic can do wonders, that root element of stemming from a version of Thor makes the Keep’s claim to the identity even more potent. That could be why, after Thor kills him, he doesn’t revert to the traditional appearance of the Keep. Instead, he remains in the form of this Thor that happens to have a short haircut that resembles that of Donald Blake. Just as Thor fought Toranos (and will later kill Toranos), Thor fights the Keep as Thor and kills the Keep as Thor... Thor is put into a position where he must kill different ideas of Thor, which only serves to undermine his own sense of self.

And that’s what Loki seems to want. I think.

Next week, I’ll discuss The Immortal Thor #11 and GODS #1-8.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 09

As playfully enjoyable as The Immortal Thor #9 is with its metafictional games and visuals that prey upon our willingness to view everything depicted in comicbooks as a factual representation of what’s going on... it’s all a bit obvious, isn’t it? Roxxon Presents Thor #1 is even more so. If you’ve read them, then you should have a fairly firm grasp on the point as it were. So, where does that leave us? To twiddle our thumbs, pretending that I wrote another 1200 or so words, eventually departing with a smile and a wink until next time...? While that would free up my evening and allow me to spend more time with my family instead of sitting in my basement office, pounding at this decade-and-a-half-old laptop, if all the same to you, I’d like to see if my rambling can lead somewhere, anywhere, unexpected.

The first question that keeps running around my head is not a polite one, but, I feel, must be asked and pondered: do you think Greg Land is in on the joke?

I don’t mean the larger joke of Roxxon Presents Thor #1 with its over-the-top corporate sponsorship bent. I’m sure he got that. But, does he get why he was chosen as the artist? Why Marvel would pay him his, I assume, fairly hefty page rate to draw a fake comic that’s sold at a lesser cover price than the series it ties into and, more than likely, sold less than that monthly series? Why, of all the available artists, he was amongst the most suited to draw this specific comic to deliver the proper effect? It feels a little mean to pull at this particular thread and, yet, I’m not the one who published the comic.

After all, when parody comics are produced, the chosen artist(s) usually affects a specific style apart from their own or deliver visuals so over the top that the intent is unmistakable. In Land’s case, while the content of the script requires some humorous visual elements, he mostly draws the issue as he would any other, with a glossy sheen unlike anyone else. His art looks like the slop that a company like Roxxon would put out because it’s the sort of slop that a company like Marvel puts out. For a time, Land was one of the publisher’s ‘hottest’ artists, lambasted by the critics, loved by the masses, no doubt, in part, due to his habit of referencing porn stars for his posing (I’m looking at one panel of Loki that’s got everything but the cock in his mouth). At times, Ewing leans into it (the two-page beach scene) and the effect is downright perfect. An artist’s entire visual style turned into a punchline.

Land’s contribution to this issue isn’t the substance, it’s the style. Any artist could draw this comic and it would contain the same characters in roughly the same poses. They could even imitate Land’s style and maybe deliver some truly hilarious takes on some inappropriate photo references. They wouldn’t be Greg Land and that authenticity is what takes the idea of this comic to another level. There’s a specific meaning to his name in the credits, an entire back catalogue of comics and ‘swipe files’ posts that get brought along as added meaning. It’s a crucial modernist element in this obviously postmodern comicbook. It’s like if DC had gotten Rob Liefeld to draw that Doom Force one-shot.

And I wonder if he knows and what that’s like.

*

Roxxon Presents Thor #1 is the second of the ‘essential’ comics that accompany The Immortal Thor and is probably the most required of reading. Even within that narrow band, it’s actually fairly skippable. Your mileage will vary on the jokes. When it first came out, I found it an entire comic that could have been a few select panels intermingled with a regular issue; when I reread it as part of the whole, it hit a bit better. Upon further review, there’s one panel in particular that jumps out as not quite fitting into the purpose of the comic despite seeming to on the surface.

On the final page, the third panel has the Minotaur arrive with a bag full of money, accompanied by Gaea (looking far more like her usual depicting than she did in The Immortal Thor #8) and she says to Thor, “--AND YOU MUST HAVE PATIENCE! IF CHANGE IS NECESSARY, IT MUST COME SLOWLY... LEST THE MORTAL WORLD BECOME TOO MUCH A PARADISE!” This bit of dialogue (and Gaea’s inclusion) plays off her role in unlocking the gates of Utgard, bringing Toranos to Earth to destroy humanity as punishment for its destruction of the world, and why would a comicbook created by the Enchantress include that? The point of this comic is to push Roxxon, self-parody Roxxon, and present a version of Thor that will influence how humanity views him, which will then impact who he is on Earth. Why is there a reference to Gaea’s efforts to protect the planet from humanity? How does Amora know about that? And, when the comic shifts to Thor reading it, muttering “THIS IS NOT WHO I AM,” where did we last hear him say something similar when being told a story about himself?

