Thor Odinson: God of Thunder Appreciation 2020

[Ichijinijisanji]

I doubt it. Thor hasn't done anything with the Odin Force he supposedly wields right now. Makes you wonder why they even bothered. Not sure if the power cosmic can be used in such a manner.

On paper? Probably.

well he beat beta ray bill with it

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Of course Thor gets possessed in Valkyrie so that we can have the excuse of him being a "bad guy" and now we wait for the explanation as to how or why Jane will beat/save him...

Also one weird thing, the Thor in Valkyrie is still the pre-Cates design yet in the covers it's the current design, deceptive marketing. I guess anything just to sell more copies of the dying Valkyrie comic.

That's Aaron's last ditch effort to show that his pet Jane Foster is more awesome than Thor and give his detractors one last middle finger.

The pettiness levels are through the roof.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

well he beat beta ray bill with it

The Odinforce used to be capable of reality warping and wrestle with cosmic entities.

Thor can pimp slap Bill even without it or the Power Cosmic.

[GodThor]

LoL I knew Thor will get corrupted.

now we will see Aaron's Valkyrie would give Thor a run for his money in all of it's glory.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

LoL I knew Thor will get corrupted.

no we will see Aaron's Valkyrie would give Thor a run for his money in all of it's glory.

And everyone will see that Aaron's waifu is the most awesome and unstoppable character since pre-crisis Superman. I can almost hear JKtheMac giggling with smugness.

[Ichijinijisanji]

Thor can pimp slap Bill even without it or the Power Cosmic.

i was talking about the ease
unless i miss something i thought they were close with an edge to thor except in cases where he goes under warrior madness like in thor 461

[Intothevoid]

And everyone will see that Aaron's waifu is the most awesome and unstoppable character since pre-crisis Superman. I can almost hear JKtheMac giggling with smugness.

Meh their satisfaction wont last long, issue 6 of Valkyrie sold 20 000 copies, i expect 7 and 8 will have sold around the same if not less. Which means they will soon be switching artist since there is no way they can afford this artwork and will soon be nearing cancellation, of course they will re-launch it because just with Captain Marvel they can't have a female character that will be featured in the MCU not be able to hold her own book, that would be unthinkable.

[Frontier]

Of course Thor gets possessed in Valkyrie so that we can have the excuse of him being a "bad guy" and now we wait for the explanation as to how or why Jane will beat/save him...

Also one weird thing, the Thor in Valkyrie is still the pre-Cates design yet in the covers it's the current design, deceptive marketing. I guess anything just to sell more copies of the dying Valkyrie comic.

I'm not surprised they'd use Aaron's design in an Aaron book.

[Intothevoid]

I'm not surprised they'd use Aaron's design in an Aaron book.

I mean they are not using it on the covers, which makes it confusing because the covers suggest this takes place after Cates took over, but the interiors present it as it happening prior to that.

The design alone is not the issue though, i follow Immortal Hulk and he appears in various comics that have very different designs of him sometimes compared to Bennet who focuses on this very ugly, demon/monster like depiction, but at the end of the day that's all just pure aesthetics and different artist having different interpretation. Thors appearance isn't just an aesthetics thing but he is no longer missing 1 eye, he is no longer missing one arm and using the destroyer one, his beard is gone and hair is longer, he has power cosmic crackle all around him, etc..

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I'm not surprised they'd use Aaron's design in an Aaron book.

Can't wait to see Fernando Comics reaction.

[tliscord]

I'm not surprised they'd use Aaron's design in an Aaron book.

Just as a total non sequitur to whatever, I fell in love with this panel .... no matter what you think of Jason Aaron and his Thor, I’m a slave to this ...
9DAB05E0-4C63-42B6-9858-BE3945FFEA6B.jpg

Golden Age of Craft beer indeed. As much as I revere ol’ Nick Fury, I’m sure he’d choke on any notion of craft beer. You think He’s a a Milwaukee guy or did his time in Germany during the big one leave him with a thirst for the ale of Deutschland

[Wall-Crawler]

When is the Valkyrie issue where she fights Thor coming out ?

