Thor Odinson Appreciation 2018

[JKtheMac]

Can anyone tell me - I recently bought Thor omnibus from Walter Simonson (it's on it's way).
Does that omnibus contains Ragnarok story (comic one, not the movie one), or the Ragnarok story is from another writer and another omnibus/hardcover edition completely?

Thanks,

I wonder if you are thinking of the preceding Ragnarök story by Thomas and Buscema collected in the Thor Ragnarök Trade:

Ragnarok V2011.jpg

This collects issues 272 to 278.

[Panic]

I'm not sure what you mean when you wonder if the THOR Omnibus includes Ragnarok. During the time I was writing and drawing THOR for Marvel, I did two stories that were related to the mythological Ragnarok, but were not full-blown versions of the original tale. The first was the Surtur Saga in my first 18 issues or so. In the Norse version, at the end of things, Surtur flings fire across the Nine Worlds when everyone else is dead and he burns them all. He isn't mentioned in the poetry again; presumably, he perishes in his own conflagration. My story in THOR gives Surtur that same motivation in the comic, to try to destroy everything. The second related story involves the Midgard Serpent. In the myths, Thor and the Serpent battle during Ragnarok, a titanic struggle that results in the deaths of both combatants. Again, without doing a precise version of the myth, I do a version of their encounter, inspired by the original poetry. (Sorry if I'm being a bit vague. I'm trying to avoid spoilers.)

A couple of years ago, I began writing and drawing my own version of Thor after this time in a comic called RAGNARÖK, currently being published by IDW. Essentially, the tales are set after Ragnarök has already occurred and Thor, for reasons best told in the comic, has survived. The Enemies of the gods have also survived so Thor is traveling out into what's left of the Nine Worlds to find the Enemies and deal with them. 12 issues are out, collected in two volumes. These stories are not a part of the Marvel Universe and consequently, not included in the THOR Omnibus.

Best/Walter

Nice to see you around the boards. Looking forward to seeing you drawing Thor again, even if it's just part of an issue.

[kilderkin]

Maybe the Ragnarok story during the thor disassembled story, with rune king thor?

[ElliotJA]

While there have been some great recent Thor stories, one thing that irritates me is how in flashbacks, Thor is frequently shown using the axe Jarnbjorn at times when he should already be wielding Mjolnir. He's been shown with the axe in the year 1013 AD and after, earlier tales depicted him having gained the hammer long before this time.

[Panic]

He became worthy of the hammer when he was 20, iirc.

[juan678]

[juan678]

[ElliotJA]

And older stories showed this was long before 1013.

[Frontier]

I know it's Waititi's voice, but it's really weird hearing Korg sound like that.

[JKtheMac]

And older stories showed this was long before 1013.

The primary source for such things is Thor Annual #11. But it has been contradicted many times and also retconned way before Aaron. However, in this story we see Thor go to Earth for the first time already weilding Mjölnir and apparently taking part in the Viking raids dated approximately in the last century of the first millennium.

So yes if you take that story as the truth, and again many writers since haven't, then Thor gained his hammer some time in the 900s and never went to Midgard without Mjölnir. The story in that annual is told as a tale by the Norns, so it may be a simplification of actual events, and certainly is no longer fully canonical. It also does not place a date on these raids, so maybe this was a anachronistic later raid, who knows.

[kilderkin]

While there have been some great recent Thor stories, one thing that irritates me is how in flashbacks, Thor is frequently shown using the axe Jarnbjorn at times when he should already be wielding Mjolnir. He's been shown with the axe in the year 1013 AD and after, earlier tales depicted him having gained the hammer long before this time.

Yeah he and asgard are shown much younger in a way than they should be

Although avengers bc also contradicts this

Timeline is all over the show these days

[Panic]

I was wrong about Thor being 20 - Journey into Mystery #109 has Thor with the hammer and states he is not yet twenty. Actually one of the Tales of Asgard has Thor present at the creation Ask and Embla, the first two humans.

[JKtheMac]

I was wrong about Thor being 20 - Journey into Mystery #109 has Thor with the hammer and states he is not yet twenty. Actually one of the Tales of Asgard has Thor present at the creation Ask and Embla, the first two humans.

We can't really take the Tales of Asgard as canon. They are written in a mythological style before many of the details had been worked out. They are important because they heavily influenced the way Thor stories were told, but they are not fully compatible with the main stories, which adapted to become more compatible and more mythological. I think of them as myths told by others where details will be contradictory, which is often the case with myth.

The approaching 20 age is pretty common. Again Thor Annual #11 uses this age too, so I don't think it is wrong. Later writers tended to stick to the broad shape of that annual even when changing things a little. In general all of the early stories are deemed to have happened before the celebration of his 20th birthday.

Son of Asgard has a very youthful worthy Thor who I guess could be late teens even if he looks thirteen to fifteen.

There are some big anomalies when dating Thor. For example The Truth of History by Alan Davis has Thor et al. in ancient Egypt, thousands of years before the suggested events of Annual 11. It is still a fun story. One can use Ragnarok cycles as an explanation, put it down to being non-canonical, or just shrug and put it down to comics doing what they do, never letting facts get in the way of a good story.

Fraction used numbered Ragnaroks to explain things away, but this is just hand waving. It is as good an attempt to ignore facts as any.

[ElliotJA]

One story was dated to around 950 AD, had Thor - with Mjolnir - on Earth, rescuing the young Thialfi and bringing him to Asgard to become a god. There was also a story set circa 1000 AD showing Thor disguising himself as a mortal named Sigurd and joining a party of Norsemen on an expedition to the Americas; later in the story he uses Mjolnir.

[JKtheMac]

One story was dated to around 950 AD, had Thor - with Mjolnir - on Earth, rescuing the young Thialfi and bringing him to Asgard to become a god. There was also a story set circa 1000 AD showing Thor disguising himself as a mortal named Sigurd and joining a party of Norsemen on an expedition to the Americas; later in the story he uses Mjolnir.

And you will note those are all staying roughly in step with Annual #11. Which is the point at which the basic saga of Thor was put down. That was probably the point at which they decided to iron out the wrinkles that were already in the cloth. But please be specific, are you referring to one shots and minis or tales in the main book, because in general Marvel will strike a pen through minis and one-shots at the drop of a hat. Not that I think they should. They should just accept that these are all stories and some are contradictory.

The raid seen in Annual #11 is almost certainly Lindisfarne if we want specific dates. But the date and location isn't specified. If it was that raid that would place Thor on Midgard with Mjölnir in 793.

However that isn't too far to fudge because Aaron has Thor without Mjolnir in 893 & 894, so that raid could have been another raid a few years after that and still conform to Annual #11. Aaron and Ribic's young Thor is not as youthful as some, but he could still be seen as a late teen with a highly developed physique.

The dates writers should be careful of if they want to care about history would be between the earliest raids on England (789) and Viking Christianity (995 - 1000).