You'd be hard pressed to name anyone who worked on Thor
between Jack Kirby and Walt Simonson, I bet.
Thor #340 shares a cover date of February 1984 with Saga of the Swamp Thing
#21.
It's difficult to thoroughly discuss the first four issues of Grant
Morrison's Animal Man run without going back to the first four issues of Alan
Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing run.
"Worldengine" is an aberration rather than a beginning.
"FAR BEYOND THE FIELDS WE KNOW, THE CORE OF AN ANCIENT
GALAXY EXPLODES! AND A MOLTEN INGOT OF STAR-STUFF IS LEFT BEHIND BUT
NOT LEFT ALONE. MARK WELL THIS FIGURE AND LISTEN. LISTEN. CAN YOU HEAR IT? THE
WIND IS RISING. THE SOUND OF THUNDER REVERBERATES THROUGHOUT A BILLION BILLION
WORLDS. DOOM!"
"IT'S RAINING IN WASHINGTON TONIGHT. PLUMP, WARM SUMMER RAIN THAT COVERS
THE SIDEWALKS WITH LEOPARD SPOTS. DOWNTOWN, ELDERLY LADIES CARRY THEIR
HOUSEPLANTS OUT TO SET THEM ON THE FIRE-ESCAPES, AS IF THEY WERE INFIRM
RELATIVES OR BOY KINGS. I LIKE THAT."
"TEN MILES OUTSIDE THE CITY, THE SCREAMING BEGINS IN EARNEST... QUIET AT
FIRST, LIKE A COMMOTION HEARD IN ANOTHER ROOM, IT GROWS STEADILY LOUDER WITH
EACH STEP..."
"Manhattan. I've always loved it best at night. Lit up like a million
riverside campfires. Where I am, it's so dark it breaks my heart. A skyscraper,
abandoned by its builders. I know how it feels. The heights of Manhattan are no
place to die."
You'd be hard pressed to name anyone who worked on Thor between Jack
Kirby and Walt Simonson, I bet. I can name some, like Stan Lee continuing to
write the title after Kirby left, or Roy Thomas or Len Wein or one of the
Buscemas... But, the chasm between Kirby and Simonson is both vast and
nonexistent. The former because it was 158 issues and nearly 13 years between
Kirby's last Thor issue and Simonson's first; the latter, because I imagine a
lot of people go from issue 179 to issue 337 with few or no stops for the
comics that make up that chasm. With Thor runs, there are twin giants: Kirby
and Simonson. The creator and the improver (the reviser? the revitaliser?) with
everyone working in their shadows since. For Kirby, that's nothing new exactly;
as the (co-)creator of so many superhero comics, everyone involved since is
working in his shadow (or one of his contemporaries') to one degree or another.
To establish his own shadow, Simonson looked to Kirby, but not to his Thor, as
he wrote in his introduction to The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill collection:
"My model for such a beginning came from the work that Jack Kirby had done
for DC Comics some thirteen years earlier. When Jack began his Fourth World
tetralogy for DC, he took the comic, JIMMY OLSEN, and revamped it completely.
His first issue of Superman's pal was as different from the preceding issues as
chalk is from cheese! The issue was riveting. It exploded with new ideas, new
characters, new situations. I didn't have as many ideas as Jack; no one does.
But I definitely wanted to begin my run on Thor with as dramatic break from the
preceding issues as I possibly could." And then, he went on to become the
second giant of Thor and cast his own shadow. Now, there's two shadows to
escape.
Thor #340 shares a cover date of February 1984 with Saga of the
Swamp Thing #21. That's a coincidence that I rather like for my own purposes.
