Thor Appreciation 2023

[Cronus]

I had high hopes for Ewing's run on Thor. His Immortal Hulk was outstanding. I mean, you could really tell he'd done his "continuity" homework. Superb. But, yeah...this rendition of Thor...

*sigh*

[Tofali]

I was really expecting horrible characterization but nope it had things I was already familiar with Thor's canon.

[Username taken]

Spoilers below for Immortal Thor #4

spoilers:

Just finished reading issue #4. Once again a very solid issue by Ewing and co. Now, I don’t know the history between Storm and Ewing but from what I’ve heard he has a lot of respect/love for her. From reading the preview it seemed that she would probably give him a bit of a hard time, but it wasn’t the case. Just as in the first issue with the snow, Thor started to speak to the lightning and tell it to stop hitting him from Storm’s assault, not because it was causing him any pain but because he wanted Storm to hear him out which she didn’t want to do. Then she started assaulting him with atmospheric pressure from Jupiter, so Thor had the whole weight of Jupiter’s atmosphere bearing down on him. This made one of his ears bleed, but as Storm was doing this, all it made Thor do was smile and stand up from this and him saying that strength is relative and he can do anything he wants, like arm wrestle the Hulk, run against Quicksilver in a race and even ear wiggle with Willie Lumpkin the postman. However, what did grate me a little about the whole Storm encounter was that she said that Thor is only the god of thunder while she is a goddess of all weather. Imo this isn’t true as Thor commands all forms of weather as has been shown on multiple occasions and he also doesn’t need Mjolnir to summon or control any form of lightning, it’s his birthright, his innate power and what he was born with. Possibly, it was Ewing writing Storm as a being a bit flippant towards Thor due to him taking her from her planet. Other than that, it was good to see how Storm acknowledged the gravity of the situation when Toranos showed up and realised that he would probably destroy all things and that Thor was right all along to summon her. The other characters acquiring Thor’s powers was nothing special annd a little generic, especially Jane. She just seemed to come out of nowhere unless Sif summoned her and teleported her to the moon because I don’t think Loki would do it as she doesn’t trust him at all, even though he brought in Bill. It’ll be interesting to see how they fight Toranos as it looks like they only have Mjolnir and the axe Tormod, unless Thor is able to summon all their hammers from somewhere. Moreover, it seems that this fight will just be concluded in issue #5 which seems a bit too short to me considering the grand entrance Toranos made in the first issue and how Thor struggled to defeat him with the Thorforce. This should be a battle that should be a couple issues considering the threat, but we’ll see. Finally, the Minotaur cameo was interesting and a bit weird. What happened to him to look like that? He wasn’t like that during Aaron’s run. Did I miss something? Like I said another solid issue, I’d give it 8/10

end of spoilers

spoilers:

The Minotaur got totally and completely fucked up by Xemnu the Titan in Immortal Hulk. Xemnu ate the Minotaur and converted him into a bio-mechanical monstrosity.

end of spoilers

[Sif]

I overreacted to the preview, yes i, wait, i didn't even read the preview, why then i thought in the overreact word?

Lets be fair to Al, was there something that wrong in this issue? Not really right? Apparently he didn't even erase Bill's recent journey, for now (hopefully) it just doesn't fit this corps concept that i heavily dislike.

On the other hand, yeah no way to ignore how generic this story is and feels, (the story Thor portrayal and supporting cast is OK) although if the outcome is what i think it is. Cool i guess, not sure if there was that need.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I just hope that Dario buying Thor's stories isn't some meta attack on how to define Thor.

'Gods defined by stories' is getting pretty damn old, IMO

[BooCoo]

Was very excited for the Immortal Thor series at first. Loved the first 2 issues. 3 was ok. This issue does nothing for me. The whole Ororo pump was ham fisted and annoying. We get it, she's powerful. But she's not a goddess any more than Moondragon is. Even allowing for her being upset at Thor (rightfully so) her ridiculous over the top attitude and aggression was a turnoff. The childish shots and taunting. Maybe some people think this is 'badass' but a little secret: Ororo has gone into the "I'm equal" tantrum mode before. During the Champion miniseries she actually thought she could throw hands with Thor. You heard that right. Maybe her electrical power has fried a few brain cells. And how "Oh I don't need a hammer for lightning" her intel is really bad too. Just arrogant and annoying asf. For all her noise she sure looked like a kid in a candy store when she got the power. Thor's dialogue with the lightning sounded silly and lighweight. Jane is unnecessary as ever and isn't Asgardian. Just call in all the old markers.

Bill was a bright spot and believable. His first outfit was pretty snazzy with the brush helmet. Sif looked scrawny. The art was somewhat loose and Thor looked strange at angles. Toranos is starting to seem one dimensional and its disappointing he isn't acknowledging his familial connection to Thor.

