I Know Thorion of the New Asgods and You, Sir, Are No Thorion of the New Asgods

Thorion of the New Asgods #1 was part of the second wave of Amalgam titles, the joint venture between Marvel and DC, where the worlds of the two companies were merged into a single universe. The characters at the forefront were Dark Claw (Batman meets Wolverine), Spider-Boy (Spider-Man meets Superboy), and Super Soldier (Superman meets Captain America) and the titles were full of Easter eggs for the hardcore fans, cramming in as many references as possible. Two lines of 12 comics (six from each publisher) came out over successive years and the quality, honestly, was a bit hit or miss. They were all ‘fun’ for their own reasons and remain somewhat stunning that they exist at all. It wasn’t until the second wave that the specifically Kirby side of things was addressed in Thorion of the New Asgods by Keith Giffen and John Romita, Jr. in what remains one of my favourite single issues. Not so much a cohesive story or even an Easter egg-filled book, it’s practically sparse of all of the characters it could have crammed in. Instead, it seemed to capture the spirit of Kirby’s Thor and Fourth World works, eventually culminating in an ending that brought forth the Celestials of his Eternals. As far as corporate-owned homages go, it the gold standard – and the book that seemed to ensure that, when Thor was relaunched post-Heroes Reborn, that Romita would be the man drawing it.

While it remains large in my mind and is a work that I keep returning to. (I briefly considered structuring my Three Chariots project after it until that seemed too limiting.) This past week, I was thinking about it in relation to two other recent comics and the way that they sought to pay homage to Kirby by combining Thor and the Fourth World, and how each fell short in their own way.

“The Wondrous and the Worthy” from Marvel/DC: Spider-Man/Superman #1 by Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Caramagna

Of the two works I’m discussing, this is the one that gets closest to Thorion in that it directly uses Marvel and DC characters. This story was one of the selling points for me of Marvel’s half of the Spider-Man/Superman crossover comics, reteaming the main creative team of the Jane Foster Thor for a story where that version of Thor meets Wonder Woman. Except, it’s not exactly that version of the character. This five-page story follows suit from most of the stories in the anthology by depicting a joint world of Marvel and DC where that’s how it’s always been. Also like most of the stories in the anthology, the main point of this story seems to be to talk about how great these characters are (how legendary, how meaningful, how inspirational, etc.) rather than simply telling a good, entertaining story. That’s all this story is. It feels like the middle five pages of a longer story.

Which isn’t inherently bad. Part of the charm of the Amalgam comics was the way that they made an effort to, despite being the supposed first issues of series, to fit into a larger continuity, often predicting the modern habit of relaunching a title under a new first issue when a new creative team comes aboard. Entering en media res isn’t a problem if the substance is there. And it’s not, in this case. To break down the story’s five pages:

1. Red skies above the Daily Planet as narration sets up the idea that Darkseid has conquered Asgard and now has his sights set on Midgard. What looks like Parademons attack Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and J. Jonah Jameson until lightning strikes and Thor (Jane Foster) begins to fight them. They’re actually Paravenoms, suggesting Symbiote-possessed Parademons.
2. Overwhelmed, a golden thread wraps around Thor’s wrist and yanks her free. As she’s pulled, she tosses Mjolnir, which is deflected by bracelets. It’s revealed that Thor was rescued by Wonder Woman.
3. The two discuss Thor’s real identity as they fight Paravenoms and Thor reveals her self-doubts, asking Wonder Woman to take Mjolnir.
4. Jane tells Diana why she is far more worthy. Wonder Woman responds in kind, revealing that the Lasso of Truth allowed her to see Jane’s true form, dying of cancer and that she is the best choice to wield Mjolnir. A silhouette boot proclaims “LIES!”
5. It’s Darkseid, wielding All-Black. And, then, there’s a big pin-up style image of various Marvel and DC heroes as the narration discusses their eventual win over Darkseid’s forces.