Speaking of shadows, Alan Moore casts the only shadow worthwhile when it comes
to Swamp Thing, eclipsing those that came before him, including the creators of
the character. Their work, highly regarded by many, true, is mostly put into a
box called 'pre-Moore' and left for those that are curious to see what came
before or are big fans of Bernie Wrightson. But, let's not kid ourselves. I'm
sure there are some hardcore Neal Adams fans that obsess over him following
directly on Thor after Kirby left, but those issues are mostly left for the
hardcore. Same with pre-Moore Swamp Thing. But, when all things are considered,
Swamp Thing is a minor character, mostly still regarded in any way because of
Moore's work on the character. It's still a DC character, so it would always
continue to recur, but not nearly as much as it has were it not for the run
began with Saga of the Swamp Thing #21 (yes, yes, yes, Moore wrote the previous
issue, too, but I'm trusting you to have more sense than that). But, the shadow
that Moore casts isn't really over Swamp Thing (though he does cast a shadow
there, of course). Moore casts a shadow over British comic writer (you could
argue over comic writing, but...). He was the one that made the '80s 'British
Invasion' happen. Without him, there's no Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Peter
Milligan, Jamie Delano, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis... (all huge talents who
probably would have made it in one way or another, definitely in the UK, but
hard to say in the US exactly). So, there's his shadow, lingering over all of
the British/UK writers to follow. Many have escaped (the names I listed being
the main ones), but it still lingers to a degree (though, fading every year).
It's difficult to thoroughly discuss the first four
issues of Grant Morrison's Animal Man run without going back to the first four
issues of Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing run. Or, as Morrison put it in
the introduction to the first Animal Man collection: "In 1987, at the
height of the critical acclaim for Alan Moore's work on SWAMP THING and
WATCHMEN, DC Comics dispatched a band of troubleshooters on what is quaintly
termed a 'headhunting mission' to the United Kingdom. The brief was to turn up
the stones and see if there weren't any more cranky Brit authors who might be
able to work wonder with some of the dusty old characters languishing in DC's
back catalogue." The tension, both real world and creative, between Moore
and Morrison is so notable and longstanding that Elizabeth Sandifer is still in
the midst of a massive multi-book series called The Last War in Albion tracing
the whole thing through (and beyond) both men's careers and bodies of work. So,
if Morrison is willing to introduce their major US superhero comic breakthrough
book by acknowledging that it was Moore's success that made it possible, then
you know that it's true. But, beyond that fact, you can't read the first four
issues of Animal Man without referencing Saga of the Swamp Thing #21-24,
because Morrison's work is in response to and in debt to those four issues. Out
of the green and into the red.
"Worldengine" is an aberration rather than a beginning.
It could have been the beginning of the third giant Thor run. It was not. It
could have been the beginning of Warren Ellis's Saga of the Swamp Thing. It was
not. Per Ellis, from The Captured Ghosts Interviews: "When I was offered
Thor, that was probably a mistake. I think I wrote it 'cause I was so shocked
at having been offered it. I wasn't very pleased with it. I wasn't au
fait enough with the particular genre. Mike Deodato, I thought, did a
very strong job as the artist, but I wasn't happy with the way I wrote it. It
was one of those things I took not because I was trying to make a mark at
Marvel, but because I thought -- I mean, it was still early days for me. I
thought, 'Shit, if I don't take this, they might not offer me anything else!
And they've offered me this! I should take this!' No, it was a mistake. Errors
of youth." "Worldengine" came about because Ellis was too afraid
to say no and he stuck around just for four issues, but those four issues
follow the path already walked by Simonson, breaking from what came before as
dramatically as possible; it was a defiant change in tone and style akin to
Moore. But, the break was so dramatic, so specific, so startling, that it would
difficult for anyone else to follow through on. It was so different that it was
basically scorching the earth. It wasn't the beginning of a run. It was a hit
and run. Simonson stayed; Moore stayed; Morrison stayed; Ellis left.
Walt Simonson began his run by introducing a strange alien worthy enough to
carry Mjolnir.
Alan Moore began his run by revealing Swamp Thing was never human, was never
Alec Holland.
Grant Morrison began their run by making the human race the antagonist for its
treatment of animals.
Warren Ellis wrote a Thor story where Thor becomes mortal, loses his shirt, and
fucks the Enchantress.
