What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 01 – What If...? Uncanny X-Men #1

“What if Cyclops has stayed with Madelyne Pryor?” by Gerry Duggan, Jan Bazaldua, Arthur Hesli, and Clayton Cowles

I don’t always dip back into the periodic return of What If...? as I find the modern versions often unsatisfying. When I was a child, I was always fond of the monthly series that was so random in its offering of what bit of Marvel history would be warped. Every issue featured a recap of how it went down courtesy of Uatu the Watcher and, then, how it’s all changed in the issue at question. Part of the charm was in how mundane it all was. How ephemeral and temporary due to the monthly cadence and self-contained nature. If an issue didn’t quite land, well, next month would be something entirely different. Each issue was like a mini-event unto itself. The modern iterations group together to be a mini-event of sorts. They tackle ideas so broad that there isn’t always a coherent point or story to be told.

That’s what I found with the first of the 2026 batch of What If...? issues, focused on exploring how things would have been different had Madelyne Pryor not died in Inferno and been redeemed in the process. Somewhat shockingly, this isn’t territory ever covered by What If...? with the only Inferno­-based stories asking what if the X-Men had lost or what if Wolverine had been lord of the vampires during the event. That this issue is also written by Gerry Duggan, one of the main recent X-Men writers during the Krakoa era suggested something that would probably tie into that era of the title, presumably when Nathan Summers would be coming of age – possibly to supplant the roles of the likes of Nate Grey or Hope Summers. While What If...? doesn’t need to follow such logic, it’s pretty typical to try to play off what actually happened when possible, giving ironic twists of known events. Duggan doesn’t opt for that.

Instead, the issue unfolds with random, haphazard choices. The timeline of events is shuffled randomly from the regular Marvel Universe for reasons unclear and nonsensical. The breaking point is the conclusion of Inferno where, here, Pryor is saved and Jean Grey, in her anger at Scott choosing his wife, takes revenge on Mr. Sinister, wiping his mind of the knowledge of cloning her and the existence of Nathan Summers. This means Nathan is no longer a pawn in the Sinister/Apocalypse conflict, and is never infected with the Techno-Organic Virus. Instead, Scott quits X-Factor to remain a devoted husband and father. It’s not until Nathan’s mutant abilities manifest that the Summers family becomes a little superhero team that participate/help stop such events as Atlantis Attacks and Acts of Vengeance, two events that were published at the same time as/immediately after Inferno, but, here, randomly take place a good decade later... after we also saw Wolverine and Emma Frost in their Morrison/Quitely New X-Men era costumes, which, somehow, preceded the Fantastic Four wearing their Claremont/Larroca era costumes. And, eventually, it all leads into Sinister regaining his memory and launching the Mutant Massacre on the Mansion... despite that story happening before Inferno. There’s a sense of all of Marvel history happening whenever desired despite there being no cause and effect or logic at play. It’s incredibly distracting – and breaks from the logic of What If...? where it’s the Marvel Universe that we know until the point of departure. Then, things unfold differently, but would still have the same broad sense of progression unless there were specific moments that would result in a change. Duggan just lobs out names of stories and events at random.

Also random is the way that Nathan Summers is handled. He gets his powers and wants to be a hero, which is fine. That makes sense. The Summers Family as a hero unit is an idea with legs that isn’t explored at all. For some reason, Nathan still has the codename Cable despite there being no reason for it other than that’s what his future self calls himself in the regular universe. Nathan is largely used only to be threatened in the new Mutant Massacre at the hands of the Marauders alongside other students and Madeline dies (which Cyclops is blinded) to inspire Cyclops to lean heavily into dark ops X-Force style actions to obtain revenge. And that’s largely a detour until the Krakoa era that ends with the conflict with Arakko going poorly for the Krakoa mutants and Earth at large. It’s a bit of a speedrun through X-Men history that doesn’t do anything interesting with how it’s different, aside from Cyclops eliminating Sinister means that Krakoa doesn’t have the Resurrection Protocols. That seems to be the big point of emphasis for Duggan: saving Madelyne means Sinister is eventually eradicated, which means Krakoa is weaker, which means Earth is weaker...

You can squint and see the logic, but it glosses over doing anything interesting with Nathan, a mutant of immense power. With no Hope Summers, would he have filled the mutant messiah role after M-Day (which isn’t here) or what about Utopia? Or any other of the endless X-events? In fact, part of the hole here is that Krakoa largely seems to exist as normal, except without a key element to its function, the Resurrection Protocols. The original sin of partnering with Sinister is lacking, as is the sense of power that would be at the heart of the nation. It’s glossed over how exactly Krakoa would develop almost identically when missing such a key element – in fact, the primary visual that begins the Krakoa period is the Resurrection Protocols. Moreover, there’s something unsettling that the core idea of this comic is that the bargain with Sinister was the morally correct thing to prevent the destruction of the Earth. The comic winds up being an argument for why it was the right thing to do... rather than one that actually tells an interesting story with the characters at hand.

None of which is necessarily a bad thing or makes for a bad issue of What If...? honestly. Big, broadly glossed over stories are as much a hallmark of the book as tightly plotted character pieces. This one, though, is so uneven with where it decides to focus, particularly in how it ignores the usual flow of events, that it doesn’t do either well.

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.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 25

I guess I said I’d say something about Defenders Beyond, didn’t I? The 2022 five-issue mini-series by Al Ewing and Javier Rodríguez is fairly well regarded by those that have read it. It’s a gorgeous book with Rodríguez’s art really bringing the playful energy of Ewing’s writing to life. His inventive layouts and strong line work are the book’s biggest strengths by far. I’m mentioning the book only because it’s a direct lead-in to The Immortal Thor. Honestly, it’s not a favourite of mine. It fits into that area of Ewing’s Marvel work that I’ve dipped into periodically and never been able to get into. I tried different issues of The Ultimates, for example, and, nah, not my thing. I think it’s the area where Ewing is at his most Roy Thomas and his most DC. Lots of explanations and trying to fit pieces together, particularly with regards to the cosmic element of Marvel and the various Cosmos. These elements all come up in The Immortal Thor and I’ve written in past instances of my ambivalence at them. But, that doesn’t mean that Defenders Beyond isn’t a somewhat important book if you’re looking for those Ewing-penned ‘essential’ books to go along with the series. In a big way, it bridges the gap between the also-written-by-Ewing Loki: Agent of Asgard and The Immortal Thor, particularly in the collection where the short that Ewing and Lee Garbett contributed to Thor #24/750 is included. Basically, it sets up the ‘Loki wants to free everyone’ plot and also shows how they have the Mask of Eternity.

