Mighty Thor #705 *Spoliers*

[theoneandonly]

Sorry you will need to explain what you mean. A standoff between whom?

this will refresh your memory

[JKtheMac]

this will refresh your memory

Ah so you were making a joke / old continuity reference. Sorry my mind went to the most recent ‘standoff’ event and thought, no not a joke must be something else. Probably magnified by the fact I didn’t give that older Standoff much of my time and haven’t ever revisited it.

[JKtheMac]

Let me try to explain it this way: Given how Aaron recon how Thor Hammer's' was made and how Odin kept it a secret for so long makes one think that given its power and what it did to Jane...Thor wouldn't want that to happen to anyone else. That is my guess on why he's on a Hammer quest in the aftermath of this to destroy the hammers in order for something like Jane to never happen again.

Plus how his father has been acting and how he treated Jane in the past...I mean one would say that NO GOD in Asgard is worthy for Humanity aid in them and Thor would turn his back on his family for how they turned their back on Jane.

Yes I think I got there in the end. I just don’t think this is how the story is being written. Sure there may still be some differences of opinion unresolved but I don’t expect Thor to act petulantly. The whole point of the story is that no god was worthy, Aaron’s plan to resolve this was to have a mortal wield the hammer and show them how to be worthy. I doubt that message will just be discarded after all these months of work. We will at least get some reflection and reconciliation now.

Exactly how the reconciliation progresses will partly be down to whether Freyja and Odin can see eye to eye. We are still in a war, so something has to happen to break that deadlock. As the second issue doesn’t even mention hammers there is a possibility that story isnt as important as everyone seems to think.

[JKtheMac]

You don't seem to understand... yes, Thor Odinson is going to be fully committed to worthiness by virtue of being responsive to the 'prayers' of all 'worshippers', i.e., providing aid and comfort when called upon. No argument there. And certainly, he will try to persuade the rest of the Asgardians to follow this path as well. However, given how Aaron has written Odin thus far, I see little likelihood that he will be convinced that this is the lesson to take from the late lamented Mighty Thor, and while Freyja/Frigga might see its wisdom, right now his word still seems to be taken as law by the majority of Thor's people. Therefore, he may be presented with a choice of loyalties, in which case he will choose the mortals over the (recalcitrant) Asgardians.

The alternative to this turn of events would be Odin having a massive change of heart that Aaron would have to do some really fancy writing to get me to buy into.

Your extrapolation is entirely backwards looking. Let’s wait and see, but I am very confident that we are moving into a ‘rebuilding’ phase. Rebuilding Asgard, rebuilding relationships and rebuilding the way divinity works in the MU.

I would imagine Aaron sees an end point to his story soon. His overall narrative arc is just beginning to level out for a turn back. I give Aaron around a year and imagine he will move on. You can feel it in how the arcs are working out and how the war is central to his plans.

The Odin situation will be relatively easy to resolve. Stop Cul being so influential in the political situation. As soon as Odin has time to ponder and talk to Freyja rationally I expect things to fall into place quite quickly. It’s either that or a total split in Asgard which I don’t see happening. Funerals are times for reflection. We may see movement on this quite soon.

The rest of your points are so completely anathema to my way of thinking we would only end up arguing about the premise of Aaron’s worthiness story all over again. This isn’t the place for that. You are either onboard with Aaron’s take on worthiness or you are not. If you resist that essential premise you end up getting tied up in knots with assumptions based on your own perspective not Aaron’s. He very clearly sees the worthiness issue of Thor as a self reflection. Thor’s unworthiness is not related to what he has done or not done. I started a whole thread about that to keep it out of this kind of thread.

Put it this way. Aaron could have told a story about Thor Odinson teaching the gods how to be worthy but he very early on latched onto the idea of having a mortal lift the hammer. That necessitated Thor Odinson not being worthy despite him being the most worthy. So he used psychology on him. He took Odinson off of the board by creating an existential crisis and a crisis of faith. That makes him unfit to face Mangog. Arguing that doesn’t work is just saying ‘I don’t like this book’, nothing more.