While some of the characters created after Kirby left Thor have stuck, none
have become a standard part of Thor's title (and the Marvel Universe) like Beta
Ray Bill. A horse-like alien aboard a spaceship that seems to pose a threat to
Earth, Thor engages him in battle. It's an evenly matched fight and, at one
point, Thor loses Mjolnir, a minute passes, he turns back to Don Blake... and
the alien picks up the cane, hits it against a wall without any intent, and is
transformed. He wears a costume like Thor's (though modified) and is able to
carry Mjolnir. He is worthy. Odin comes to call Thor home to Asgard to assist
with a massive threat and he takes Beta Ray Bill, thinking it is his son,
leaving Blake alone in the storm left by the All-Father's wake, screaming
"FATHER!" That's how Walt Simonson introduced Beta Ray Bill and began
his Thor run. Bad guys had been able to match Thor in combat before. The
stories wouldn't have been interesting (or possible) otherwise. Thor getting
knocked on his ass wasn't new. Someone else picking up that cane, striking it,
and being given Thor's powers, being able to lift and carry and command
Mjolnir... Someone else being worthy. Now, that was new. That was different.
That was making a statement.
Maybe there had been an 'everything you knew was wrong' sort of reboot before
(I guess Moore's own Marvelman a year and a half or so prior would count), but
this was probably the most high profile one. Swamp Thing has been shot dead.
Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, is hired to do the autopsy and figure out how
Alec Holland was transformed into Swamp Thing. He discovers a plant composed of
human-like organs that serve no purpose other than to look like human organs.
He figures it out: Swamp Thing is not a mutated human. It's a plant. Alec
Holland was never transformed, a plant was. And you can't kill a plant with a
gun. So, Woodrue revives Swamp Thing, leaves out his report, and arranges it so
his employee is killed by a very confused, very angry plant who has just
learned that it's not a man after all. Swamp Thing was never Alec Holland, it
just thought it was. Everything you -- and the star of the comic -- knew was
wrong. That was new. That was different. That was making a statement.
In contrast, Grant Morrison did 'everything you knew was wrong' in a completely
different way. You thought Animal Man was a superhero when really he's not. He
has superpowers and a costume that he doesn't really wear, but he's not a
proper superhero. He's a suburban layabout husband who thinks he'll give being
a hero another go. And how does he go about it? By going on a late night talk
show. So, he's the guy that STAR Labs calls when Superman is too busy and
everyone thinks that he can turn into animals. You've seen superheroes with
families and superheroes who aren't necessarily the best, but a name superhero
who's one step above being a wannabe? Animal Man was never really a superhero,
you just thought he was. That was new. That was different. That was making a
statement.
Warren Ellis didn't introduce a new character to challenge our preconceptions
about Thor. He didn't reveal a dark secret from Thor's past that changed
everything (thank christ). He didn't use a reality-altering megaevent to
rearrange the details of his life and present a different sort of hero. He just
turned him mortal, had his dad be an asshole, and had him fight some cyborg
zombie vikings. It's a variation on the approach that Morrison did for Animal
Man, but altered from him as much as he altered it from Moore. A radical change
in circumstances, albeit a new one that left everything before completely
intact. Ellis's approach was rooted in the basic origin of Thor, similar to how
Simonson went back to the origin as well. Where Simonson honed in on the
inscription on Mjolnir, Ellis picked the idea of Thor being made mortal,
banished to Earth by his father to be given a lesson in humility. No separate
identity this time; no (supposedly) loving lesson from Odin. Just sickness and
death, because someone is fucking with the World-Ash. Thor speaks and thinks
like we do, he's withering away, he's dirty and greasy and dying, he fights
through a host of zombies, he see what's being done to the thing that controls
everything, and he's smacked on the head. He's probably dead. That was new.
That was different. That was making a statement.
The key to Beta Ray Bill wasn't the initial shock that he could hold Mjolnir.
If that was all there was to the character, he never would have lasted. That's
a great moment of shock to kick off a run, get attention, and dare readers to
not come back next month. That's a route for a quick one-and-done character,
not someone who has become like a brother to Thor, a trusted ally of Asgard and
some of Marvel's cosmic heroes. No, the key to Beta Ray Bill is the backstory.