The very Mask of Eternity that they’ve fashioned into an arrow and run Thor through with, which is part of Loki’s spell, their effort to free everyone. We’ve spent 24 issues so far watching Thor contend with the threat of the Elders Gods of Utgard, go through trials from Loki the Enemy, solving riddles based on the runes of his own name, rescuing his brother from the clutches of Oblivion, contending with the fact that his own mother is responsible for the overwhelming dangers he faces, having Earth taken away from him, regaining a son from a future that never happened, fighting his way through Utgard, and, then, holding the line at the edge of Utgard to protect Asgard and the other Realms... only to be stabbed in the back, literally. We’ll never know what the third trial and weapon representing a part of Thor would be, but we know that Loki forces the issue by taking away Thor’s physical self here in a shocking move.

The opening pages of The Immortal Thor #25 focus on the immediate aftermath with the shock of Loki’s betrayal. Even Utgard-Loki is taken aback. It’s a fairly utilitarian nine pages that greatly advances Loki’s schemes. The key lines seem to be the few words that Utgard-Loki says: “ARE YOU A PIECE IN GAEA’S GAME? OR IS SHE PART OF YOURS...?” and “WHAT AN INTRIGUING TALE YOU WEAVE, ASA-LOKI. / YOU WILL TEMPT ME TO MAKE IT TRUE.” To this point, Utgard-Loki has been depicted as being above everything, the metafictional god that exists apart from reality, but Loki’s actions place the Elder God firmly within the story, unable to actually see all that lays beyond. They’ve been set up as a false threat, not totally aware that they’re a retcon by Loki, something that may or may not be true. Even as Loki does things that astound Utgard-Loki, they continue to act like they’re above the God of Stories, unaware that they exist in the story for a specific purpose: to go away and to take Thor’s physical body with them.

The continued threat of Utgard-Loki spurs Skurge to follow through on his promise to Thor to destroy the Black Bridge that connects Utgard with the other Realms. It’s actually a moment of kindness that Loki delivers Skurge by setting this moment up, ensuring that he’s in place to enact this crucial part of their scheme. Since Skurge was able to escape Valhalla in Avengers Inc. #3, his obsession has been taking Thor’s death for him, regaining that glory that he once had when he took Thor’s place to fight to the Hordes of Hel. While he’s obviously unable to take Thor’s death for him, what he’s able to do here is have a noble death of his own that is entirely his. He takes his own death for himself. He sacrifices his life to destroy the Black Bridge and save the Realms from the onslaught of Utgard. The problem with taking Thor’s death is that, over time, Thor encounters death so frequently that saving him once becomes relatively meaningless. But embracing your own noble end? That can never be taken from Skurge, especially now that Valhalla (and Hel?) is closed off to him. As I said, it’s a kindness as Loki gives Skurge freedom from the burden of Thor’s death by giving him his own, rich in its own meaning.

This is also where we learn how Loki was able to restore the Bifrost in the first issue of this series and why there was a sense of sadness in it. The Rainbow Bridge and the Black Bridge are tied together through magic. It’s confirmed that Gaea wasn’t truly the one to unlock the gates of Utgard: Loki’s recreation of the Black Bridge as the dark opposite of the Bifrost did that. And the destruction of the Black Bridge is also the destruction of Rainbow Bridge, a symbolic (and literal) act that severs not just Utgard from Asgard, but Asgard from Midgard. It’s an act of magic and meaning that’s hard to completely understand. In the immediate aftermath, it places Asgard back in the same status that it occupies in our world, one of stories and myth. Thor was not a founding member of the Avengers, for instance; Beta Ray Bill was – a change that itself raises so many questions still unanswered.

This isn’t the sacrifice that we all knew was coming. Maybe it’s Loki’s sacrifice. Sacrificing Asgard’s connection to Earth to further their ends. It’s also a furthering sacrifice of Thor. Loki specifically goes out their way, as Utgard fades away and Utgard-Loki expresses their admiration at how everything played out, to point out that Thor’s body is still in the dark wood of Utgard and, as Utgard disappears, where exactly is that? It’s ambiguous if Utgard has simply receded into its former place in the story of the Realm Outside Realms, gate locked, waiting for someone to unlock it once again... or has it actually faded into its true beginning place of nonexistence in the story? What is a retcon before it happens? And if Thor’s body is with a piece of continuity that wiped from the story... well, what then?

What does it mean to be free? What is Loki doing? Would you know more?

*

In the middle of this issue is basically a regular-sized comic. The opening of the issue is a sort of epilogue/continuation to the previous issue. This section, drawn by Justin Greenwood, is its own thing. The epilogue/conclusion to The Immortal Thor, actually breaking from tradition by opening with the title of the issue, “The Twilight Kingdom.” Every other issue, including the prologue story in Thor annual #1 has had the title/credits on the final page. Here, it’s on the second page of the opening spread. The title alluding to both the coming darkness/winter and to Ragnarok, the ‘twilight of the gods.’ Except there is no more Ragnarok, because Thor broke that cycle when he sacrificed both of his eyes for the knowledge to see the cycle of fate that he and his people were trapped in. With that knowledge, he was able to use Rune magic to sever the thread of fate, and end the cycle of birth/Ragnarok/rebirth that the Asgardians were trapped in. But, now that Thor is dead and there is no rebirth, he finds himself in Vidbláinn, a sort of limbo or ‘lands of lost souls,’ as he calls it.

Specifically, Thor thinks, “I STAND FOR A THIRD TIME IN THE THIRD HEAVEN--VIDBLÁINN, LAND OF LOST SOULS.” The first time was in the immediate aftermath of his severing the thread of fate that kept Asgard trapped in its cycle. He was freed from the limbo by Donald Blake who was able to lift Mjolnir after it fell to Earth, resting in Broxton, Oklahoma. Vidbláinn became something of a liminal space for Thor and Blake during the J. Michael Straczynski run, a place outside of time and space where each would reside while the other was in the world – and was also treated as a common place for the two to converse. The second time was at the beginning of The Immortal Thor #17 after the Grey Gargoyle had turned Thor to stone and Mr. Hyde had shattered him, and Thor was met by Blake once again. This is the third time and it will, again, involve Blake. I almost forgot the first given how differently Ewing treats it. For Straczynski, Vidbláinn was an endless void, almost peaceful. For Ewing, it’s more like the realm the Mindless Ones come from, albeit where Thor is more a ghost than anything. A real, solid place that lacks all meaningful form and substance.