[theoneandonly]

Ah so you were making a joke / old continuity reference. Sorry my mind went to the most recent ¡®standoff¡¯ event and thought, no not a joke must be something else. Probably magnified by the fact I didn¡¯t give that older Standoff much of my time and haven¡¯t ever revisited it.

gee I thought you would have been all for it given it was another deconstruction of gods story. kidding :d

[JKtheMac]

gee I thought you would have been all for it given it was another deconstruction of gods story. kidding :d

It’s not that it wasn’t valid or interesting, it just wasn’t my thing. Combined with the fact that this is in the period I wasn’t reading any Marvel comics at all. Playing catch-up for what I had missed of Thor necessitated me not really taking the time to find things to appreciate in something I wasn’t enjoying that much. I still haven’t really read the non Thor Standoff material, so I am not sure I really got the point. I am guessing you wouldn’t recommend it?

<Actually I just checked the synopsis and I did read the other parts. Clearly they had a big impact on me!>

I had similar issues with Jurgens in general, not just this story. I kept putting it down and reading other things, even restarting it twice before I finally got into it. My general perspective is not to read something I am not enjoying, but that wasn’t an option for Thor because I really wanted to know what I had missed. If modern Thor (JMS and then Gillen at that time) hadn’t been so good I probably wouldn’t have bothered to catch-up.

An awful lot of my catch-up reading more generally has only convinced me I was right to step away from comics for a couple of decades. This current era is surprisingly good. Most things from about 1988-2010 were not to my taste. Jurgens Thor now sits in my mind as a worthy attempt but with some considerable flaws. I liked some of it. I liked his exploring of the christian parallels for example.

[DurararaFTW]

The Odin situation will be relatively easy to resolve. Stop Cul being so influential in the political situation. As soon as Odin has time to ponder and talk to Freyja rationally I expect things to fall into place quite quickly. It’s either that or a total split in Asgard which I don’t see happening. Funerals are times for reflection. We may see movement on this quite soon.

Odin has had time to ponder and talk to Freyja rationally this whole time. Nothing has changed on that front.

[Cmbmool]

Yes I think I got there in the end. I just don’t think this is how the story is being written. Sure there may still be some differences of opinion unresolved but I don’t expect Thor to act petulantly. The whole point of the story is that no god was worthy, Aaron’s plan to resolve this was to have a mortal wield the hammer and show them how to be worthy. I doubt that message will just be discarded after all these months of work. We will at least get some reflection and reconciliation now.

Exactly how the reconciliation progresses will partly be down to whether Freyja and Odin can see eye to eye. We are still in a war, so something has to happen to break that deadlock. As the second issue doesn’t even mention hammers there is a possibility that story isnt as important as everyone seems to think.

If that was the message that Aaron was trying to show us, then it got lost in translation given how he made Thor and the others Marvel heroes and villains look in the process of showing off Jane Thor.

[Kaled]

Eric Masterson and now Jane Foster. Does it seem if you are not alien (Beta Ray Bill) you will die if you have/had the power of Thor. I know the Once and Future Thor is human but he has not been seen since the Thor Corps mini-series and since it is set in the future he might already be dead.

[WaxHawk]

Put it this way. Aaron could have told a story about Thor Odinson teaching the gods how to be worthy but he very early on latched onto the idea of having a mortal lift the hammer. That necessitated Thor Odinson not being worthy despite him being the most worthy. So he used psychology on him. He took Odinson off of the board by creating an existential crisis and a crisis of faith. That makes him unfit to face Mangog. Arguing that doesn’t work is just saying ‘I don’t like this book’, nothing more.

I think this sums up why some long-term fans either enjoy this or they don't. In lots of ways the presence of Odinson (and for that matter Odin) are unnecessary, or they get in the way, so Aaron had to come up with ways to side line those characters. Yet this is very much a Thor story as it relies on, and is about, Thor's themes and mythos.

I can't say I was as happy about this issue as I wanted to be. I was hoping that Mangogs defeat would be more directly related to the theme of worthiness. Yes, I know Mangog and Thor talked about it as they were fighting but essentially it came down to controlling Mjolnir (I know this symbolizes worthiness but I was hoping for something more direct. I doubt I am making myself clear here).

