Eric Masterson: The Mighty Thor #433
Replacement superheroes — when new characters step like hermit crabs into the capes and togs of venerable icons — are a dicey business. In an effort to shake things up and stimulate sagging sales, you run the risk of alienating the core comic book readership that treasures the way things have always been. Comics are always about new and better, but they’re also about staying true to what has come before. It’s tricky. Hence, substitute heroes are usually here and gone before you know it, much like subs in elementary schools. The real deals are back in class to wipe the spitballs off the walls and scrub the graffiti from the chalkboard. They have all the staying power of character deaths, which is to say none at all. We want Bruce Wayne to be Batman. We want Steve Rogers to be Captain America, not U.S. Agent.
Enter the Eric Masterson Thor. He was here. Then he was gone. And this is where it all got started.
Lest we forget, for a time Masterson had replaced Donald Blake as the always rather extraneous Earth-bound alter ego of the God of Thunder, a narrative boat anchor that was passé and useless when Goldilocks was still under the Journey into Mystery banner. Then Thor took the rather drastic step of killing (not really) Loki — an end a long time coming. For that sin he was banished from this plane of reality, and Masterson was suddenly not just a man who summoned a Norse god by banging a cane on the ground, or had the same bonded with his consciousness. Now he
became the Norse god.
Issue #433 was his first solo day on the job. Co-scripted by Tom DeFalco and
Ron Frenz, penciled by Frenz and inked by Al Milgrom, this new start has Masterson, understandably, brooding over this new boon/burden:
There’s no time for ruminating on spectral window silhouettes of Thor, though. Ulik is in town, and he’s menacing New York
and Thor’s old law enforcement allies, Code Blue.
To Masterson’s credit, he doesn’t hesitate to enter the fray but gets his ass handed to him, and heads off to lick his wounds
complete with an obligatory “not able to pilot Mjolnir” scene.
His duds are all in tatters, so Masterson, who’s a graphic artist, sits down at his table, turns on his architect’s lamp and gets to designing a new look.
Then comes the big moment: Masterson — as Thor in street clothes — goes to the tailor to pick up his new costume.
Here he is suiting up, with an internal monologue that serves as a meta commentary on the comic book publishing biz:
Once we go to round 2 with Ulik, where our (least) favorite Rock Troll learns that THERE’S A NEW THOR IN TOWN, ONE NOT AFRAID OF EMPLOYING A PUERILE RUSE OR TWO:
Would Ulik really be one to whip out the Marquess of Queensberry rules during a fist fight?
Whatever the case, New-Thor whoops him, and though people seem to realize that he’s not the old model at story’s end, they don’t seem to care. But we do!
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