Prior to his confrontation with Blake, Thor encounters a trio of godly beings that resemble Those Who Sit On High, but may actually be Odin. The inspiration for the trio comes from The Prose Edda, specifically the section called “Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)” where various parts of history are related to Gylfi by a trio of kings that are actually all Odin. Per the annotation by Jesse Byock in the Penguin Classics edition that I have: “he was called High . . . was called Third: High (Hár), Just-as-High (Jafnhár) and Third (Þriði) are names for Odin.” (136) Here, the trio are called Hár, Jafnhár, and Thirdi (which seems to be an Anglo version of the original name for ‘Third’) and, like, the trio in “Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi),” they grant wisdom for the one asking questions – in this case, Thor. But, where Gylfi asks more general interest questions about the gods and other things of the world that result in answers akin to relating facts, Thor’s question get into the area of prophesy.

Hár’s prophecy has already seen fruition in the pages of The Mortal Thor where Odin, seeker of knowledge, has left Valhalla and confronted Lukki about Sigurd Jarlson – and, in the most recent issue, seemed to begin presiding over three trials via Blake, who is acting, in part, at his will. Jafnhár’s trio of predictions are still unfolding with the intermittent looks in on Magni in the isolated Asgard. And Thirdi’s predictions are actually fulfilled in this issue after Thor is confronted by Blake. The actual meaning, though, remains somewhat elusive.

The confrontation between Thor and Blake solidifies Blake as the new antagonist of the story. The Serpent and the God of Lies, stepping into a role once held by Loki. In Ragnarok, Thor and the Midgard Serpent always fight to the death – an idea that Matt Fraction played with in Fear Itself where Odin’s forgotten brother Cul is called the Serpent and becomes a stand-in when they both kill one another (with Loki’s manipulations). Thor and the Serpent are forever tied together, enemies destined to fight and kill one another forever. But, the cycle of Ragnarok was stopped, so shouldn’t the forever conflict between the two have been severed/ended as well?

Instead, what we get is the continuation of the Thor/Serpent conflict combined with the continuation of the Thor/God of Lies conflict. Blake has become the Serpent and the God of Lies and the brother of Thor... three-in-one that reflects earlier, past conflicts for Thor. Blake’s attempt to kill Thor, even in Vidbláinn helps Thor to see what’s actually going on and what he must do. Loki’s narration drops from the first page to the final two of this section of the comic, but it’s apparent that this is all part of the plan. Thor, while blinded from Blake’s blast to his eyes with the hammer from Thor #27-28 that’s a dark mimic of Mjolnir, claims that he sees the spell that Loki have woven around him and, from there, he puts into place the crucial action of the issue:

Saying “FOR IF WE ARE BOTH GODS AND NEITHER MORTAL... THEN BETWEEN THE TWO OF US... / ...THERE IS A HUMAN SOUL THAT GOES  SPARE. / A HUMAN LIFE. / LET THERE BE A NEW SACRIFICE, THEN! A SACRIFICE OF ALL POWER AND PRIDE! OF MYSELF TO MYSELF! A SACRIFICE BEYEOND MERE DEATH! / LET THE WINTER OF GODS COME--/--AND LET IT COME NOW!” Thor strikes the hammer over Blake’s protests, turning to stone and enacting an old spell. Exactly what he does is known in action, but the true meaning isn’t yet apparent fully. Nor what Loki’s end goal is. That’s the frustration of the end of this first act: it’s only the first act. You can speculate all you want (andI will), but that’s all it is. I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again.

The sacrifice “of myself to myself” that Thor makes brings to life Sigurd Jarlson in the final section of the issue. If he seemed familiar, it’s because Sigurd Jarlson is not entirely new. First appearing in Walt Simonson’s Thor run, he was the replacement human alter ego for Donald Blake, whose existence was ended by Odin when he used that enchantment to allow Beta Ray Bill to transform back to his mortal self. Thor, as we know, is a god of both Asgard and Midgard, and, wishing to continue to reside, at times, on Earth, he created that human identity. It was basically Thor with a ponytail and glasses in a funny play off the Clark Kent/Superman dynamic. Sigurd appeared periodically, got a job working construction, and even lasted into the Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz run until Eric Masterson and Thor’s souls were joined. That Thor takes the spare human soul that is half his and half Blake’s and this is the human that’s created is significant.

Going back to the Clark/Superman dynamic, I’m reminded of the speech that Bill gives in Kill Bill Vol. 2 by Quentin Tarantino where he talks about how Superman is unique in his secret identity because Superman is his true self, while Clark Kent is the assumed identity, an inversion of most superheroes. He even argues that Clark Kent is a critique of humanity with his traits being the things that Superman sees in us. Most comic fans seem to think this is a simplistic and wrong reading of the character, but it actually works here: Sigurd Jarlson is how Thor wishes to see humanity. As we learn in The Mortal Thor, he’s got a strong sense of justice and fairness, he’s self-sacrificing, and kind. He’s somewhat fearless if it means doing the right thing or protecting others. He’s also emotional and quick to anger. He’s a bit what Thor would be if he were to make himself mortal, which is exactly what he did and didn’t do.

The closest analogy that I can see is the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son where both are meant to be God, but they’re separate and different. Thor Odinson and Sigurd Jarlson are separate, distinct beings... but they’re both Thor. “And Thor so loved the world...” Dig? The most recent issue of The Mortal Thor begins with a page that caught my eye immediately and I’ve been ruminating on ever since. Thor, in Vidbláinn, speaks to Sigurd, giving him advice against the Serpent and says a line that I can’t get over: “I AM DEAD. AND YOU ARE NOT ME. YOU HAVE NOTHING OF MINE...” I know, I should stick to the finale of The Immortal Thor and not skip ahead, but it’s hard to forget knowledge gained...

Sigurd is not Thor, but he’s also not not Thor. He’s Thor without anything of the god Thor. Loki systematically stripped elements of Thor away over the course of The Immortal Thor until, at the end, Thor himself sacrifices everything else except for his idea of what a mortal man should be. The false identity that Thor once put upon becomes real... just as Odin patterned Donald Blake after Keith Kincaid, Sigurd is patterned after Sigurd, and he’s been battling against the enemies of Earth, Roxxon and the Serpent Blake.