Let’s jump back five whole pages from that Gaea panel to a large panel that takes up the bottom third of a page where Loki, looking very much like how they looked for their first many years in Thor comics, laughs gleefully, “HEEE HEEE HEEE! YET MY PATHETIC DRONES HAVE BOUGHT ME PRECIOUS TIME--TO WEAVE MY MAGIC! / FACE THE ILLUSIONS OF LOKI, THOR--HE WHO HAS ALWAYS BEEN, AND WILL ALWAYS BE--THE GOD OF LIES!” If you’ll recall, this all exists within the narrative that Loki tells. They are the narrator of The Immortal Thor, the one who remade the black bridge that leads to Utgard, the one whose Skald magic retconned the Utgard gods into the story of the Elder Gods and their and Thor’s journey to Utgardhall. We’re meant to view this as nothing more than Loki-back-as-villain in a jokey fake comic wherein Amora uses the former god of lies because they are the most well-known Thor villain and, presumably, because she doesn’t like Loki. But, is this Loki signing their work?

After all, this comic is a crucial part of a spell that would pay off later, where Thor’s image on Earth no longer matches up with reality. No longer the same hero that people remember, he becomes this glossy corporate creature. A mascot, a logo, something that couldn’t possibly be real and walking around, making it so much easier to detach the reality of Thor and Asgard from Earth later, shifting them all back into the realm of myth and fiction. And it’s all done under the guise of Amora and Skurge using Dario Agger for their own purposes... “YET MY PATHETIC DRONES HAVE BOUGHT ME PRECIOUS TIME--TO WEAVE MY MAGIC!”

And so we continue to dance around the title of the series, The Immortal Thor. Thor dies. He’s died before, he will die – hell, Thor dies in the next issue! So, how is he immortal? It feels fairly obvious to me... but, we’ll leave that for next week, where I’ll discuss The Immortal Thor #10 and The Mighty Thor (2011) #13-17.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 08

It’s actually a little shocking how little Al Ewing changes to the story of Gaea, Atum, and the Elder Gods. The biggest change, by far, was the taking the idea of Utgard and applying it to the pre-existing mythology of the Marvel Universe. If you ignore adding certain gods and their connection to Thor via retcon, the largest change is one of tone, particularly when it comes to Gaea. Looking at the past appearances of the Earth Goddess, it’s genuinely shocking to get this lumbering figure with vines for hair, something more primal and monstrous, something cold and unforgiving. It’s not the mother that we expect – nor Thor. While there are some obvious influences like the Green from Swamp-Thing from Alan Moore on down, the one that I thought about was a little less obvious, yet appropriate for a Thor comic:

Odin in Thor #491.

Meant to completely upend the idea of a Thor comic, the four-part Worldengine by Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato, Jr. was quite a shock when its first issue came out. A dark, messy book, full of intricate lines, hand-written diary captions, and a Thor who spoke like a typical human due to some unforeseen illness that has left him sickly and weak. In a moment of desperation, he calls out to his father for help. At this point, Thor was exiled from Asgard and had made it very clear during the previous run under Roy Thomas that he had no interest in ever returning to his father’s court. Odin arrives before Thor, a giant vision in the sky, in full armour, sitting atop a skull throne, dark eyes, and, when he spoke, letterer Jonathan Babcock used a font meant to mimic runes. He spoke of how he could see all of creation, so why was he now looking at his greatest failure? Thor indicates that he needs help, because he’s dying, and Odin says with a grin: “GOOD.” He tells Thor that he’s been insolent, disrespectful, and he’s chosen Midgard over Asgard, so this is the consequence. “DIE WELL.”

It’s such a cold and brutal version of Odin, one that still hangs in the back of my head, forever colouring how I view the character. While Odin was often capricious and quick to rash judgments, this was that side of him taken to the Nth degree. It’s the sort of transformative depiction that Ewing and artist Ibraim Roberson give Gaea in The Immortal Thor #8. A logical transformation of the character taken to an extreme that, while shocking, makes sense, particularly within the context of the run.

Taking the prologue of Thor annual #10 that tells of the creation of the Elder Gods, their war, the birth of Atum, and his slaughter of those Elder Gods, eventually transforming into the Demogorge, Ewing doesn’t really change much. He adds new gods and places the emphasis in different specific places, but it’s less about taking that story by Alan Zelenetz, Mark Gruenwald, and Bob Hall, and turning it into something new as it is placing it within a new context. It’s an interesting approach to the retcon where the only major change is the scene involving Utgard-Loki giving Gaea the key to the gates (that Thor and Loki entered somehow...!). Otherwise, he simply takes the story of Gaea wanting to prioritise the continued existence of life and change that she asks the Demiurge for a son and that son, Atum, ends the destructive war of the Elder Gods.