And, for the record, there is no way that Mjolnir is 'dead'. I think it wasn't a good option to have Odinson utter that line. I guess it is meant to try and trick the readers into thinking it is so but even some one as little read as me knows that Mjolnir can survive in the Sun. I also doubt that it has killed Mangog, it is just holding him there. I can forsee a time when Odinson is ready to pick up Mjolnir again that he is also ready to defeat Mangog properly. But I am not going to hold my breath on it.

Oh and I don't see any evidence for Odinson and Odin reconciling. I actually think this is more likely to drive them further apart (if anything). Also we were told just before Thor returned from the future that he never ended up seeing eye to eye with Odin (I am paraphrasing). It was the same issue we were told what makes Thor worthy (he strives to be and isn't sure he will be). This is completely different to what made Jane worthy (she is willing to sacrifice herself) as we were explicitly told at the end of the Mjolnir origin issue.

[JKtheMac]

Odin has had time to ponder and talk to Freyja rationally this whole time. Nothing has changed on that front.

No he categorically hasn’t. Freyja had just woken up as Mangog arrived.

[JKtheMac]

If that was the message that Aaron was trying to show us, then it got lost in translation given how he made Thor and the others Marvel heroes and villains look in the process of showing off Jane Thor.

No, perhaps I wasn’t being clear. I am not suggesting this issue is supposed to be expressing this, I am saying from my reading of the narrative arc, which is something I feel not intuit, this will happen next. It’s a gut feeling based on how I perceive the direction and flow of the story, not a theme being applied or something I can point to as evidence.

[JKtheMac]

I think this sums up why some long-term fans either enjoy this or they don't. In lots of ways the presence of Odinson (and for that matter Odin) are unnecessary, or they get in the way, so Aaron had to come up with ways to side line those characters. Yet this is very much a Thor story as it relies on, and is about, Thor's themes and mythos.

Yes I totally agree, and I have always been genuine when I have expressed my sympathy for those that require their favourite heroes front and centre in the books, even amidst my frustrations with the more strident dismissals. When I have expressed not being able to understand why some find this so challenging when it seems to me a love letter to Thor, that only reflects the fact that other people's views are not always easy to understand.

I can't say I was as happy about this issue as I wanted to be. I was hoping that Mangogs defeat would be more directly related to the theme of worthiness.

I don't think the issue is seeking to resolve the worthiness issue, just point the way. Only Odinson can resolve this for himself, and this may act as a pointer but he won't suddenly 'see the light'. Here in these issue discussions we have been way ahead of the story in this regard. Speculating on Jane's mortality being a key to her defeating Mangog. But Aaron needed the space to get there before he can start to build upon that as an idea that can take us to the next chapter of Thor. Indeed her mortality was only a key in that it allowed Mjolnir to be brought into play and made Thor perhaps a little less vulnerable. I didn't get the impression that Mangog couldn't have killed Thor.

And, for the record, there is no way that Mjolnir is 'dead'.

I just think it is important to not let our genre expectations get mixed up with character expectations. As I have said elsewhere, it is entirely feasible that an object forged in a star could be melted by a star. We have not seen it stay deep inside a star for months on end and as such we don't know what will happen outside of our comic knowledge that this is unlikely to be the end of its story.

[brettc1]

Well I was partly right, which is all I should expect in a good story...

But again, you are making an interpretation based on the evidence you see. Fair enough, but even if all you say is true the story is not yet complete and Aaron wouldn't be the first author in the history of the world to pull a bait and switch.

What I have noticed is that Aaron and indeed all of Marvel have been VERY pendantic about not showing "Thor" without her helmet. My own prediction is that in this last act we will finally see it come off, probably shattered in the battle with Mangog, and that under it it's Jane's face.

She removed the helmet herself, but it was indeed Jane's face as seen last issue - just with blond hair and blue eyes.

[DurararaFTW]

No he categorically hasn’t. Freyja had just woken up as Mangog arrived.

He had time to talk to Freyja rationally before and after her coma, he didn't, he had time to ponder before and during her coma, he did't (or at least not with the results you seem to think this would automatically entail). What would make him do either now?