Thor’s decision to take the two halves of the human soul to create Sigurd leaves Blake solely as a god and in his role as the Serpent. The Mortal Thor thus plays out as a modern shade of the earliest Thor stories where Loki was his main recurring adversary. Even some of his earliest supervillains have begun to pop up.

And the choice of artist for that series (who pops up at the end of The Immortal Thor #25) Pasqual Ferry is a surprising choice for a story that takes place on Earth. He’s previously had a run on Thor, illustrating the first arc of the Matt Fraction run (which included the debut of Kid Loki... recalled here by Lukki) and the post-Fear Itself story featuring Tanarus and the god-eater. He was also the initial artist of Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle written by Grant Morrison where the New Gods were trapped on Earth as mortals... An artist whose history alludes to so much brought to bear. Also a very stylistic artist whose work would rarely be called realistic. I still wonder how much this is actually the real Earth...

Jumping back to The Mortal Thor #6 briefly, I want to touch on something else. The epigraph for that issue reads “Midgârd’s veor in his rage will slay the worm,” which comes from The Poetic Edda, specifically, “The Seeress’s Prophecy,” which, in my edition, translated by Carolyne Larrington, is from the following stanza:

Then comes Hlodyn’s glorious boy:

Odin’s son advances to fight the serpent,

he strikes in wrath Midgard’s-protector,

all men must abandon their homesteads;

nine steps Fiorgyn’s child takes,

exhausted, from the serpent which fears no shame.

What’s interesting is that there is an annotation at the end of the third line: “Midgard’s-protector: one might expect this to be Thor: véorr, ‘protector’, is used to denote him in Hymir’s Poem. Logically however, ‘he’ must refer to Thor, and the serpent who encircles the earth—thus paradoxically its protector—is the object of the verb ‘to strike’.” That doesn’t like up with the way the epigraph is presented where it’s clear that Earth’s protector will kill the Serpent. But, in this translation, the role of protector is one that’s shared by both Thor and the Serpent depending on your perspective – and the fourth lines of the stanza would suggest that the consequence of Thor striking the Serpent is damage done to the world. It also demonstrates the link between Thor and the Serpent – between Thor and Sigurd and Blake. Separating them is tough, almost impossible. They’re all connected and hoping for outright victory by one could have unintended consequences.

You’ll notice the recurring number three running through this issue and the larger story. Utgard/Asgard/Midgard. Thor/Blake/Sigurd. Valhalla/Hel/Vidbláinn. The three forms of Odin and their three prophecies each. Odin/Thor/Magni. The three trials of both Thor and Sigurd. The three visits to Vidbláinn. The issue is divided into three sections with three artists. This is the final chapter of the first of, presumably, three acts. (You could even place this into the continuum of Immortal Hulk/Immortal X-Men/The Immortal Thor if you’re so inclined.) I also notice it and... yeah, have nothing. But, adding that here just to get it out there.

*

That brings this series of posts to an end. I’ll most likely return eventual for a Mortal Thorsday Thoughts when that series concludes and leads into... I don’t know what the third act would be called. It’s still so early in The Mortal Thor that were it will actually go is hard to say. It’s at the point in its run where The Immortal Thor had just done the first half of the retelling of Thor #272, recontextualising it into Loki’s narrative. It has been a pleasure to work my way through the 25 issues (and then some) of The Immortal Thor and I do hope that you enjoyed my ramblings.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 24

From a pure emotional engagement level, this is a top five Thor comic for me. By this point, there’s always a part of me detached from the reading experience, acting the critic in real time, especially with issues of The Mortal Thor. Part of me trying to fit things together and keep the big picture in mind. This issue was an exception to that mindset as I lost myself in its pages when I brought it home from the shop. Two years of buildup to this issue with the Alex Ross cover of that moment teased from the very beginning. Thor, full of lightning, hammer and axe in hand, bloodied, clothing torn, making his final stand. I remember forcing myself to slow down as I was tempted to almost skim the issue on first read. From the escape from Utgard to the destruction of the gate to the battling of the hordes (“FOR I AM THE GATE.”) to Thor’s triumph and moment of clarity of everything he wants himself to be and then... That final page turn is genuinely shocking. Or it was for me, in one of those rare experiences where you so lose yourself that you allow moments like that to shock you. Now, after admitting that, I’ll put that aside and let it sit in the back of your head.

There are two(ish) comics that come to mind as I reread The Immortal Thor #24. I use the word ‘comics’ loosely to describe a group of issues from two different creative teams. There are a few moments that recall the Walt Simonson run, including Al Ewing and Jan Bazaldua following through on a moment so famous that it was adapted in Thor: Ragnarok: when Thor throws away Mjolnir and grabs Loki, telling him that nothing will stop Mjolnir from returning to the hand that threw it, not even Loki’s head. It’s one of those moments that makes a lot of top ten lists of greatest Thor scenes/moments and it’s one of those rare ‘clever Thor’ kind of moments, so Thor recreating it with Tormod and Mejed, the hooded god of ghosts and mysteries is fitting. His big ‘clever’ moment done with the weapon that represents his wit and wisdom. It’s such a purposeful callback that it’s impossible to miss and has the added level of Loki’s touch. If Loki is the teller of the tale, it makes sense that it would be a common moment between the two that’s repeated... Thor must triumph and will do so with Tormod, so Loki draws upon their shared experience and that influences things. How much happens outside of Loki’s influence/control is hard to tell.

Which leads to the other comic that I’m reminded of while reading this issue: the initial storyarc of Kieron Gillen’s tenure on Journey into Mystery where Loki works behind the scenes of Fear Itself to help defeat the Serpent, even if it means the death of Thor. That story has Kid Loki and his allies doing a variety of things that flitter under the surface of Fear Itself, giving that story a greater depth and meaning. This was the issue where it really felt like The Immortal Thor was Fear Itself with little bits and teases of Journey into Mystery existing somewhere out there and we can’t read it. Like Matt Fraction knew what Kieron Gillen was doing but Marvel refused to publish it, so Fraction grabs a panel here, an idea there, made Kid Loki the narrator, and teased them in Fear Itself, knowing that we’d never know the real story. Except here it’s all Al Ewing and, maybe, at some point, we’ll get something closer to the full story.