But, taking that same urge to protect life and stop destruction, and apply it to Gaea opening the gates of Utgard to wipe humanity from the Earth before its destructive ways permanently make life impossible? Ah, now that’s about more than just rearranging old bits of continuity from mostly-forgotten annuals. While it would then lead into some more direct social commentary in the coming issues, this element of the threat of Utgard never quite takes hold. It becomes a minor explanation for how they are no longer locked in their realm, a reason to set Thor against Dario Agger once more and fall into the trap set by Amora (with Skurge in the wings). It’s only in The Mortal Thor that we’re possibly seeing a resurgence of this element of the story, of the redemption of humanity to become worthy of the Earth again...

While I draw a connection between Ellis and Deodato’s Odin and Ewing and Roberson’s Gaea, where Odin called Thor his greatest failure, Gaea, after demeaning him, eventually calls him her mercy. He is her gift to humanity to, possibly, save them. It’s not often that we get direct allusions to Christ with Thor, but this is a bit of a big one. This also sets the stage for The Mortal Thor where Thor literally becomes a human on Earth. At the time, this issue seemed like it was meant to simply set up the confrontation with Agger and provide a bit more backstory to the Elder Gods and Utgard, but, now, it looks more like the first big sign of things to come. A promise of a Thor no longer a god, a ‘mere mortal’ on Earth, armed only with his sense of justice and a hammer, trying to avert an apocalypse created by ‘men of vision.’ Will it be enough? It’s hard to tell if Gaea thinks so here or not...

“I think, at the end there, the old man cared. / But not quite enough.”

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The Immortal Thor #8 breaks with what came before by having an epigraph not from either of the Eddas. Over the course of the 25 issues (and, so far, two issues of The Mortal Thor), the main source of epigraphs are the Eddas with Ewing only going outside them seven times, beginning here. Looking instead to the poem “Earth” by William Cullen Bryant, it’s a fitting departure as, with its focus on Gaea and Marvel’s mythology, Ewing is straying from the Asgardian side of Thor. Very little of this issue is rooted in the stories and ideas of Norse mythology, instead focusing on that first war that so terrified Gaea that she was willing to choose slaughtering her fellow gods rather than have the possibility of life end; a choice she’s making again by using some of the surviving gods to wipe out a similar threat in humanity.

A mournful poem, “Earth” is a bit of break from Bryant’s more romantic leanings (despite his breakthrough poem, “Thanatopsis” also focusing on death) with its ruminations on the trampling over nature by humanity and the destruction done to itself in war and oppression. It’s a fitting work to draw from and allude to as a whole. That’s partly what epigraphs do and Ewing continually leans on. Rarely is the single portion of a work that he chooses to quote why he’s chosen it; it’s the piece that points to the whole. He couldn’t very well have Marvel reprint the whole of “Earth” and expect readers to work their way through the whole thing. But, by picking out a piece that can be applied fairly literally (Gaea voicing her complaints in two instances, and her godly sons answering the call) that also points to a longer work that provides a more complete thematic connection, Ewing is adding to the issue. It’s a bit of an unsubtle version of an allusion, I suppose. A modernist approach to adding depth and additional meanings to the work. How far you wish to take it is up to you. Do you just stick to the epigraph? The poem? The larger body of work by Bryant? His life? How much is Ewing meaning to direct you towards? When it comes to quoting the Eddas, the connection is a bit clearer and easier to interpret. But, maybe I’m talking myself into a hole akin to a grad class I once took on Eliot’s The Waste Land that involved reading the entire works that he referenced or stole a line from...

But, despite the coming dalliance in a bit of postmodern playfulness, The Immortal Thor is very much a modernist work of fiction. One that revels in its influences and bits of culture and history that it builds itself upon. The way that continuity hangs so heavy over mainstream superhero comicbooks lends itself to modernist works, ones that take from what came before and build upon it, smash it against one another, see what happens when you take a bit from here and there and make something new out of it. And Ewing isn’t shy about this. Much like Eliot, he throws a lot of what he takes from in your face, using the letters column like Eliot used the “Notes on The Waste Land” section at the end of the poem to point the way a little... You’re meant to dig a little deeper and gain a little more insight into the work. Doing so, you may pick up bits like the closing lines of “Earth” that strike me as quite fitting here:

O thou,

Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep,

Amongst the sources of thy glorious streams,

My native Land of Groves! a newer page

In the great record of the world is thine;

Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly hope,

And envy, watch the issue, while the lines,

By which thou shalt be judged, are written down.

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Next week, The Immortal Thor #9 and Roxxon Presents Thor #1.