Now, the story being that Jane as Thor lacks self-confidence in this world and is reassured by Wonder Woman is valid. It’s not substantive, it’s pure fluff that seeks to ‘celebrate’ through explicitly holding our hands and going “Hey, kids, look at how great these characters are! Aren’t they something?!?” rather than having them be great. I think what frustrates me so much about this story is not just how fluffy it is and devotes most of its space to discussing how inspirational and ‘worthy’ Jane is (in contrast to the moments where Jane does the same for Diana), it’s how unnecessary a story like this. The comics that Aaron and Dauterman did together starring Jane as Thor did this already – and far more effectively. While I’m rarely one to preach that old CIA gem of “Show, don’t tell,” I also don’t think a story whose entire point is to tell us how great a character is is worth reading, particularly when these same creators already told that story.

The one upside should be Dauterman and Wilson’s art given that even a fluffy story can still look great. If anything, this feels like an excuse for Dauterman to get to draw Thor and Wonder Woman. There’s energy and dynamism in his layouts that recalls his time on Thor. Something about Dauterman’s linework, particularly for faces, has lost me. I’ve noticed it in the covers he’s done for Marvel and the odd interior page I’ve seen over the past few years, where, somehow, his line work has simplified and part of what I loved about it has disappeared. But, that’s just my preference. What bothers me more is that the Paravenoms don’t offer much in the way of visual stimuli for Dauterman to craft a good action sequence. While the page where Diana rescues Thor is laid out wonderfully and has some inventive action, the rest of the story is fairly cramped and uninspired. It’s a lot of posing and reaction shots.

The use of Darkseid as the primary villain makes sense, given that combining Thor with something from DC will invariably lead to the Fourth World. But, again, not much is done with it. Parademons and symbiotes is more something that comes across in the name than anything practical in the story, while Darkseid showing up with All-Black coming out of his hand is, at best, a cool tease, and, at worst, Darkseid with a sword coming out of his hand... whoop-dee-whoop, ya dig? There’s little engagement with the New Gods beyond that – nor with Asgard. Like I’ve been saying, it’s light. It’s fluff. Another disappointment mostly brought upon myself, I suppose.

 

The Ultimates #23 by Deniz Camp, Stipan Morian, and Travis Lanham

In another disappointment, for different reasons, is The Ultimates #23, the second issue of the title devoted to Thor’s attempt to overthrow Loki’s Asgard. Ostensibly a tie-in to Ultimate Endgame, also written by Camp, it’s not actually much of an issue. Like issue 11, it’sdone entirely in splashes/double-page spreads and the narration is poetry. For Camp, that mostly means alliteration abused absent abandon. The true purpose of this issue is to let Stipan Morian deliver 24 absolutely stunning pages. Morian drawing a version of Ragnarok is worth anyone’s time. The words are practically superfluous and I think there’s a decent chance that even Camp would agree with that sentiment.

The words and the story they tell is nothing new. From the perspective of someone who has been reading all of the Ultimate titles, it’s downright baffling by how little it matters in the larger scheme of things. But, that’s for another time. In general, it’s a fairly straight forward variation on the traditional Ragnarok story. Back in The Ultimates #11, Thor made some deals to bring this about and here it is. No surprises, no bombshells, nothing specifically noteworthy. If you’ve never encountered this story before, then I imagine it will land a lot better. It’s a story that’s been told or foretold far too many times in Thor comics over the decades, so it all feels a bit repetitive. The cycle is a big deal and the idea that this will break that cycle is meant to hit hard, yet even that’s been done before. All this issue really has going for it is Morian’s art.

You can see various elements in the art. A bit of Bisley and Vess and Kordrey and Mignola and, yes, Kirby. That final name is the one that hangs over the issue heaviest, because it’s the one that’s invoked in all but. From the heavy use of Kirby creations like Mangog and the Destroyer to the page where Thor meant to suggest Ego the Living Planet to the final page that basically calls out the first page of New Gods #1 with the line “...and there was a time when old gods died.” laid over Morian’s version of that first page. It’s a complete recreation of that page with a detail or two changed, mostly due to Morian’s difference in style to Kirby’s. The entire issue’s Ragnarok leads into that first page, which Kirby had clearly written and drawn to evoke his work at Marvel on Thor, laying plain that this was the next step beyond that work – something he’d tried to accomplish at Marvel, but they were too tied to the existing characters to want to move on.