The parallels to Fear Itself/Journey into Mystery as fairly obvious with the old gods returning to threaten Earth, Thor standing in opposition despite the prophesized death that will come as a result, meanwhile Loki manipulates events to their own end, and it eventually culminates in Loki ensuring Thor’s death as he triumphs over those old gods. But, taken with the Tormod moment, I’ve been wondering: is this meant to be Loki drawing upon things that happened already? After all, Loki folds in the Demiurge, Atum, the Elder Gods, Utgard, Skurge, Magni, Amora... there are various allusions and repetitions of previous stories. Loki continually throws the past at Thor, pelts him with his own history, albeit in altered forms. Loki tests him (and the way Utgard-Loki tests him!) and has him craft weapons to represent himself. Thor must kill or defeat his forefather gods. It’s a modernist text made up of the history of Thor until Thor moves through it all, defeats it all, makes peace with it all, and we reach that second-last page, that ultimate moment of Thor having overcome everything about himself to reach the moment where he looks around, see Skurge on the Black Bridge and, beyond him, Sif with Loki narrating

And beyond him... just now arriving at the very further end of the bridge, just barely in his sight...

...was she who was his love in song and in story.

In that moment, Thor knew many things, and knew them with a perfect, crystal clarity.

He knew that he had been a fool, but foolishness was over. He knew who his true love had always been.

He knew that time ahead--with her--would be as boundless as the fields of childhood on the very last day of autumn.

He knew that everything would be all right now.

And, then, of course, Loki stabs him with arrow fashioned from Eternity’s Mask and Thor dies. That Thor dies at that exact moment is important, in that moment of total clarity and wisdom, where Thor has such a clear idea of himself, of who he is meant to be, if only on such a personal level as his relationship with Sif. It’s a moment where Thor actually reverts to an idea of Thor, the Thor of the stories in Norse Mythology. He sees Sif and his realisation is that who he is is the Thor of story and legend. Those half-known stories written down in The Eddas where Thor and Sif have two sons and we know nothing of their lives together... where you might as well call it a fairy tale that ends with “and they lived happily ever after.” This is Thor at his most pure as far as an identity is concerned. Not a full person or even a full character... an idea. And, once he’s been stripped down to this, Loki kills him, freeing him of everything that he was.

(It’s probably a coincidence that, beginning with the panel where Mejed dies, right through that final splash where Loki kills Thor, it’s nine panels. Right?)

There’s more to this issue from Utgard-Loki’s metafictional games and their inability to escape the rules of the games to the hilarity of Mejed, the smiter, who is just a muscular man wearing a sheet over his head to look like a ghost. To tie into NRGL coming from Egyptian mythology, Mejed seems to be based on Medjed, “the smiter” who is a pretty minor deity and look like one of the ghosts from Pac-Man with legs, which is pretty much what we get here, except crossed with the Juggernaut a little. But, Mejed being the god of mystery and his defeat being a trial that gives Thor a moment of clarity makes sense. The ultimate mystery is death and Thor seemingly overcomes it to be given a glimpse of what his life is meant to be... before he dies. It’s just a cruel joke, after a fashion.

Next week, the final Immortal Thorsday Thoughts as I discuss The Immortal Thor #25 and Defenders Beyond.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 23

Let’s return to Thor #272, the original trip by Thor and Loki to Utgardhall, later recounted/retconned in The Immortal Thor #6-7. In that original story by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, adapted from The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, Thor and Loki travel through the land of giants, following Skrymir, to Utgardhall where they encounter Utgard, the lord and master of Utgardhall. In the original Edda, it’s Utgarda-Loki specifically named as the king, which is how Utgard is presented in Thor #272. He’s shown as an older man wearing a crown and fur-lined robes, declaring himself “master of Utgardhall,” and, by all respects, the sole ruler of the land. When Loki retells the story, fashioning it into the larger context of Utgard as a Realm-Outside-of-Realms where some of the Elder Gods fled to avoid death at the hands of Atum, Utgard becomes Utgard-Loki as designed by Alex Ross, and it introduces itself to Thor and Loki as “MOON-KING, MONSTER-TAMER, MASTER-MAGICIAN OF UTGARD’S HALL... / ...YOU MAY KNOW ME AS THE UTGARD-LOKI.” It’s a shift from the ruler of Utgardhall to something more nebulous, still retaining the word ‘king,’ but adding a modifier along with numerous other titles. Yet, Utgard-Loki still takes on the grandeur and role of ruler of that Realm... in that retelling and throughout The Immortal Thor when we see Utgard.

So... Kemur, the minotaur at the centre of NRGL the endless city in Utgard, representing the idea of kingship. But, not the king of Utgard? I guess this is where you could argue that my hyper-literal brain is trying to impose too much order. If you look into Kemur/Kemwer, you find yourself into some Egyptian god stuff where Kemwer could refer to Horus or to Mnevis, a bull god, that was originally its own being, but was eventually subsumed into the idea of Atum-Ra as his physical manifestation or as the soul of Ra. The centre of worship for Mvenis was in Heliopolis, a large city and major place of religious worship. Funnily enough, the Mnevis bull was second to the Apis bull... Yet, Kemur is clearly drawing upon, for our purposes, more the Minotaur of the Labyrinth. Ewing is mixing and matching lots of influences, which complicates any background.

But, there are two things about the Mvenis bull that stand out as relevant to Kemur and this issue: that it was the second-most important bull and that it’s conception was eventually subsumed into Atum-Ra. The fact that the Mvenis bull was second to the Apis bull in importance is what I was trying to get at with referencing The Prose Edda and Thor #272: Kemur is second to Utgard-Loki (at best) in Utgard. He may be the embodiment of the idea of a king, but he doesn’t rule Utgard. He’s more like the Minotaur trapped at the centre of the Labyrinth, fed virgins by the King of Crete. He rules his area, but there is a larger world. This strikes at the central point of much of the discourse on kings in this issue, about their cowardice, their lack of rule through anything other than fear and force... Kemur is a pathetic creature living in the centre of a larger god, uninvolved in the true goings on in Utgard, content to sit on his throne and pretend himself important.

