The Mighty Thor #1: Spoilers and Discussion

[Dr. Banner]

Well I got banned from Comicvine today, because I showed support for the new Thor. I don't even care, the 1st issue was stellar. Adding to pull.

And they aren't even the worst forum. You wouldn't like to know what some ''thor fans'' say about Jane at comicboards.com, for example. It's really disgusting.

[Thor-Ul]

Since when Asgard became Asgardia? Or I'm miss something?

[shgs]

A great start, and I seem to be one of the few people who enjoyed the last Thor volume pretty much unreservedly. Dauterman is as fantastic as ever. Quite surprised how far Aaron has taken Odin into his dickishness, I'm presuming at this point Cul is influencing him in someway. It feels like Aaron still has a whole lot of story left to tell, which is good. Superficial volume reboots aside, this is shaping up to be a good long run on Thor.

Does Mjolnir turn into a stick for Jane? What is this talk about the hammer having a personality?

Mjolnir has displayed what appears to be a kind of sentience since Jane took over. Most notably, Mjolnir now seems to be able to control its own flight path. Its unclear how this all works, and whether its simply a manifestation of Jane's personality, or the hammer has evolved somehow. Aaron mentioned in an interview some time back that we would get an issue in which Mjolnir was the focus... whether than means we'll actually get to read Mjolnir's "thoughts", who knows...

[Raye]

And they aren't even the worst forum. You wouldn't like to know what some ''thor fans'' say about Jane at comicboards.com, for example. It's really disgusting.

Well, CBR has a pretty strict moderation policy when it comes to opinions that are hateful/misogynistic. Which some (not all, I know that) of the comments about the new Thor definitely are. I've seen mod action being taken here, an those posters just eventually stopped posting for the most part. Presumably they began posting at other sites.

Since when Asgard became Asgardia? Or I'm miss something?

oh, that was back in Fraction's run, in the aftermath of Siege. Asgard was in ruins and needed to be rebuilt, the newly built city was called Asgardia rather than Asgard.

[Frontier]

Jeez, what's up with Odin lately? He's been so abrasive and controlling in general since he got back (and maybe even back during when Fraction was writing him), and now he's locked up his own wife just over a disagreement with his policies and actions? I really hope something's up with him to explain why he's acting like this, and I think it goes beyond just being angry over someone else wielding Thor's hammer and just not being used to the new changes in Asgard.

I imagine Aaron is going to be putting Loki into an antagonistic role for these first few issues, even if it isn't genuine and just a trick, just so Jane as Thor gets a chance to fight Loki. He'll always be Thor's archenemy after all .

Curious to see what Thor (Odinson) is up to now and what he's doing now that every Realm seems to be gearing for a giant war with Asgard and Midgard in the crosshairs. I wonder if Roz might be with him?

Poor Jane...her taking up Thor's hammer is preventing her cancer from being treated, but she still keeps transforming to save lives and do what only Thor can do.

I find it funny that Strange and Tony were next to each other for most of this because of how much Aaron's current characterization for Stephen has been Stark-like .

[Lashley]

Brilliant issue.

First few pages were hard to read, that Loki reveal was cool (but wtf at those chin pubes?)

Can't wait for #2

[Prof. Warren]

Fantastic start to the new volume. I hadn't realized just how much I missed this book until reading this issue.

[JKtheMac]

I think Loki is just tricking Malekith. In the solicits for... issue 3, was it? it mentioned how he just wanted to talk with Jane, and in the cover for that issue, it showed the big bads alliance, and he was not in it. So presumably, based on the final page here, he will have to convince her to play dead, or at least help him put on a show of a fight to make it at least look like he tried without actually killing her.

If we could discern Loki's motives that easily he wouldn't be Loki. He will have an angle. We don't know exactly what has happened to him in the last few months, but I somehow doubt we are back to Loki as a pure antagonist.

And I think a book with Odinson could still be coming, but it may have to wait for certain events in this book to come to pass first, so maybe not announced for another couple months.

I can't help thinking Aaron will keep us waiting on this. My bet is someone else claims the Ultimate Mjolnir anyway and Odinson will just be a second story arc character every now and again. Maybe his story will be told in an event down the line.

and yeah, the Mjolnir that crash landed on old Asgard is definitely going to be picked up by Odinson at some point, i mean... come on. But we can't expect it to happen in one issue, none of the characters has any reason to think it's even there, yet, and he still has to address the reason for his unworthyness even if he did know it was there.