The member of an alien race who gave up his life to be altered into the perfect
warrior and protector as his people fled their destroyed world, pursued by an
unending supply of space demons. His only thoughts are of his people, but, when
faced with Thor and Odin, he finds his own sense of honour -- his worthiness --
prevents him from taking Mjolnir, a weapon that could help him better save his
people. He's so noble that he gave up everything for his people -- and is then
so noble that he can't rob a man of his birthright to continue protecting them.
He's been alone in the universe and, now, he's faced with a race of people who
may not be his people, but are a match for who he's become. A warrior race of
honour and nobility... One that sees his internal struggle and manages to give
him both the weapon he needs and maintain his honour by not taking it from
Thor. Beta Ray Bill is so worthy that Odin makes him his very own Mjolnir, a
Stormbreaker. He's not just the first being we've seen lift Mjolnir aside from
Thor and Odin, he's the first being we've seen welcomed into the inner circle of
Odin's family like that. He's basically introduced, fights Thor twice, and is
adopted as a member of the house of Odin. He's a shock, he's a tragic
backstory, and he's a match for Thor...
At the end of "The Anatomy Lesson," (and, as a quick aside, you know
how influential a single comic is when everyone knows its title like that...
there aren't a lot of single issues in the history of American superhero comics
where everyone knows its title; they're more likely to know the issue number
than the story title) we've been given a piece of information that we didn't
know: Swamp Thing was never Alec Holland, it just thought it was. However, that
revelation wasn't the sort where everything falls into place and we all go
"Of course! How was I so blind?" It just raises more questions. If
Swamp Thing is a plant who thought he was human, was it a conscious being
before the accident? Is it a mutated plant? Now that it's killed the old man,
what will it do? Woodrue thinks it's going back to Louisiana. The next three issues
don't necessarily answer these questions beyond what happens next. But, that
works to Moore's advantage. Swamp Thing is supplanted by Woodrue who taps into
the Green, amplifies his powers, and begins to slaughter people, threatening to
kill all of the humans for what they've done to the vegetation of the world.
All the while, Swamp Thing is rooted, deep in a barely conscious state as he
slowly processes what he now knows. Woodrue's disruption is what shocks him
awake and he confronts Woodrue, reminding him that plants need people to
produce the carbon dioxide that they need. He confronts the man who wants to be
a plant no longer the plant who thinks he's a man... We don't know yet exactly
what Swamp Thing is, just that he is Swamp Thing and he is home and he is
happy...
Morrison also gives Animal Man a double, a pre-existing character, B'wanna
Beast. It's a similar idea to what Moore did with the vegetation, except it's
people's treatment of animals at the core here. The experimentation on animals,
the way that the scientist at STAR Labs lies to Animal Man about what
they've been doing (no cure for AIDS here, just biological weapons), and the
eventual confrontation between Animal Man and his twisted double, the Beast
that ends with Animal Man healing him and punching out the scientist. A story
that began with us seeing that Buddy Baker is not a superhero really ends with
him doing a bunch of things that superheroes don't usually do: healing his
enemy, hitting civilians, and generally switching sides to a degree. Swamp
Thing protects the plants; Animal Man will protect animals. Like Swamp Thing,
Animal Man protects by getting the 'bad guy' to back down. Except all the bad
guy here wanted to do was rescue his primate friend from those that
captured, experimented on tortured her, and was in the process
of killing her in order to learn how to kill more. Animal Man learns that his
perspective was wrong and that maybe he needs to learn a lot more. We don't
know what he'll do next, just that he's home with his family and he doesn't
seem exactly sure what he's going to do next...