That the Mvenis bull began as its own god until eventually becoming the physical embodiment of Atum-Ra is, perhaps, where Ewing began to formulate the idea of Kemur. The big revelation of Kemur is that, when confronted by his half-brother, Atum, the god-slayer, instead of battling him in a battle to end all battles to determine the fate of the Elder Gods, Kemur ran, praying to his half-brother that he wouldn’t be killed. While not subsumed by Atum as the Demigourge, his fleeing is admitting defeat. Atum beat Kemur via forfeit and Kemur’s physical existence is like being an aspect of Atum, a reminder of Atum’s supremacy and power. Kemur is second to both Utgard-Loki and Atum.

He’s also half-brother to Thor (and great-great uncle) being the son of Gaea and Tiwaz. That detail is almost too easy to gloss over in this issue. While Thor, king of Asgard, fighting Elder God Kemur, god of kings, already places Kemur in a place of external embodiment of Thor, by making him share the same mother and Kemur’s father be Thor’s great-grandfather, Kemur is placed that much closer to Thor. There’s a bit of Kemur that recalls old King Thor from the Jason Aaron run. The old king that sits on his throne in his empty city, ruling over no one, clinging to the idea of being a king despite having no true kingdom. The king as tyrant is also a version of Thor that we’ve discussed previously from the Dan Jurgens run and the future that Magni comes from. Basically, Kemur is what Thor could be. The king that rules for the sake of being a king. The Thor that would be weighed down by the idea of Asgard, the burden of his lineage – hence why Kemur is also family.

Kemur is eventually brought low by three things: Thor’s belt that represents his endurance, the assistance of Skurge and Hermod, and Loki shooting the Eternity Mask (now an arrow) right between Kemur’s eyes.

The importance of belt becoming the ring that leads Kemur by the nose is that Thor’s endurance is also his spirit of will. His unwillingness to bend from who he is, to always remain true to his ideals. By using this to defeat Kemur, it’s the dominance of his strength of character over the idea that he could ever become the tyrant king of various futures. It’s also the first Elder God defeated, in part, by one of the magical weapons that Thor brings with him to Utgard. He will face at least two more Elder Gods and he has...

That Hermod and Skurge assist him, fighting alongside him as equals, speaks to his strength as a king. These are both Asgardians that are subject to his rule, but they don’t fight here because he orders them to. There is an element of duty, but earned duty. They feel affection and devotion to Thor not just because of his title, but because he treats them as fellow warriors, equals on the battlefield, willing to fight and die beside them. They follow Thor as their king because they want to. Again, he’s not the tyrant king that commands subjects who obey only out of fear, he inspires them to follow him and be willing to trust in him.

And Loki’s entrance and slaying of Kemur with the Eternity Mask fashioned into an arrow is the first symbolic killing of Thor. The foreshadowing of what’s to come. Loki stepping back into the story to influence its direction, because, otherwise, it will not go where it is supposed to. Ideally, Thor would have come to Utgard with all three weapons, but he only has two, and that’s not enough. Loki kills one physical representation of Thor before they will kill Thor, their narration addressing their guilt and reluctance to do so. But, another element of who Thor is is slain here, stripping him of another aspect of himself, if only symbolically.

Next week, Thor dies for real.

The Immortal Thorsday Thoughts 22

Despite its structural conceit and technical skill, The Immortal Thor #22 is probably the most straight forward issue of the series. Almost all of the usual subtext and themes are sacrificed upon the altar of the gimmick of the issue wherein the majority of the pages can be read either before or after each page that precedes and follows it. I give Al Ewing all of the credit in the world for making a comic that pulls off that feat, because it’s actually pretty remarkable. But, it also means that the storytelling needs to be so precise that the transition between pages is where much of the importance lies. Do you move onto the next or back to the previous? Either way, it must make sense and flow, even in repetition.

The plot of the issue is straight forward: Thor and Skurge, trapped in NRGL, the Elder God that is the endless city, battle their way through the creatures that are also NRGL, encountering both Hermod and Heimdall, both thought lost to a death beyond the Realms. Which, of course, is true, given that Utgard is a Realm outside of the Realms. The conceit of the issue is that Utgard-Loki sets us on the path of the issue and we advance or go back by the flip of a coin. Hence why pages must make sense in either direction. Eventually, when we (and Thor, Skurge, etc.) make it through, the issue ends with the embodiment of the image upon Utgard-Loki’s coin representing heads: the bull/minotaur. Yet, even in a relatively straight forward issue (if you’re lucky), there are still bits and pieces of interest.

The framing where Utgard-Loki takes charge of the narrative, including flat out preventing Loki’s usual narrative captions from addressing is the ‘meat’ of the issue, as it were. The conceit of the coin that moves you forward or back, of leaving your progression to chance or luck – or fate – is meant to mirror the journey that Thor has already taken. Guided by some unseen force that appears random and without motive. Yet, the path is straight, a road that heads in two directions. Even if you seem to go back, the story continues and, eventually, you move towards the fated end. Thor encounters Toranos, manages to progress past that challenge, yet encounters him twice more. Thor passes Loki’s test/riddle... and, then, must solve another. Thor journeyed to Utgard... and so has returned. To go forward, you sometimes go back.

And, like Loki being the unseen author of Thor’s tale, providing a framework and correcting things, we’re also reading a story seemingly constructed by Utgard-Loki – but all of it is really Al Ewing and Jan Bazaldua with Matt Hollingsworth and Joe Sabino. They are the storytellers and the story is their work. Utgard-Loki, the coin, the whole thing... it’s not actually luck or fate, it’s just a comic and the idea that, we in real life, would flip a coin to determine which direction we go is them breaking the rules, in a way. They’re breaking the illusion, which actually works against the point of the comic, which is to show Thor, Skurge, Hermod, and Heimdall trapped in the endless city that is NRGL. Theoretically, the coin technique could trap the reader in the comic, never allowing them to finish it, but it also pushes them out of the comic. After all, how engrossed can you be if you’re flipping a coin at the end of each page? The natural flow of the comic is broken, making it nearly impossible for a reader to actually lose themselves in its pages, even if for a few minutes. It’s oddly paradoxical.

The coins that Utgard-Loki uses are never shown to actually contain both sides. We see each displaying a single side. Whenever they’re flipped, one always comes up tails and one always comes up heads. It’s implied that both contain each a heads and a tails, yet... Utgard-Loki is the archetypal trickster god, so, when it flips a coin right to introduce the idea that we may move forward or back, that the coin flipped is the one that shows heads suggests that it’s all a lie. If you look closely at the panel where it’s turning in the air, you can only see heads, no tails. We’re only meant to move forward. There is no going back. Even the repetition of the past is different, has a different meaning, plays out differently... it’s always moving forward.