Yep, the unworthiness thing is clearly a long term plot point, and even once we know what that was, it won't just go away. It probably plays into the other themes in this story anyway. It probably explains his quick acceptance of a new Thor, and his reluctance to act on it. Plus gods know how to sulk. I wouldn't be surprised if Jane is instrumental to Odinson's eventual redemption. However, I do worry that she may die at the end of this story.

[Ragdoll]

I loved how it all felt like looking at our world's current events through a dark mirror.
Dark Elves starring as ISIS?
This series is starting to feel like Image's book Saga.

Also, as much as I enjoyed the stories of young good Loki, I always felt bad that Aaron didn't have an evil Loki he could write a truly bad ass story about. My fanboy wish has been granted.

[JKtheMac]

Jeez, what's up with Odin lately? He's been so abrasive and controlling in general since he got back (and maybe even back during when Fraction was writing him), and now he's locked up his own wife just over a disagreement with his policies and actions? I really hope something's up with him to explain why he's acting like this, and I think it goes beyond just being angry over someone else wielding Thor's hammer and just not being used to the new changes in Asgard.

I believe this is the aspect of the story that can be said to have a feminist slant. A post-feminist Asgardian pantheon would have Freyja and Odin (and possibly the other All-Mother aspects) sitting side by side, acknowledging that the power and knowledge vested in them is neither masculine or feminine, but a mixture. (I wonder if we will see a female reflection of the Odin myth at some point: Freyja gaining the rune knowledge from Yggdrasill by some other means.)

Either way, the imbalance of the masculine over the feminine is having serious ramifications in the nine realms. Odin is denying the very idea of female power by imprisoning one manifestation of it and trying to arrest another. He is taking council only from his brother, and he is instituting an over-protective patriarchal political stance that rejects compassion and asserts power purely through his position as All-Father. This feels like it all stems from an over reaction to the prospect of sharing power with Freyja.

[ImprobableQuestion]

I just visited Comicvine to see what Ninjak et al were discussing. Man. The way some of them great the mods over there.

On a happier note, I think the idea of Mjolnir having a certain sentience is very intriguing. It would explain the change in the inscription, and the reason Odin can't pick it up any more. Plus, if the hammer is a female, it adds an interesting fold to the feminism vs patriarchy idea JK mentions above. Plus, if that's what Fury whispered to Thor, "the hammer is alive," it might explain why he dropped it, or rather why it dropped him. She wasn't ready to reveal herself to Thor yet. She made an impulsive decision.

I'll comment more once my friend gets the issue and I've had my turn with it, but long-form storytellingnis why I lime James Roberts' writing so much, and I like what Aaron is doing here too.

[ImprobableQuestion]

I loved how it all felt like looking at our world's current events through a dark mirror.
Dark Elves starring as ISIS?
This series is starting to feel like Image's book Saga.

Also, as much as I enjoyed the stories of young good Loki, I always felt bad that Aaron didn't have an evil Loki he could write a truly bad ass story about. My fanboy wish has been granted.

One of my favorite things about Aaron's GoT run was the Roxxon stuff. The Minotaur exists in real life. And the best thing is Thor loses when he goes up against him. Even a god of thunder can't stand up to the evils that exist in real life.

[Starchild]

This is actually the first Thor book I ever read. I'm tempted to read up on some old Thor comics.

[ImprobableQuestion]

This is actually the first Thor book I ever read. I'm tempted to read up on some old Thor comics.

Aaron's last run was great. You can tell he loves Thor, and has been planning a story like this for a long time. The last run also had a stellar series of artisits, although greatly different in style to this one's.

[Raye]

I believe this is the aspect of the story that can be said to have a feminist slant. A post-feminist Asgardian pantheon would have Freyja and Odin (and possibly the other All-Mother aspects) sitting side by side, acknowledging that the power and knowledge vested in them is neither masculine or feminine, but a mixture. (I wonder if we will see a female reflection of the Odin myth at some point: Freyja gaining the rune knowledge from Yggdrasill by some other means.)

Either way, the imbalance of the masculine over the feminine is having serious ramifications in the nine realms. Odin is denying the very idea of female power by imprisoning one manifestation of it and trying to arrest another. He is taking council only from his brother, and he is instituting an over-protective patriarchal political stance that rejects compassion and asserts power purely through his position as All-Father. This feels like it all stems from an over reaction to the prospect of sharing power with Freyja.

What's interesting is that in actual Norse myth, it actually is more balanced, at least in part. Most people only know of Valhalla, but there was another afterlife for the honored dead called Fólkvangr which Freyja presided over, and fulfilled much the same function as Valhalla. Not all who died honorably in battle went to Valhalla, an equal number went to Fólkvangr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B3lkvangr

So we may end up seeing that added to Marvel canon.