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Just as a total non sequitur to whatever, I fell in love with this panel .... no matter what you think of Jason Aaron and his Thor, I’m a slave to this ...
9DAB05E0-4C63-42B6-9858-BE3945FFEA6B.jpg

Golden Age of Craft beer indeed. As much as I revere ol’ Nick Fury, I’m sure he’d choke on any notion of craft beer. You think He’s a a Milwaukee guy or did his time in Germany during the big one leave him with a thirst for the ale of Deutschland

Not sure if serious or sarcastic.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

INCOMING WALL OF TEXT. I'm Sorry!


His normal state is with the OF now sooo.. still not a fair fight. Repelling Galactus, ehhh.. I'm gonna chalk it up to Galactus being weak and not wanting to expend too much power to battle an Unruly All-father/herald. We know Odin was a match for big G and knowing the threat posed before them I can't see big G being a dumbo and expending too much power to fight Thor here because if he misses, then Thor can injure him. The relationship between them is very strained. Galactus needs Thor and Thor needs Galactus but Galactus knows who Thor is, deep within. It won't take much prodding to make Thor turn against him more than he has.

Also, perhaps Thor is trying his hand at some Odin-level scheming? What if he later intends to take enough of Galactus' power and end the threat himself? Just a Theory.

About the fight vs BRB. I think here we see Thor's Hubris come back some. The thing he learned to control. His pride and arrogance. Yes he has learned humility but it's his MAIN CHARACTER FLAW. He shouldn't ever conquer it completely. Especially now, he's the king of Asgard. He does not answer to those who are beneath him. He does not NEED to give an explanation. Or at least that's what Thor thinks I'd wager. But he is making efforts to stop fighting, he's trying to plead to BRB to trust him but I think Thor knows BRB too well. An explanation wouldn't stop Bill, because if the roles were reversed, an explanation would not stop Thor. To Bill Thor is just crossing lines and rationalizing it. From Thor's perspective he is a king now, he has to make concessions on his morals for the better of all, not just himself. He's following in Odin's footsteps in a way. He is still worthy though, he can still call any hammer to him when Bill tests him on it.

This trope has been used narratively a lot. Think about it. The Noble Hero has taken his father, the King's place and realizes that the world is not just black and white. He is then faced with a threat to which there are either one or several solutions. The number of solutions are not really important, what does matter though is that ALL the solutions are imperfect. Now he must make a choice and live with it.

Then along comes a character from the Hero's past to confront the Hero and asks "What have you done? Look at you! You are evil now!"
To which the Hero says "Who are you to judge me?" (And this is where we are now in the story). Those who say that the story hasn't progressed in two issues I don't agree with.

From here the story can take a few turns. Usually when this story plays out, the Protagonist is the confronting character and his "enemy" is the antagonist who rationalizes his actions, doing evil to reach good. But there's plenty of times when the opposite is true, as in this story. I'll wait and see if I like what Cates is gonna do but so far, he's at least captured my imagination in a way Aaron never did. Aaron was all deconstruction and question posing with no payoff and not consistency. At least here I can SEE what questions are being asked.

Cates did say that this would make Thor learn why it's harder to lift his hammer. For better of worse, Aaron made Mjolnir into a "Worthy Meter" and not a "Yes/No/Yesbutonlysometimes" hammer and Cates is using that. I think Cates is trying to define this but he's doing a MUCH better job at it than Aaron. Instead of self-doubt due to being a deity (and because the solarsystem-destroying storm in the hammer thinks penises and beards are evil) makes you unworthy. Here it's instead. "Making choices that are morally grey and taking incremental steps toward doing "evil" for good reasons is what makes you Unworthy.

Anyway, what I'm seeing from Thor here is that he's been shown a threat, he has the only realistic solution available but he had to make a devil's bargain. Then BRB and Sif shows up and gets in his face about it saying "What you are doing is wrong". Easy for them to say at least he is doing something. And then he's forced to fight Bill.

Now flip it. Thor knows that if he doesn't put BRB out of commission here (at least until his quest is over and the threat dealt with or permanently if Thor thinks it's -that- bad) Bill will come back and hunt Galactus and fight him. Bill won't give up. Which will expend strength from Galactus and slow them down which might end everything.

Now end rant from this issue and onto the previews.