[Intothevoid]

I dunno if i will say i overreacted to the preview. Half the issue was still Storm "bullying" Thor for no real reason other than to throw shade at debate forums i guess. Not to mention it feels way out of character to me, i can understand when Marvel heroes act like this towards Hulk... but why is Storms first reaction to start attacking Thor? He is one of the most noble and famous super heroes in Marvel, they worked together and even more, for her to just start attacking him out of nowhere feels really weird, like what is it suppose to accomplish especially since he isn't even fighting back? It just makes Storm look like an *******. Yea he teleported you to him out of nowhere but being a super hero in Marvel yourself your first train of thought should have been "Which bad guy are we fighting now?".

I think the problem some people are having and i am starting to feel that way as well is the whole thing does feel generic and formulaic so far, which is not how Ewing is when he is at his best at all. But that's the problem when he wrote Immortal Hulk he had a clear vision it's a story he had in mind for years and he had to FIGHT with other writers to get to write him and according to him it was a tough competition in the writing room where he barely edged out. Here Thor was dropped in his lap by sheer coincidence, we all know Cates had a 7 year plan for the character and he only got to write him for 2-3 years out of those 7 before his accident happened that screwed him over completely.

I do hope Ewing eventually finds his voice and the story reaches the intrigue and epicness of his IH run. He is definitely one of the best writers we have working now, but i feel like the Thor story needed to marinate a bit more in his mind before he got to write him, unfortunately you can't really predict things like that.

Edit: Forgot to say, Dario being brought back is a good decision, apart from being a Thor villain originally Ewing had more time to develop him in his IH run and had a clear vision for him that i am sure will work better in Thor than Toranos has so far who is a someone else mentioned feeling fairly one-dimensional right now.

[Superfan90]

Thor getting his spine almost broken as stated by omniscient narration by Jupiter's atmosphere is pitiful. I get that Ewing is taking potshots on battle boarders but Jupiter's atmospheric pressure is only 2.5 times bigger than the Earth. Even normal humans can take more pressure than that.

[Panic]

The issue was neither good nor bad for me; Thor's personality was pretty good, as was his intelligence, and sadly these days that's actually a pretty serious win - but on the other hand half the issue was Storm strutting, with Ewing coming across as more interested in selling us on Storm being Thor's equal, and if his goal was to make Thor's fans love Ororo I think it was a weird way to go about it. As SuperFan90 says, Thor's back being almost broken by the atmospheric pressure of Jupiter was just stupid, and as Intothevoid said, Storm's attitude was odd considering you'd expect her to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Not a great issue, but not a deal-breaker either. I get the feeling that Ewing isn't really that interested in Thor and would rather be writing a Storm & Loki comic, but he's a good writer and he's not actively trying to piss Thor's fanbase off, so I'm still on board.

[Sif]

I honestly still struggle to understand all that hype around Al Ewing writing Thor, he was not necessarily a newbie doing that, the cold hard truth is that, its basically a sequel.

-Loki Agent of Asgard 2 (what happens when Thor is King).

- Al Ewing is a good and sometimes great cosmic writer and Thor can go there, but is a lot more than just that, remember the first issue when the narration was talking about Gaea? And how the tone immediately felt godly and mystical, well it got lost going forward, only shades of it now, at least in some part there was the need of that ancient book talking about Toranos.

[Thundershot]

Good read and I love the Thor Corps, but when did Beta Ray Bill lose Stormbreaker? Also, I can’t stand the way the artist depicts Loki. He looks like a girl. I know Loki has taken female form before, but this is… not.

[your_name_here]

For me, it’s the “Immortal” title that immediately puts it in competition with Immortal Hulk. I appreciate Al doing that as a way to push himself, but I think it could be detrimental as everyone is going to compare it.

Plus, just my opinion, but I always thought Al on FF would be the “New Testament” story rather than Thor, seeing how he tried to align Gamma and Cosmic rays.

[Frontier]

It definitely wasn't as bad as people thought from the preview but I think Storm still overreacted (especially when she ended up realizing Thor was right to bring her there) and Ewing wasted a bit too much time trying to show off how awesome Storm is and how her power compares to Thor while she decries Kings or anyone who doesn't view her as a Goddess instead of human and Mutant.

Good read and I love the Thor Corps, but when did Beta Ray Bill lose Stormbreaker? Also, I can’t stand the way the artist depicts Loki. He looks like a girl. I know Loki has taken female form before, but this is… not.

Thor broke Stormbreaker in Cates' run.

Loki seemed to be in female form for the whole issue until the Thor transformation but it's hard to tell sometimes.

[Mantis-Ray]

I do hope Ewing starts getting more creative with the stories after this arc.

At the moment its just dealing with Toranos and how overwhelming he is.

[HaveAtThee]

So, I've not read comics in years (since the Marvel Now relaunches). I picked up the first two issues of Ewing's run, and I really dig both the characterization and the artwork. The story/plot is decent, but if you have fairly strong character-driven stories they don't have to be incredibly intricate or complicated to work, in my view. I haven't picked up issue #3 yet. I get the sense that Ewing takes what he does seriously and treats his characters as such. Yeah, that preview with Storm acting irrational was goofy. Maybe to appease a younger crowd or Battle board posters, idk. I like how he's showing Thor as mature and thoughtful, befitting his age/status. Decompressed storytelling has been the norm for about 20 years, so I'm not surprised things are taking a while to materialize.