What makes "Worldengine" so hard to follow for someone who isn't
Ellis is exactly what would have made any of these other three hard to follow
by anyone who wasn't the writer of those first four issues. He upends
everything. (One of the notable changes, though, is that the last time we see
Beta Ray Bill in the story, he's in a coma, possibly already dead.) Thor
spends the second act of the story with the Enchantress, surrendering himself
to her advances, and deciding that he needs to find out what is going on with
the World-Ash, what's trying to kill him, and what he can do to help. They find
a new character, a mad scientist so obsessed with the end of the world and what
would come next that he has taken the World-Ash and used technology to advance
it through Ragnarok in order to cause it to produce the new humans for that
post-apocalyptic world. Except, the world hasn't died by fire and those new
humans were designed for a much different environment and they all die. Thor
forcibly repairs the damage to the World-Ash and he returns back with the
Enchantress, seemingly his old self (at least with his powers). He decides that
he'll remain on Earth, that he only managed to save everything today, because
he thought things through. Where exactly he is at the end of
"Worldengine" is ambiguous. He's with the Enchantress, he's still
Thor, but he's quasi-mortal, he's Earthbound, and... "Worldengine"
ends in a manner that is both a decided new break from what came before, but
also ambiguous on where to go next with numerous unanswered questions.
When you read "The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill," it's not just the plot
that stands out, it's the strong stylistic change. It's Simonson's bulky Thor,
John Workman's lettering (the extra space in word balloons!), the way that Simonson gives
little asides to other Asgardians, and the Surtur teases. These Thor comics
don't read like previous Thor comics. They're nonstop, there's a mixing of new
with hints of Norse legend... it feels like Simonson is pulling the book in two
directions to an extent. And that dual pulling would be a trademark of his run;
he teases Surtur, Loki, the Enchantress's sister, Balder in Hel... he gives us
Beta Ray Bill, ends Donald Blake, has Thor working (briefly) for SHIELD... Odin
takes Thor and Bill up to Hlidskialf to talk over their problem! He mixes it
all together in a way you've never seen before. Even now, there's something
alien and shocking about these pages -- they don't look like what I know Thor
comics to look like, because they're so rooted in Simonson's specific style.
Alan Moore's prose in "The Anatomy Lesson" is what stands out and is
what really fucked over those that followed him, eh? Purple prose -- but with
the purpose of slowly unveiling his big reveal. Purpose prose to create a
certain ambiance, a certain tone. It wasn't just that Swamp Thing was a
superhero book, Moore was positioning it as a horror book, and that required a
bit of a heavier mood to hover in those pages. His prose sucks you in more,
makes you get a little bit more invested in what you're reading, because it
takes a little longer, is a little more descriptive... Later, when the Justice
League shows up, they're treated like something a little alien, a little...
off. Like they don't fit. And they don't save the day at all, because
superheroes aren't exactly effective in horror stories. The 'everything you
thought you knew was wrong' approach wasn't just about Swamp Thing's character
-- it was about the genre of the comic. Sure, it had horror roots (Bernie
Wrightston co-created it!), but it was still a powerful hero figure from DC
Comics... Swamp Thing was a superhero of the monster subsection. After
"The Anatomy Lesson" and the three issues that followed it, it was
clear that it was a horror comic and had always been a horror comic.
The tone is Animal Man's first four issues is... a little muddled, I find. But,
that's good. It suits the book. It has a message and it's strong in presenting
that message about humans being garbage about how they treat other humans and
animals. It's a bit over the top and lacking nuance, but... it's a superhero
comic. It's got a lot of Moore's purple prose for the Beast's parts, but he
represents the horror side of the book. He makes horrible blends of
animals/humans, and is waging a war not unlike Woodrue, except one that's a
little more justified because it's a specific instance of some humans doing
wrong -- not a broad "humans kill plants, so I kill all humans" sort
of take. It's meant to be the inverse of Woodrue and Swamp Thing where
Swamp Thing stops Woodrue by pointing out that he's wrong; here, Animal Man
learns that he's wrong. The tone and style of the book isn't exactly clear yet,
because Animal Man himself isn't clear yet. He doesn't know who he is and what
kind of superhero he's going to be yet. By the end, there's a sense of the
message of the book and points to its eventual direction...
It's hard to miss the stylistic influences upon Ellis in
"Worldengine." There's the Mooresean captions. There's the calling
back to Norse myths (Odin arrives on Hlidskialf when he appears
to Thor in the sky, very similarly to the way he appears at the end of issue
337) while pushing the new like Simonson did. Ellis's
contribution as far as new characters go is Curzon, a British cop in New York.
