Time to get things settled – for now.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jason Aaron
Art: Russell Dauterman
What They Say:
The Odinson is back. And he clearly doesn’t like that someone else is holding his hammer. You know what that means, right? Thor vs. Thor!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The arrival of the Thor that we’ve known all these years at the end of the previous issue certainly set up quite the fight to happen and we indeed get that here. Thankfully, some of what happened between his arrival and when we last saw him in the first issue is also dealt with in this issue at the start and it works nicely. Seeing Thor wake up after being passed out for some time, having lost his arm and getting berated by his father for a few things sets the tone well for that relationship for people new to the book. We also get to see how Thor’s going to get along without said arm as Screwbeard of the dwarves has come with a new arm made of Uru that will outlast the universe itself, at least according to him. The couple of pages for all of this covers several things, from the loss of the hammer to the disappearance of Thor’s mother, as well as some of what’s going on down on Midgard, which the All-Father has little interest in even after all these years.
So when we do catch up to where we left off, the additional context helps and pushes us forward as Thor is intent on getting his hammer back, but also blaming our female Thor as the person behind it, which pretty much surprises her as she has no idea what’s going on.The two certainly get into a tussle over it for a bit, which speaks more to Thor’s personality than hers, as she does her best to talk him down and make him understand they should be dealing with the frost giants. Thor’s the kind of character that’s not stupid, but is still ruled by his emotions so while he should know better, seeing someone else handling the hammer and looking a lot like he does, albeit feminine in form, gets to him in a big way. There’s a lot of fun to be had in the fight with how it plays out, the layouts and the detail of it, but it’s the small moments that makes Thor really understand that the hammer is, well, evolved now that it’s in her hands.
And that has them focus on the battle against the frost giants while also trying to deal with Malekith, who has his own agenda and safety route through all of this to ensure he doesn’t get ensnared in things. Our new Thor, who ends up earning her name here once events wrap up from this first encounter from our old Thor, is definitely interesting to watch throughout this as she plays the voice of reason while trying to do what’s right. But she also clears up that she’s not Freya with a well placed kiss for old Thor that has a great expression about it. The epilogue side of this is done well overall as we get a few things cleared up and events feel formalized now as to what our new Thor is about in terms of namesake and position, and that the story is hers going forward – though Odinson will certainly have stories himself still to come until things reconnect once again, someday.
In Summary:
Questions still abound here to be sure, especially with wondering who is under the helmet and what impact she’ll have when she gets to Midgard and ends up taking a position there somehow – particularly if she and Odinson end up working side by side in the future. And those questions will be enjoyable to see play out once it gets moving in these new directions. The first four issues of the series, beautifully illustrated, tells a great tale of the handover in power that happened for reasons still unknown. It shows that there’s a lot of mystery still to be had with Mjolnir that can surprise Odinson and we know that we haven’t seen the last of Agger at Roxxon and Malekith with their plans. I’m looking forward to seeing what they may be, but the potential of what our new Thor can bring to the table is what has me excited to see the next installment. Very good stuff here and definitely a lot of fun in a way I couldn’t have predicated.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 28th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