What I’ve been struggling with is why bother turn this issue into a direct lead-in to that page. It’s a nifty callback, a fun visual homage for those that will get it... When considering it, I’m struggling to find a good reason for it. In the preceding pages, there seems to be a critique of the endless nature of these stories, which does fit with its position as the second-last issue of a series whose ending coincides with the conclusion of the Ultimate world/line in its current iteration. Given that these are variation characters whose existence bears no influence on the ongoing stories of the ‘original’ versions, there’s something hollow about the sentiment and the ending. After all, this is not the first Ultimate Universe. Perhaps, that reborn cyclical nature is what Camp is getting at, that the Maker has turned his world into something akin to the Aesir, existing in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth...

It still doesn’t track for the Kirby homage. That was something new and different. It may have tackled some similar ideas – so did Eternals – yet each step forward was a step forward, not a repetition. At worse, they were ruminations on ideas that haunted Kirby akin to a novelist with recurring themes. At best, they were still works from the same mind. New, yes; not disconnected or unrelated. That’s where the message is muddled. This is the death of this Asgard and these gods and there’s a hope for something new springing from it... Only it’s the old.

Maybe it’s that cynical, this issue. Rather than hopeful, it points to the next logical step after this ends, which is just rebooting another Kirby concept. There was a time when that sort of message suited me. I’ve come to grips, largely, with where I’m at and all I see is someone railing against a system that they’re very much a part of. I mean, it’s still comics about Spider-Man and Captain America and Doom and Iron Man and Thor... Oh, the Thomasian in me wants to point out that this bridges the gap between the two in-continuity versions of Asgard and the Fourth World. This is the Third World, following the ongoing Second-That-Will-Not-Die and preceding the Fourth that began decades ago... What a crock.

The story of Ragnarok was always one with the rebirth after. The new out of the old. The seasons, the wheel, all of that shit. You look at it from a certain perspective and you can see these comics as the launching pad for new, interesting work from those involved reaching an even larger audience. That also rings somewhat cynical and laughable, though. I first encountered Camp and Morian in their creator-owned 20th Century Men, an audacious and stunning work of New. The new already exists and this is spinning your wheels. At least when guys like Ennis ‘slum it,’ there seems to be something worth saying. This is aimless lashing out coupled with taking the knee at the same time. Maybe I don’t understand. Maybe I’m missing something crucial, one key detail...

Damn good looking art. At least there’s that.

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin’: The First Roy Thomas Thor Run and the Original Mortal Thor

When it comes to a work like The (Im)Mortal Thor, it’s easy to ascribe too much to influence, to previous works that Al Ewing draws upon. He’s not exactly shy about pointing to where he’s taking an idea here and there. From the epigrams pointing to The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda along with various other works to flashbacks that take elements from previous comics, there’s a real wearing it on the sleeve to the run. Probably the most audacious reference is to Thor #272, a comic that’s retold over the course of two issues that actually bear very little resemblance to the original comic by Roy Thomas and John Buscema. Aside from the plot and a few of the visuals, The Immortal Thor #5-6 owes as much to Thor #272 as it does to the story from The Prose Edda that the comic was based upon. A superficial look suggests a simple modern retelling/decompression of a classic comic; a side-by-side comparison shows only a superficial commonality with no direct reproductions of the art or the words. That’s what I mean by it’s easy to ascribe too much to influence. But, it’s also easy to ascribe too little. For by pointing to that specific comic, Ewing seems to both acknowledge a prior work that bears weight on his current writing and to distract from the ensuing comics that hold even greater sway. “Everyone hyper-focus on this one comic by Roy Thomas and ignore the other two dozen that actually give much more of the game away!”

Before I dive in, I have to acknowledge that you can pretty much dismiss everything I’m about to discuss if you’re so inclined. There are numerous superficial similarities that can be written off as “You’re talking about Thor comics! Of course they’re more similar than not!” But, I’m not sitting here trying to argue that Al Ewing ripped these comics off or purposefully patterned his work after them. More, I think it points to a similar sensibility and leaning between Ewing and Roy Thomas. To limit Ewing’s Thor work down to these as the blueprint ignores the numerous other sources that went into the comics, not least of all his own imagination and skill. At the same time, when rereading the first Roy Thomas run, it was hard not to see broad ideas repeated by Ewing, even if it was a small detail here and there.

