Thor Odinson, God of Thunder Appreciation 2019

[myownlittleusername]

I actually had to put issue 28 down after the apple pie scene, it just came across as very poorly written and crass, I couldn't read the issu in more than a couple of page chunks, it was genuinely difficult

It really felt like the worst characterisation of Thor, cap, and the three heralds I've ever really read

It on its own might be the worst scripting in any book I've read this year

Almost painful

I felt

And yet you are still reading it at issue #28?

Seems like he must be doing something right to keep to you following along all this time.

[kilderkin]

One is more valid, precisely because they are in the market for it. Investment in a product suggests that they have a literal vested interest. If someone has already decided that it isn’t worth their money years previously then it is hardly surprising that they may be nonplussed by the ending. Their critique is not really adding to anything because they have already decided it isn’t worth anything.

If one is not giving it money one is probably far less likely to give it the required attention to actually get the full value from it. Why invest time and effort in an already dismissed and discounted product?

There is a lot going on in King Thor. The ending of a multilayered and multifaceted story that has been running for years. Those of us that have invested the time and indeed money in that seem pleased. We are the only market that Marvel care about.

Valid perhaps

But I never mentioned that, I said more correct, they are not the same thing

I again stand by my point

Money does not buy validity

If someone borrows a book, or is gifted it etc they can just as readily feel as deeply about it, they might not be able to afford a book, it doesn't make them a less valuable person

Wealth does not dictate validity, or a person's views worth

Frankly I'm rather amazed that you or anyone would think it does, in many ways I'm rather disappointed

[kilderkin]

And yet you are still reading it at issue #28?

Seems like he must be doing something right to keep to you following along all this time.

I was talking about this individual issue,which I felt was a hugely significant drop in writing, in the past there's been some terrible writing of say Thor, and Jen and Tony, but I liked Robbie and blade imo

This issue really jumped the shark all round for me

I dropped it off my pull list a few issues back, the idea of not buying the avengers feels almost painful, bit you've convinced me to drop it, thanks for the crystallization

[Wall-Crawler]

Clearly I wasn’t because I was responding to someone else. But I was indeed commenting also on the large number of people who complain about things they are proud not to have purchased on these boards, and you seem to be self identifying so maybe I was indirectly.

Umm no, you actually replied to me and quoted me, then proceeded to say "For anyone who has actually read his run or more to the point actually has invested in it (ie paid to read it) it pays off well. Especially #3 for me" without knowing if I bought the issues or not.

Like I said, I bought and own all the issues from GOT, already bought and read King Thor #1 & #2 and tomorrow will buy #3 &#4.

Either way, it's not like my opinion is not valid if I did not buy the issues.

[Wall-Crawler]

And yet you are still reading it at issue #28?

Seems like he must be doing something right to keep to you following along all this time.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll reply and explain my case, one I'm sure A LOT of people do the same.

I keep reading it merely because it's an Avengers book, regardless of it being good or bad I will continue to read future titles if only for knowing what's currently happening continuity-wise.

There are a number of books that I will always keep reading even if they're bad just to keep in the loop, such is the case of Spider-Man, Thor, Avengers, Iron Man, Cap, Wolverine and others.

[kilderkin]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll reply and explain my case, one I'm sure A LOT of people do the same.

I keep reading it merely because it's an Avengers book, regardless of it being good or bad I will continue to read future titles if only for knowing what's currently happening continuity-wise.

There are a number of books that I will always keep reading even if they're bad just to keep in the loop, such is the case of Spider-Man, Thor, Avengers, Iron Man, Cap, Wolverine and others.

Yep I totally get this

Much to my wallets regret at times

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll reply and explain my case, one I'm sure A LOT of people do the same.

I keep reading it merely because it's an Avengers book, regardless of it being good or bad I will continue to read future titles if only for knowing what's currently happening continuity-wise.

There are a number of books that I will always keep reading even if they're bad just to keep in the loop, such is the case of Spider-Man, Thor, Avengers, Iron Man, Cap, Wolverine and others.

Same here. I will always support Thor, Silver Surfer, Nova, Thanos and GOTG comics regardless of their quality. Even when it was painful to go through Bendis' drek. Marvel Cosmic must be kept alive.