From what I've seen what Thor doing to Sif. I feel that, yes, smacking her with Mjolnir is probably not the nicest thing BUT she is kind of committing treason. Thor cannot afford to show leniency here. She is acting against her King even if WE think Thor's being a jerk and would rather he didn't do that he's pretty justified in his action. He does not want to do this, the Black Winter is coming. He became Galactus' herald to stop this threat and to his knowledge, this is the only way. BRB show up and tries to attack Galactus (and if he weakens him too much he'll doom the universe) so Thor beats him up (something he doesn't want too). Then Sif intervenes because lets face it, Thor's a jerk here but she's still acting as if Thor is Thor, Prince of Asgard and warrior hero and her friend/lover/etc. But he's not, he's her king. So she protects Bill and decides to fight Thor. Of course she's in the right here because Thor is about to crush the face of his best friend/brother and also her friend.

But when Sif shows up and helps Bill, she's in addition to committing treason, she's also making it harder for Thor to save the universe. It's also noteworthy that Sif only showed up to protect Bill, not when Thor wrecked a planet. Sif was onboard with that, it was him potentially hurting/killing Bill she objected to. We know Sif and Bill's got a relationship, I've thought about how it might have been that Sif and Bill's had "Dalliances". I hope it's not the case but I can see that making Thor -really- angry on a personal level. Now I'm not giving Thor a total Carte Blanche here, there MIGHT be ways he could've handled this better but diplomacy was never Thor's best skill unless it was The Greataxe kind. He wouldn't waste time trying to do something he's not good at when the stakes are this high.

--------------------------------------
Huff... Puff.. Damn, I feel like I'm pretending to be JKThemac. I don't wanna defend Cates too much here, but from my perspective which I'm glad if people challenge and disprove. What's happening is pretty narratively sound. It's different from Aaron and in my opinion better because when I read what Cates has written, I at least FEEL I can understand and elaborate the story to be consistent. Even if Cates didn't think even 10% as hard/deep about what he's written as I've done atleast what he's created makes "sense" to me and he at least wants to spin a story about how being a king and being a hero changes you. How viewing the world from the Throne is very different than from standing at the foot and looking up and around. It's a story that they did in Ragnarok/IFwar/Endgame but I hope we see a different conclusion than you can't be both king and the hero that the movie made.

This ''morally grey choices with steps towards evil'' reminds me of BioWare RPGs. Or D&D paladins losing their powers if they do something bad.

Good comparison.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Finally
As an example on what I mean about not "getting Aaron" I'll pose this. Aaron posed that he wanted to explore worthiness and what it meant to be Thor buuuuut.
1. Odin put that enchantment on Mjolnir to keep Thor modest and humble.

2. Gorr, a militant Atheist, thought all gods were unworthy of..... worship? Power? being called gods? Existing?

3. Thor fights Gorr and hears this, he feels a nagging suspicion that it might be true but it doesn't affect his opinion about himself.

4. Thor fights Nick Fury Sr., who says "I hope this makes you a better man." Paraphrased. Then whispers in Thor's ear "Gorr was right" and INSTANTLY Thor's not worthy.

5. Thor becomes depressed, consumed by the feelings of inadequacy. Jane picks up the hammer and is Worthy because there has to be a Thor.

6. Going with the whole Storm-in-hammer/Sentient mjolnir controlling who is worthy then it means that. Mjolnir/Motherstorm listened to Gorr and was on the fence because Thor still thought himself worthy, but when Nick Fury made Thor doubt himself, the Storm was suddenly on team Gorr. Worthyness to possess the power of Thor is determined by the hammer.

7. But Thor is then seen struggling to become Worthy of Mjolnir again, to again possess the powers of Thor. It's shown that it's not a binary Worthy/not worthy, it's a meter. If you are 1% worthy you can maybe lift the hammer off the ground or something. If you're 100% Worthy like Jane was, then the hammer will fight for you, it will create illusions or take your human form. It will talk to you.

8. So Thor is gone (in old Asgard) but when he comes back and finds that he's unworthy of Mjolnir. After the initial depressed sulking, when he wants to become worthy again, he doesn't look to the new Thor and try to emulate her. Instead he wants to know who she is. Meanwhile, Jane is basically doing Thor things. In Aaron's own words, she's not JanThor she's THOR. Ok.. So if She's worthy but her characterization is "Thor" just with some more feminist quips here and there then why was Thor unworthy? Because he thought he was? Because Jane is a human but has the same qualities as Thor? Because the Hammer says so?

9. We don't see any revelations from Thor Odinsson. He doesn't figure out what makes the hammer think you are worthy. At the end of the fight vs Mangog when the hammer was destroyed in the sun, he could just barely hold a small pebble (which Jane could easily drop in his hand).