What drew my attention to revisiting these comics (Thor #272-278, 283-301, and annual #7) was doing some preliminary research into my eventual look at The Mortal Thor ala my recently concluded examination of The Immortal Thor. Specifically, I recently read The Saga of the Volsungs (Penguin Classics translation by Jesse L. Byock, who keen readers will remember as the translator of the edition of The Prose Edda that I have) in an effort to gain insight into Sigurd, the namesake of the current not-Thor protagonist of The Mortal Thor. One of the most notable adaptations of The Saga of the Volsungs is Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung and I remembered that the latter part of Roy Thomas’s original run on Thor adapted that particular opera cycle. Oddly, rather than adapt the original source material directly, the comics specifically point to Wagner’s cycle as the specific work that Thomas adapts. Even issues written by Ralph Macchio and Mark Gruenwald contain a credit like issue 299’s “Based on the opera ‘GOTTERDAMMERUNG’ by Richard Wagner as adapted by Roy Thomas.” That Thomas looked to Wagner is most likely a sign of appreciating the composer’s work along with the accessibility of it compared to translations of The Saga of the Volsungs (or The Poetic Edda, which contains numerous poems that combine to tell a version of the same story). But, what’s notable is that Thomas looked to a Germanic adaptation of a Scandinavian story in a comic about a Norse god – many elements differ significantly from the original story. In his introduction to his translation, Byock gives a brief summary:

Not only was Wagner directly inspired by his own reading of The Saga of the Volsungs in H. von der Hagen’s 1815 German translation, but the composer was influenced by the treatment of the saga in Wilhelm Grimm’s Deutscher Heldensage. Wagner appears to have been especially struck by Grimm’s interpretation of the sibling marriage in the Norse material, and reading Grimm helped Wagner to form his view of the central importance of The Saga of the Volsungs and Eddic poetry. In adapting the Norse material to his own uses, as elsewhere in writing his librettos, Wagner took many liberties with his medieval sources, abridging, changing, condensing, and combining them freely and imaginatively.

Drawing upon The Saga, German folklore, and the Eddas among his sources, Wagner’s work is unique, blending many influences and not retelling a single specific story in a new medium. Sounds familiar. It also means that, when Roy Thomas and company adapted Wagner’s work, there were odd differences from the original stories in The Saga of the Volsungs and The Poetic Edda, most notably the difference in one of the main character’s names, as Sigurd was recast as Siegfried. And, here, for reasons never truly explained, Thor was cast in the role of Siegfried at one point – he wouldn’t be Sigurd until Walt Simonson had him invent a human identity to continue living in New York after the enchantment that allowed him to become the mortal Donald Blake was given by Odin to Beta Ray Bill.

Thor, at one point, being Siegfried (Sigurd) is the idea that enables the adaptation of Wager’s librettos across Thor #293-300 (although, the direct adaptation happens in fits and starts). Wanting to know what Odin means when he says he won’t kill Thor again, Thor tracks down the eye that Odin sacrificed for wisdom, depicted as literally a giant eyeball that talks, and coerces it to tell the story that Odin alluded to (and would not tell Thor). The details don’t particularly matter as it’s an odd adaptation that bears little importance to Thor or to the Ewing run. How or why Thor is cast as Siegfried at one point is also unclear. Not that Odin could have sired a demi-god on Earth or been involved in the lineage of Siegfried – but why this is treated as literally a previous incarnation of Thor specifically. It seems to be an idea of convenience to allow this story to be adapted/told in the first place. If Thor isn’t put in the role of Siegfried, then why would it appear in the pages of Thor?