The two coins contain various meanings, some of which is told by Utgard-Loki. The design of each is specific, containing both an image and a familiar rune.

For tails, per Utgard-Loki: “THE SERPENT ENCIRCLES YOU AS IT EATS ITSELF. CIRCLES THE WORLD, AN ENEMY PROPHESIED BUT NEVER DEFEATED. / THE COIN TAKES YOU BACK TO WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU’D LEFT BEHIND.” It has the image of the serpent as Ouroboros along with the rune raidho, the rune of journeys. (“Now I’m going back to Canada on a journey through the past...” the man sings.) Looking back, the snake eating its own tail, the way that this comic is built upon the work of the past, referencing it over and over again, a modernist work that is ultimately self-referential. The journey of Thor through time, through stories. But, also, when Thor encountered the riddle of raidho, he crafted Tormod, his ax of wit and wisdom. After all, when taking all of these pieces of the past, of feeding stories into this story, isn’t that showing off cleverness and knowledge? But, the serpent also points to the Midgard Serpent, Thor’s past and future enemy. His past and future deaths. In this series, the serpent is not just the Midgard Serpent, though, it’s Donald Blake. His past self, the other half of his soul, his future self, after a fashion. As Thor moves forward, he’s actually moving back towards Blake. And, as enemies, since they are, in fact, one being (in a sense), isn’t their conflict the Ouroboros?

For heads, per Utgard-Loki: “NOW THE COIN IS WITH YOU. IT MOVES YOU ON, PUSHES YOU FORWARD... BUT TO WHAT? FOR WHAT? / WHAT WAITS AT THE END OF THE MAZE?” It has the image of the bull’s head along with the rune uruz, the rune of endurance. You get through it. You make your way through the maze to the end of the comic. The story goes on and on. Literally, the issue ends with Kemur, the Elder God that looks like a bull/minotaur. But, he’s not the only one that has that imagery. Dario Agger is also the minotaur associated with money. He keeps coming back, his corporation Roxxon a constant threat to Earth, which Thor is trying to save. But, also Utgard-Loki’s head, as it appears to us, resembles the image on the coin. The horns and the skull-like face. After Kemur lies Utgard-Loki. And after Utgard-Loki is Loki, whose headgear also makes them resemble the bull. And both Utgard-Loki and Loki wish to move Thor forward, move the story forward, for their own ends. Just as Dario wishes to progress. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Progress. The line going up? Each bull just another enemy to move past on the way to that eventual serpent thought left in the past. Because you don’t journey through the story, you endure it. You live it.

Later in the issue, Utgard-Loki makes their presence known again with the phrase “THAT’S THE QUESTION, ISN’T IT?” in response to two different questions. Because Utgard-Loki is a liar and a trickster. In this page, we’re almost tricked into thinking that there’s only one coin, that it’s a fair even choice between going back and moving forward. In the second panel, Utgard-Loki holds the tails coin in their right hand (on our left). In the third, it looks like they’ve flipped the coin, now showing heads mid-air, yet the fourth panel, showing the coin in rotation still only shows heads. I can’t see any suggestion of the serpent eating its tail. Because, as Utgard-Loki tells us, the coin is the lie that tricks us into repeating our actions, day after day. Our dreary lives spent in toil for coins to survive, doing the same tasks, living the same routines... except, the coin is actually propelling us forward. Making us think we’re journeying through frustrating repetition while we’re actually enduring our lives, always going forward. Utgard-Loki boiling our lives down to this pathetic imagery as justification for the destruction of humanity at the hands of the Elder Gods.

“HOW MANY COINS ARE THERE? / DO YOU KNOW?”

*

If Utgard-Loki is heads, NRGL is tails... the endless maze, the Ouroboros...

With NRGL, Ewing adds a bit of playfulness and looking beyond the Norse pantheon for the denizens of Utgard. The name seems a reference to Nergal, a Mesopotamian god associated with war, death, and disease, translated from Sumerian as “lord of the big city,” specifically the underworld. Using the dual meaning of that translation, Ewing envisions a literal lord of the big city in the sense that NRGL is a living city, endless (immortal), and able to be whatever it desires. But, NRGL is also a literal underworld in that gods that die in a certain way go to. The underworld that NRGL is lord of is the oblivion that awaits the gods if they die beyond the Realms. Heimdall came here in Valkyrie: Jane Foster #3, while Hermod was obliterated by the Oblivion-possessed Tyr in The Immortal Thor #12. If you’ll recall, Tyr was given to the In-Betweener by Loki in an effort to learn something... perhaps, an alternate route to Utgard?

In Valkyrie: Jane Foster #3, after being killed by Bullseye, Heimdall’s request to not be taken to Valhalla is honoured by Jane in her new role as the last Valkyrie. Instead, she takes him to the edge of the Realms/reality and sets him adrift to cross beyond. We never see what happened, nor is it ever hinted that it could be Utgard. But, just as Loki retcons reality, so too is Ewing retconning his own work to accommodate the needs of the current story being told. Utgard is literally the ‘Outyards,’ the Realm that’s not a Realm, outside the Realms and the universe. The way that Jane takes Heimdall to get there is through Heven and Hades where the anti-Yggdrasil lies. There’s a bit of play with passing through two places that signify an afterlife, but are also not the traditional Valhalla/Hel dynamic that exists for Asgardians typically.

Much of Immortal Thor is spent revolving around various afterlife locations and their relationship with these seemingly eternal gods. The story literally starts with an unending war between the Elder Gods that is ended by Atum who absorbs and digests them, causing them to flee. Utgard is held behind a locked gate, basically an eternal afterlife for the gods that sought shelter there. Removed from existence, it’s a sort of limbo existence. Which is also the way that Vidbláinn is described, the other big afterlife of the series – one that Thor has already visited and will visit again. Where Skurge is threatened to go should he die again. It’s interesting that neither Heimdall nor Hermod went there when they were removed from the universe by different than usual means. And, when Thor dies in Utgard, that’s where he goes. And these various places all relate to Loki’s quest for freedom for all. Die enough times, live enough afterlives, and...?