Btw, i think Aaron is the spiritual successor of Bendis, as both make continuity mistakes to make their stories work and they write teams and powerful fantasy characters all with either the same voice or with the voice of a street level hard boiled vigilante with a potty mouth. His Thor and Odin wouldn't feel out of place in a gritty HBO police show.

[Wall-Crawler]

Same here. I will always support Thor, Silver Surfer, Nova, Thanos and GOTG comics regardless of their quality. Even when it was painful to go through Bendis' drek. Marvel Cosmic must be kept alive.

Btw, i think Aaron is the spiritual successor of Bendis, as both make continuity mistakes to make their stories work and they write teams and powerful fantasy characters all with either the same voice or with the voice of a street level hard boiled vigilante with a potty mouth. His Thor and Odin wouldn't feel out of place in a gritty HBO police show.

I only ever read the first 10 issues of Bendis' GOTG and dropped it.

Was he really that bad on the title ? What did he do ?

Also, what did you think about Duggan's run ? And Donny Cates' run ?

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I only ever read the first 10 issues of Bendis' GOTG and dropped it.

Was he really that bad on the title ? What did he do ?

Also, what did you think about Duggan's run ? And Donny Cates' run ?

I have already wrote my thoughts in the thread ''Why i hated Bendis Guardians of the Galaxy''

Trust me, Bendis' run on the guardians in one of the worst comic runs i've ever read.


I will say that I have not read the post-Secret Wars issues at all, but I've read all of the Marvel NOW! series, as well as all the Annihilation and original Guardians of the Galaxy related books, and I can tell you that my biggest problem with the series is two-fold, though both items are closely related. That is, I think Bendis' Guardians of the Galaxy suffers from a total lack of conflict. This lack of conflict means the book feels inconsequential.

In the series, the Guardians are allegedly guarding Earth from threats (despite Earth having a truckload of heroes already), and it seems like instead, aside from utterly failing to notice Thanos coming during Infinity and helping out SWORD during that crossover, they spend most of their time simply recruiting new members who Bendis inevitably does nothing with (Iron Man, Angela, and Captain Marvel being notable examples, with Agent Venom showing up just long enough for them all to get kidnapped in the most interesting part of the whole run, but one that doesn't resolve the second part of my complaint). Sure, the original run added tons of characters left and right, but they were always added in order to resolve a particularly story beat, like Jack Flag with Star-Lord in the Negative Zone, or Moon Dragon and... all that stuff that happens with her. In Bendis' GotG, Captain Marvel joins for literally no reason except he wanted her on his team, for example.


Finally, the new Guardians have no agency on their own. Almost all of Bendis' Guardians stories have the team sitting on a ship and something terrible happens and they have to go fix it. There is no agency on the part of any of the characters, and none of the cast WANT anything. Every character needs to have some reason to be there, and none of them do anymore. As such, the stories feel flat and, again, pointless. The teenage X-Men are more heroic and have more agency in the crossover issues than the Guardians do, which is sad, because they're, well, kids.

There's no character growth, no plot in 4 years just random unexplained changes to any of the changes in character personalities.

1) Drax is suddenly turned from brooding space Kratos to dumbass with knives.

2) Rocket Tuns from tactically ingenious blue collar weisenheimer into a blood thirsty blood-knight howling for murder at every turn. (Blam murdered you!)

3) Gamora becomes the woman in distress who needs to be saved every once in awhile instead of being one of the greatest martial artists and assassins in the known universe.

4) Star-lord turns into a falstaffian man-child pirate from Sarcastic and remorseful space cop.

5) Thanos is turned from a morally ambiguous magnificent bastard schemer and philosopher into a foolish saturday morning cartoon villain who gets wrecked by street level characters and mid tier characters.

6) Groot is probably the only who hasn't been changed much, and that's only because Bendis had no idea what to really do with him. Well except that he gets destroyed like ALL THE TIME!