This is the first appearance of a ‘mortal Thor.’ It’s actually advertised as such in the next issue teaser of issue 295, while issue 297 has a caption box on the first page proclaiming “CONTINUING THE STORY OF THE MORTAL THOR!” While Ewing does not seem to be repeating the specifics of story of Sigurd in The Mortal Thor and most immediately connect the name Sigurd Jarlson with the human identity invented by Walt Simonson, that the second act of Ewing’s story so lines up with the second big story of Thomas’s run is a strange coincidence (if it is one).

Even stranger is the lead-in to the Eye of Odin showing the story of Siegfried is that it shows the previous Ragnarok and fallout where we see versions of the Aesir more Norse mythology accurate and following “The Seeress’s Prophesy” from The Poetic Edda where Ragnarok occurs, but some gods survive to begin anew. It somewhat fits into the conception of the Marvel Aesir undergoing various cycles of Ragnarok, but, in a more Thomasian move, it seems like an effort to begin the process of fitting Jack Kirby’s DC work into a continuum with his Marvel work. If you’ll recall from the first page of The New Gods, those gods came out of the destruction of the previous gods who looked suspiciously like the Asgardians from his work on Thor. If that is th Fourth World, then Thor and company are the Third, suggesting two previous versions. Here, Thomas gives one. It only seems like a possibility since this run on Thor was also largely built around bringing Kirby’s Eternals characters into Marvel continuity, less than a year after that title was cancelled by (you guessed it) Roy Thomas.

He begins the process in Thor annual #7 (drawn by Walt Simonson!) giving a forgotten (by Thor) story of Thor encountering some Eternals around a thousand years prior, folding them deep into Marvel history and, in the then-present day, continues Kirby’s story about the threat of Arishem’s judgment in 50 years. In the process, Thor learns that Odin is stymieing his efforts to stop the Celestials and aid the Eternals in trying to save the world. He even learns of Odin kneeling before a previous Host of the Celestials. Eventually, this is how the story of Siegfried is, somewhat, tied into the larger story as we see how Odin made a deal with the Celestials to not interfere in exchange for the Celestials to not cut off the gods’ (as Odin has assembled the council of all of the various human pantheons) connections to Earth. Now that the Fourth Host has Arishem standing in judgment of the Earth, Thor is cast into conflict with Odin over how to save the world.

This plot is echoed in the threat of the Utgard gods threatening to destroy the Earth and Thor’s learning that Gaea is the impetus/ally of those gods. What makes this such a fitting repetition is that the Celestial threat is actually resolved in Thor #300 by Gaea giving a dozen Young Gods to the Celestials for study in exchange to avert Arishem’s judgment. I’m actually surprised that her intervention to save humanity isn’t referenced by Thor as it’s such a reversal. Here, she actively stops one set of powerful god-like beings from destroying life on Earth (at least sentient life); in Ewing’s run, she lets loose a different group of Elder Gods to do that very thing. The lack of a reference is almost suspicious given the way that Ewing, like Thomas, loves to show his work.

It’s the overall attitude/approach of Thomas’s run on Thor that brings to mind Ewing’s – the way that disparate threads of continuity are merged with mythological stories and current plots to try to create a cohesive whole, all while making it very clear where the different ideas are all coming from. It’s an effort to, like Wagner, make one cohesive work out of a ton of different elements. It may be a big coincidence that different elements of this run line up with Ewing’s current story, but, given that Ewing directly referenced the first issue in the on-again/off-again Thomas run on Thor, it seems unlikely that he didn’t keep reading any further. What’s unclear is where the Ewing run is going as the similarities/references are fairly high level conceptual. Referencing a mortal Thor patterned in some way after Sigurd/Siegfried, the threat of ancient gods that seem above/more powerful than the Aesir, the role of Gaea in saving/destroying humanity... If any of this is purposeful, it’s more a winking reference than a straight rip-off or even homage.

Moreover, with Thomas’s departure from the title around issue 297 with Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio completing the story that Thomas started and the Doug Moench run following soon after, there is no third big story to reference for a hint of what comes after The Mortal Tor, even though it’s only real tie is the reuse of the idea of a mortal Thor referencing Sigurd/Siegfried. Maybe we’ll see deeper connections moving forward, which is why there have been few specific references or allusions from a writer that generally isn’t shy about making them.