He's how we get a lot of the Norse myth stuff as he investigates a bunch of
weird shit surrounding the World-Ash. He's a shouty British man who hates
American coffee, likes to smoke, and is forced to do lots of reading about Thor
for his job. While Ellis would deny that he's a stand-in for himself, all he
really does is show up, be shouty Brit, smoke, read about Thor, and get
disappeared at the end of the story, much like Ellis. With Mike Deodato and
Marie Javins's art and Jonathan Babcock's letters, much like Simonson's issues,
this doesn't look like any Thor before or after. Odin is bathed in Norse myth
visual, his dialogue a quais-Rune script... Thor's narrative captions are
casual, the opposite of Moore's purple prose, but that's only because Thor is
known for that faux-Shakespearan speech pattern. So, Ellis uses the technique,
but changes the actual style. Because Ellis doesn't stick around, his stylistic
flourishes don't either. He wasn't there long enough to really make a mark. He
seems poised to turn Thor into a urban superhero of sorts, shifting from one
superhero subgenre to another, but...
Simonson teases the end of the world both with the demons and the slow build
coming of Surtur (DOOM!).
Moore teases the end of the world both with Woodrue killing everyone and
humanity ending it due to their killing too many plants.
Morrison teases the end of the world both with the biological weapon escaping
from STAR Labs and humanity ending it due to killing too many animals.
Ellis shows what it will be like after the world has ended, because a human
uses technology to trick the World-Ash into thinking it happened.
"THOR, HUMILITY IS A LESSON EVEN GODS CAN LEARN. SUCH WAS THE MEANING OF
MJOLNIR'S SPELL WROUGHT LONG AGO. THOUGH THY HAMMER STILL RETAINS SOME LITTLE
ENCHANTMENT, YOU WILL CARRY THE MEMORY OF YOUR COMBAT WITH BILL FOREVER. WE MAY
ALL PROFIT FROM THAT, NO? AS FOR ANOTHER FIGHT WITH BILL... NOT EVEN THE
ALL-WISE KNOWS EVERYTHING, MY SON."
"ALMOST DAWN... A BIRD SPEAKS... BARELY AWAKE... ANOTHER ANSWERS...
SOON... ALL THE BIRDS... ARE TALKING, TELLING... EACH OTHER... THEIR DREAMS...
WHY? WHY DID... I EVER... LEAVE THIS PLACE? I WANT... TO WALK HERE... FOREVER.
I WANT... TO STRUGGLE... WITH THE ALLIGATORS... TURNING OVER... AND OVER... IN
THE MUD... I WANT TO... BE ALIVE... AND GROW... AND RISE UP..."
"SOMEWHERE, THE MONKEYS ARE SCREAMING. AND SCREAMING. AND SCREAMING."
"I required a safe haven from which to decide my future -- our future. I
have gotten close to death for the very first time, and it has chilled me. It
has forced me to think, to reason through crises rather than hitting them.
Inside, a woman I am perhaps coming to love waits for me: something I have
never truly known. Above, my Family has rejected me in an ultimate way. The
rain grows stronger. Dark stormfronts swirl above. There is a shout amid the
thunder."
I have done a poor job of pulling these four works together the way that I
wanted. But, I believe you can see what I was going for. Maybe Ellis was right
and he wasn't a good fit for Thor. I still think that's wrong, but I don't know
how much struggle or discomfort he had when writing "Worldengine." He
wears his influences in an obvious fashion, standing firmly in the shadows of
Simonson and Moore, never escaping either in these four issues. (That all four
of these runs began as four-issue stories is fun, isn't it? Four issues is the
easiest way to to hit that three-act structure with the second act twice as
long as the first and third...) Instead, it wouldn't be for another three, four
years that Ellis would stumble upon a four-issue story that would begin a run
that would help him create his own shadow for others to toil in after him.
"They think there's no one left to save the world."