Finally, after nearly four years, Bendis and Marvel had no choice but to address what went on in the cancerverse with the Original Sin tie-in. Yet, in many ways, the damage of letting the topic slide had already been done. As it hit in the summer of 2014, the explanation turned out the pinnacle of suckitude of this run, especially when Bendis had claimed he had a “great” and long planned story in mind from the moment he began to work on the characters. (tell me lies tell me sweet little lies)

Truthfully, many aspects of this three issue arc did not even line up with the Avengers Assembled arc Bendis had already done. Further, the story did not even line up within itself either. Leaving aside the preposterous lazy notion that Nova (Richard Rider)’s arm could just be sliced off when he had energy shielding capable of protecting him from near limitless damage at super luminal speeds, Richard Rider was shown to die in a place where Bendis already said (and showed) you couldn’t die. Personally, I didn’t need a masterèiece of writing, but something that made a lick of sense would have been nice.

Even more mind-baffling, the three issue comic was severely decompressed, featured numerous spelling and grammar mistakes (Including spelling Richard Rider’s name wrong, like Ryder instead of Rider, and some cases two different ways in the same issue) i felt life the comic wasn’t even edited. Certainly the poor, disjointed quality of the arc contrasted with Bendis early claims that he had done “significant research” (AH!) on the character prior to taking ahold of GOTG.

The worse part of this arc was that the years of friendship and partnership between Peter Quill and Richard Rider was just ended so abruptly and devoid of emotion. Richard Rider was dug up just to throw dirt on his three year old dead body. As the story went on, there was nothing lasting or mysterious about the reveals and answers….the arc was just bad, ill-researched and nonsensical.


Yet, Bendis subsequent writing made matters worse. Not averse to showing thought bubbles in his comics, Bendis gave no lasting reason or noticeable imprint of Richard Rider’s death/ legacy in Peter Quill’s actions or thoughts. In fact, Quill hardly would even mention Rider, or think of him ever again.

To date, I don’t recall Quill ever interacted with the new Nova, Sam Alexander. Again, that makes little sense to me.

Long gone was any sort of notion he was still troubled by the 350k people he had sacrificed to stop a rogue herald of Galactus, the death and dismemberment of his close companion or perhaps even the months and hopeless months of gritty intergalactic war against Annihilus and Ultron.

Nope, this Quill was cool with all that noise. Without the friendship of Rider or his old realistic motivations, the character became a silly gag character who more often made fun of the old model than embraced what had been mysterious and complex about the old Quill. Additionally, with his “daddy issues” as a newfound chief motivation, Quill seemed rather banal and off, especially considering where the character had been. Even worse, Bendis never constructed a logical bridge to show readers how any of the changes got from a point A to point B.

I'm not saying the GOTG has to be a gritty and violent military science fiction like Warhammer 40,000 or having Jim Starlin's brand of trippy existenzialism to be good, but they need an author who cares about continuity and knows how to write space operas. Thankfully i think the GOTG are in decent hands with Donny Cates.

[Immortal Hulk]

So, one more to lift Mjolnir?! LOL.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/12...mjolnir-canon/

[Overhazard]

I only ever read the first 10 issues of Bendis' GOTG and dropped it.

Was he really that bad on the title ? What did he do ?

Also, what did you think about Duggan's run ? And Donny Cates' run ?

Bendis' run on Guardians was a directionless mess that had really great art and movie hype behind it. The same for his X-men run. He's currently writing the Legion of Superheroes for DC. Much to my chagrin.

[GodThor]

So, one more to lift Mjolnir?! LOL.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/12...mjolnir-canon/

wut!?

seems everyone can lift that hammer this days...

[The Cool Thatguy]

So, one more to lift Mjolnir?! LOL.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/12...mjolnir-canon/

Ya know, even in the 90s, people knew not to take covers on face value.

[kilderkin]

wut!?

seems everyone can lift that hammer this days...

Who really cares anymore

It used to be something special, now it's used as a joke (eg current avengers run), it's really no big deal with the way Thor and mjolnir have been written for years imo

They will keep trying to push cm to a position as their superman analogue especially with MCU next phase, I can understand that

But until cm sells consistent big numbers for an extended run (if marvel let's anyone have a long run these days), I would question if it will really work

And in all honesty, as with so much in life, the more you push, the more things push back

Since Thor is allfather now, if I were him, I'd definitely get that enchantment sorted out, no more lending his powers, I'd be getting it name tagged and family blood lined only at the most

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Ya know, even in the 90s, people knew not to take covers on face value.

Superdickery taught us not to trust Silver Age covers for instance.