With NRGL, there are two additonal details that struck me when doing the bare minimum online research. A logogram used for Nergal from the Middle Babylonian period forward is ^dU.GUR, which was originally associated with Ugur, an attendant deity to Nergal. It’s hard not to see the visual similarity to Utgard. Maybe that was what sparked the initial connection.

For comics, the name Nergal also brings to mind John Constantine. Nergal is the demon that Constantine summoned at the Casanova Club to combat the demon summoned by Astra Logue and the result of that is the big moment of guilt that hangs over Constantine throughout his life. Nergal became a regular antagonist to Constantine throughout Hellblazer and is sort of representative of the only demon that holds any upper hand over him consistently, if only because of that initial mental scar inflicted when he was younger. Bringing up Constantine and words like ‘magic’ and ‘trickster’ in relation to Loki and Utgard-Loki isn’t a direct clue to anything. If anything, it’s a very faint allusion where connections are visible without much true meaning. If pressed, there’s something in Loki sacrificing others in pursuit of their larger goal that recalls Constantine’s willingness to let others pay the price for his actions. However, Constantine is usually reactive, while Loki is fully active here.

The final bit on NRGL: the continued use of the word ‘maze’ in this issue is misleading. NRGL is not a maze, it’s a labyrinth. That’s part of the trick of the coins: the only way is forward and there is only one path. A maze is a contained, winding path puzzle with various false branches that shunt off from the one true path; a labyrinth only has one winding, twisted path that you can’t veer off from. That’s this issue, the story. It may seem disorienting and like you’ve gotten lost, but it’s always a direct route from A to B. And, at the end, is a minotaur...

Next week, the minotaur and the king in The Immortal Thor #23.

1 in the 6160 – Ultimate Endgame #1

[While I plan to return to the regular 6 in the 6160 series of posts, stopped dead in its tracks by the daunting task of being a critic mired in traditional western superhero comics trying to reckon with Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men. So, I have retreated and returned via what would be something of a safe space for the likes of me: an event comic. Ultimate Endgame #1 dropped this week, the beginning of the end of the Ultimate Universe, the culmination of the two-year countdown initiated at the end of Ultimate Invasion #4, and Deniz Camp’s first big swing at an event comic after paving the way via The Ultimates. There will be spoilers, so, if you haven’t read the issue yet, maybe bookmark this for a later return – or even just leave it as one of your many tabs that you may or may not read before you either go on a mass-closing spree or your browser crashes and your beloved opened, unread tabs are all wiped from existence like so much a [REDACTED].]

1 – “How do you stand the disappointment?”

Let’s just jump to the end. The dome over The City has opened and our foursome of ostensible heroes (Iron Lad, Doom, America Chavez, and Spider-Man) have entered, or, rather, been sucked inside a new time bubble that contains The City anew immediately after the dome falls. Inside, The City looks like shit. A complete post-industrial nightmare of pollution. The Children attack, they’re unbeatable, until the foursome is saved by Death’s Head 22 and a cadre of Deathloks, and, then, taken back to Immortus, who is presumably Howard Stark, but may also be the evolution of Kang, who was either Howard or Tony Stark, where they’re told that finding the Maker in The City isn’t a problem, because the Maker is The City, cut to:

The central node of the City, a sickly giant tree in the centre, with the Maker’s face as the trunk.

The evolution of The City and the Maker is to become Krakoa.

If Ultimate Invasion set up the path of this Ultimate Universe under the influence of Warren Ellis, specifically Planetary, then Ultimate Endgame ends it under the influence of Jonathan Hickman. What springs to mind, specifically, is the way that this issue uses Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 as something of a template to reference and respond to. That issue, which began an aborted run by Hickman and Esad Ribić was a genuinely exciting issue to read upon release. It felt fresh and new, and gave off the impression of everything falling apart at once.

Camp uses that idea of various locations where things fall apart in an interesting way. While the Hickman/Ribić issue centres around Nick Fury and SHIELD monitoring all of these situations, including Tony Stark getting taken out, a conflict with Asgard, the appearance of/engagement with The City, and ends with Fury staring into space, eyes wide, declaring that he doesn’t know what to do, the Camp issue approaches the chaos initially as a positive. The world is falling apart in revolution. The chaos is the unmaking of the status quo and, instead of being on the side of Fury and that status quo, we’re rooting for the downfall. It’s a clever reversal that gives the issue a different sort of tension. A hopeful one where it’s building to the moment when the dome falls and The City re-engages with the world.

In that tension is the fear that everything will go south immediately. That all hope will be lost. And that’s what happens. Everything falls apart in a similar fashion to how things go in Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1: where The City sucked in members of Fury’s team there, it sucks in our foursome here. Where death and destruction rains down on Fury’s forces there, it’s Fury that emerges from nowhere to rain down death and destruction on the Ultimates.

The prologue in Ultimate Endgame #1 where the Maker’s destruction of the Eternals is shown even relates to the opening of Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1, which shows the Maker and his batch of Children finding the spot to build The City. Before building his City in this universe, the Maker destroys and replaces another... Olympia is, after all, something of an earlier version of the Maker’s City. An eternal city populated with its superpowered children that are continually replenished upon death. Except, where Olympia is eternal stasis, The City is meant to be eternal evolution. And the Maker becoming The City (and shown as a tree in its centre) is a clear reference to Krakoa, it’s also the Maker becoming the Machine at the heart of Olympia. The Maker has now become what he destroyed and is he now facing a new version of himself...?

One of the key visual similarities that I found interesting is the way that the Children look identical in both comics. When The City reveals itself in both comics, the Children are the same bald beings with the same mechanical attachment, the same uniforms. Camp and artist Jonas Scharf could have gone in any direction with the Children. After all, the Children in Ultimate Invasion didn’t look exactly this way. Instead, they chose the visual callback of that initial encounter with The City and its Children in Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 where the Children were similarly overwhelming to Captain Britain and his team after they’re sucked into The City.

The biggest difference is that, while I appreciate Ultimate Endgame #1 upon reflection, the experience of reading it was almost the opposite of what it was like to read Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 when it came out. While Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 was the beginning of something, Ultimate Endgame #1 is the ending, the one that we’ve been waiting for and anticipating for two years... and what can live up to those hopes? The experience of reading Ultimate Endgame #1 somewhat mirrors the events of it. The anticipation, the waiting, the countdown to the moment... and, then, it doesn’t go how you thought it would. Is that good? Is that bad? It’s an experience, I’d argue and one that I’m appreciating more and more...