10. Then Thor is back and he's unworthy, but he's back to doing Thor things but now he's also drinking too much and living on a boat. He's having a lot of issues with his father. But he is still not worthy. I assume, but the pebble is never referenced again.

11. War of the realms comes around and Thor does more Thor things and ends up in the Sun, he releases the Mother Storm over Earth, rebuilds the hammer and is Worthy again. Why? Apparently through sacrifice of Mjolnir/his eye. What I've said here others have said before and much more eloquently. I've merely made a list to encapsulate my way of thinking.

Worthiness is, according to Aaron determined by either.
A) The Hammer/Enchantment
B) The Storm
C) Thor Odinsson.

If Gorr was right, then all gods are unworthy of the Power of Thor/the God-Tempest/a weapon to hit things REALLY hard because all gods are Uncaring assholes. But apparently mortals are as long as they fulfill Thor's ideals. Though Gorr can't be right because if he was, then Thor should be inherently unworthy.

If the Enchantment/Hammer determines worthiness, then self-doubt should not mean that you are unworthy unless thinking you are unworthy makes you unworthy in which case, you must apparently think or know that you are worthy to lift it but then it means that lifting the hammer every morning or every fifth minute in the bath to see if you are worthy makes you unworthy because you aren't certain you are worthy. If this is the case, then Nick Fury telling Thor that Gorr was right should make Thor unworthy. But Odin can't lift the hammer either and Odin either thinks he is worthy (or knows he is) or he assumes he can circumvent the Enchantment and doesn't have to be worthy. I either case, Odin did not talk with Thor about this and even though he might have thought Gorr was right, because Odin's opinions (according to Aaron) on how Gods should treat humans are pretty obvious. But that shouldn't matter because Odin wouldn't put an enchantment on the hammer that said you had to care for humans to be worthy....... But apparently he did and he is unworthy of the hammer? But he wanted Thor to be humble and being humble CLEARLY means that you need to care for humans/midgard. Something Thor didn't stop doing even when he thought he was unworthy. But then why is Odin unable to lift the hammer? He cannot bypass the enchantment to not be an ******* to humans by being the All-father, but he clearly thinks he's worthy of lifting it because he's the All-father but only those who are humble and care about humans can lift it but then why can't Thor lift it? Raaaaah!

Moving on.

If The Storm decides who is worthy, and if doing things that Thor would do makes you worthy in the hammer's eyes. Then how could the hammer think Gorr was right when Gorr murdered millions of innocent gods and used an evil necrosludge weapon? And why did Nick Fury telling Thor Odinsson that Gorr was right have any effect on the Storm deciding who is worthy? Is Nick Fury the absolute Authority on who gets to use Magical hammers? Otherwise, why does the Storm care? If the Storm just hated gods then why could Thor or Odin lift it to begin with? Either way, if what Gorr said was true, then the Storm's opinion wouldn't matter unless the hammer was evil and thought that all gods should die? And if that's the case, how was Thor worthy of lifting it in the first place?

Finally.

If worthiness is based on Thor Odinsson's opinion on whether you should be worthy or not and the Hammer listens to Thor's subconscious. Then it means that him doubting himself about being worthy and picking up the hammer every fifth minute to check is just something he does for fun? because he deep down would "feel" he was worthy? But if he doubts himself, then he cannot be the source from whence worthiness comes because he is worthy of the hammer and if he feels/is worthy then he should not doubt it. But since he does doubt his worthiness he cannot be the reason he is worthy? I mean, people are complex and can hold different opinions and thoughts about things but here it should be pretty clear. Even IF the worthiness is a 0-100% scale him feeling worthy would mean he's worthy. But it would mean also that days when he felt unworthy he would become so and then he would feel even less unworthy until he changed his way of thinking and that's clearly not the case.

So in conclusion. Aaron hasn't actually defined what makes one worthy of Mjolnir or as a God. He's actually complicated it from "You are worthy in the eyes of Odin" to the mess above. Cates however are taking some steps to define how Aaron's worthiness works. Also, I'm only talking about things Aaron's written. Involve anything before that from Fraction or JMS and everything Aaron says about Hammer Worthiness becomes completely nonsensical.

Hating gods is not atheism but misotheism.

Yes..an IMPORTANT difference.