The Mighty Thor - At the Gates of Valhalla discussion [spoilers]

[brettc1]

Apologies if this thread already exists.

The art is good.

I like the three Granddaughters.

On the other hand, it appears in the future Thor is still a hopeless drunk a lot of the time, and as All-Father is outsmarted by a trio of teenage girls.

Also the Golden Age of Thor seems to be when Jane had the hammer.

I guess realistically this was always going to be more about Jane than Thor, but I hoped he might have more to do in the story that to be drunk and snore. All in all, I would rather have my money back.

Oh, Malekith is in it too and it being predictably dickish.

P.S. This is open discussion, not an appreciation thread

P.P.S It was nice to see the Thor from the 24th century again. Can't remember his name.

This story also takes place after the God Butcher story.

I think maybe the smart Grand-daughter has one of the new Hammers that Thor is having made in the upcoming series.

[GodThor]

and Jane is their Thor to look up for why???

makes no sense.

seems they are pushing this Jane is the best thing too much.

[brettc1]

and Jane is their Thor to look up for why???

makes no sense.

seems they are pushing this Jane is the best thing too much.

Well, Jane is a girl. Makes sense girls would look to another girl as a role model.

Unfortunately the flip side is if you were these girls and you saw what Old King Thor is reduced to most of the time, you might go looking for alternatives as well.

That being the case, I would have been happier if we had found out that King Thor allowed the girls to think they had tricked him.

[DurararaFTW]

Well, Jane is a girl. Makes sense girls would look to another girl as a role model.

Freya, Sif and Valkyrie have been Asgardian heros for thousands of years before Jane was born and presumably thousands of years afterward she died tho. The few months Jane had the hammer are a miniscule part of Asgardian history. Even Thor's personal history.

[brettc1]

Freya, Sif and Valkyrie have been Asgardian heros for thousands of years before Jane was born and presumably thousands of years afterward she died tho. The few months Jane had the hammer are a miniscule part of Asgardian history. Even Thor's personal history.

None of them lifted the hammer, though.

[brettc1]

I would say one of my biggest complaints about this comic is that the title, "At the Gates of Valhalla", pretty much has NOTHING to do with what is inside. Jane is not dead, and Valhalla is not even seen.

So if you thought you were going to get some greater insight into what happened to Jane during her brief sojourn to the land of fallen heroes - forget it. There is nothing there.

What the title and cover make me think of is the theory that some folks had that Jane was indeed supposed to die, but this was editorially overruled when it was seen how popular a character she had become. The same thing happened in reverse years ago with X-Men #137, when Jim Shooter basically said you can't have Jean Grey obliterate an entire planet of people and then get a happily ever after.

[GodThor]

Well, Jane is a girl. Makes sense girls would look to another girl as a role model.

eh true but still...

Unfortunately the flip side is if you were these girls and you saw what Old King Thor is reduced to most of the time, you might go looking for alternatives as well.

now that made me laugh hard

That being the case, I would have been happier if we had found out that King Thor allowed the girls to think they had tricked him.

I don't think he would allow them to time travel.

Freya, Sif and Valkyrie have been Asgardian heros for thousands of years before Jane was born and presumably thousands of years afterward she died tho. The few months Jane had the hammer are a miniscule part of Asgardian history. Even Thor's personal history.

speaking of which, where are they anyway???

did Gorr killed them???

[brettc1]

now that made me laugh hard

You're welcome

I don't think he would allow them to time travel.

If it's a choice between he's willing to let them time travel OR he's so inept as All-Father that three young girls can drug him and time travel without his knowing, I'd prefer the former

Unfortunately pick any time period that Aaron is writing lately and you are odds on to see... Thor, God of Blunders

[JKtheMac]

I can understand why some might be a bit disappointed by this issue, and I made my own feelings heard on the Mighty Thor appreciation thread, but to suggest Thor is portrayed as a drunk here is a straight up misinterpretation of the story.

[brettc1]

I can understand why some might be a bit disappointed by this issue, and I made my own feelings heard on the Mighty Thor appreciation thread, but to suggest Thor is portrayed as a drunk here is a straight up misinterpretation of the story.

Yeah, he gets drugged. But considering how many times we've seen Thor drowning his sorrows in mead for the last two years, it just part of an ongoing pattern.

[JKtheMac]

Yeah, he gets drugged. But considering how many times we've seen Thor drowning his sorrows in mead for the last two years, it just part of an ongoing pattern.

Um two or three over the last few years and Zero for the older version. Nope not a pattern there.

As to my feelings on the issue:

‘At the Gates of Valhalla’ was a strange beast. When it was solicited it certainly felt like it would be essential reading but it ended up being the combination of an unnecessary epilogue and a prologue to the next major arc, as well as an announcement of a major story down the line which may or may not be an event.

While for people like me that will read most things with Thor in out of general interest, this isn’t too big a problem, but for the casual reader basing their pull-list on what looks essential this is just disingenuous. The cover feels like a marketing lie. It suggests Odinson will play a part in the story as Thor, and it suggested this would be a memorial issue before the last Mighty Thor issue.

There was also a big stylistic difference between the two stories. In the first story, mostly focused on the far future Goddesses of Thunder, Aaron’s dialogue was light and frothy, with optimism over Jane’s future, with an admittedly touching if sentimental ending. It felt like the kind of thing that would have better suited an annual. The second story was dark and foreboding, focusing on Malekith, and tied itself to the first by having a joint setting at the end. This felt like the kind of thing that could have been put into a FCBD issue and was thematically contradicting to the first which results in an undercutting of the overall thrust of the issue.

There is a subtle underlying theme of Jane’s mortality vs her divinity as Thor, which suggests Aaron has not finished with The Goddess of Thunder yet. Both in Odinson’s Granddaughters’ words and in Malekith’s. Interesting but fleeting, and mostly just teasing comments.

[brettc1]

Um two or three over the last few years and Zero for the older version. Nope not a pattern there.

As to my feelings on the issue:

No, Thor drinks a LOT these days. MCU Thor drinks as well but he doesn't get dren-faced like the comics version.

These are just a few examples of his binges. There are more, but it's only three pics per post.

Also, I doubt the girls spiked his spring water.

[JKtheMac]

To clarify, it is the phrase “hopeless drunk a lot of the time” that I have issue with. Fantasy stories and comics in general do portray ‘hopeless dunks’ for comparison and Thor just doesn’t compare to those portrayals at all. We don’t see him with a bottle outside of a tavern, we don’t see him incapable aside from the very first incident, we never see him drink hard liquor, we never see him drunk ‘on duty’, we see him in a tavern not drinking, he once mentions alcohol as something he needs but only after being kidnapped for months. All in all he was portrayed as a drinker. Presumably all of the drinking he did before Jane as Thor didn’t suggest he was a hopeless drunk.

At the very worst you could classify him as a ‘high functioning alcoholic’ but that wouldn’t be true either.

None of this adds up to King Thor having a glass of mead with his evening meal being a drunkard.

[kilderkin]

No, Thor drinks a LOT these days. MCU Thor drinks as well but he doesn't get dren-faced like the comics version.

These are just a few examples of his binges. There are more, but it's only three pics per post.

Also, I doubt the girls spiked his spring water.

Yeah there's been plenty of drinking, avengers one even suggested he had drunk loads with the bar tab comment

not seeing this is nonsense

It's become a go to format to indicate thors state of mind, either on panel, or in text or by inference

[GodThor]

Thor drinking with his friends (Warrior Three, Sif, Hercules) is good to me.

warriors enjoying themselves and all.

getting drunk alone and self loating himself in the process???

not so much.