If you don’t like a new direction happening in a comic these days, just hang on about a year or so. Then the book will turn around and go someplace different!
MIGHTY THOR IS IMMORTAL NO LONGER!
These days, it doesn’t pay to get too comfortable when it comes to an ongoing series or an event. A recent example of things shifting around has been the “One World Under Doom” event at Marvel. Based on upcoming information, that will last just about a year before it ends, right now apparently in or near early 2026.
Since that seemed to work, the industry is famous for continuing with something until they literally beat it to death! Now the word is that Immortal Thor will likely end in issue #25 with, of all things, the death of the God of Thunder! (Anybody else remember the “Death of Superman” event?) But, if Mephisto has anything to do with it, Thor will not be buried for long! (Not that Mephisto will have anything to do with it this time since he’s busy with the “Bring On the Bad Guys” event!) No, this go-round Loki will be the big nasty, and that means big changes for the Marvel Universe!
Based on what the “always accurate Internet” is currently saying, Marvel history is being rewritten, sending the Immortal Thor to the ash heap, being replaced by another Thor, who else but Beta Ray Bill, the “horse Thunder God” who previously replaced the “Norse Thunder God.” All you Marvel fans/zombies can throw out all your copies of previous issues with Thor in them! Now you have to buy replacements, the ones that will have Beta Ray Bill instead of the original Thor.
The original Thor, one might think, would return to his original human identity, that of Doctor Don Blake. (Anyone else here old enough to remember that?) Well, if you actually thought that would happen, Marvel sure fooled you! Instead, he will become Sigurd Jarlson, the name Thor used after Odin removed the enchantment that allowed him to turn into a human. Seems like Beta Ray Bill can turn human when needed—or at least it seems that way!
Anyone else confused yet?
Of course, Loki is knee-deep in all this chicanery with Thor, which probably means that if he did make this happen, he can go back and undo all this, say, in about a year or so!
In fact, even all of Asgard is taking a hike when it comes to humanity! All of them except, naturally, Loki, who’s passing himself off as a young boy this time.
Seems like Al Ewing, who is getting around all of comics these days, will be writing a brand, spanking-new #1 for Marvel that will be called The Mortal Thor! But you knew that already, didn’t you?
SHORT-ATTENTION-SPAN THEATER RULES!
What’s kind of disconcerting to a long-time comics fan/reader like me is that comics originally used to establish a set up that went something like this—Hero needs a place to hide or rest while not battling evil, so they hide on Earth. However, when a bad guy does appear, said Hero comes out of hiding to fight said Bad Guy. They duke it out, said Bad Guy ends up leaving with his tail between his legs, and said Hero returns to the shadows to await the next said Bad Guy.
Back in the early days of comics, see, not everyone could be sure of getting every issue of every comic he or she liked. So, every issue pretty much had to stand on its own to be sure the fans would actually buy each copy they found. There were no local comics shops, so fans had to frequent places like newsstands and such, so whoever got there first, well, got the latest issues! No boxes ready to save the new stuff! It was whichever fan who reached the book first and had enough money to buy it, went home happy. The rest of us often didn’t even know that comic had ever arrived in the first place!
All this led to the current LCS system, which does have its advantages. But familiarity breeds contempt, or so they say, and we comics fans can be mighty fickle, dropping books off our pull lists if we even get slightly bored! So, the comics industry has to upset the applecart whenever possible so fans like us won’t check to see if the grass is greener in any other comics coming out these days.
Comics really were a short-term escape into an adventure, not the long-term commitments month-to-month we’re having to maintain. I often say that I don’t need another part-time job!
MORE THOR?
I used to buy comics at a local shop that would fracture the names of the titles on their weekly list. Detective Comics was always Defective Comics. And The Mighty Thor was often I’m Mighty Sore!
Maybe it is a good thing to have the status quo jiggered with at times just so we can appreciate it when they go back to the way things were. (and they WILL do that, sooner or later!)
Granted, yes, we have had literally decades of Thor stories just like we have had years and years of tales featuring many other comics characters. I don’t want to see reruns like they do on the small screen. But if your main way to generate more stories is to significantly fracture the person you are writing about, maybe someone else should be writing that person?
I’ve read stories where the main character forgets who he or she is for a while, but they always get back to reality pretty quickly, often within that same issue. That the comics are now spreading stories like that out over a year or two makes me worry about the attention span of us readers. Hey, if you want to change a character significantly, just make a new character, okay? Get someone else to tell the original hero’s adventures!
We’ve had interesting, even “astonishing” tales with Thor for decades. I don’t think our interest has really faded all that much. Instead, I think the writers need to change, not the characters. But we’ll see, won’t we?
And if we want a female god, why not develop an already-existing one like Sif? She can hold her own!
I also don’t buy the notion that if you manage somehow to kill an eternal god, that entire existence is erased? First off, how do you kill someone who is everlasting? Loki stabbing Thor in the back just doesn’t seem powerful enough to make him be eradicated forever, no matter what blade he’s using! How can you be immortal until you die? Huh? Doesn’t make sense to me!
Of course, our expectations of stories we read do change over time. I read a Batman comic from the 1940’s that had four complete stories in it. These days, we’re lucky to get a complete story in six months!
I honestly prefer comics that challenge my thinking and perceptions, but they need to make sense. I would like to see Thor do more, including maybe bring the Thor Corps back. It could be time for groups and teams to make a comeback!
This kind of reminds me of the problems Superman is facing these days. He’s so moral that we KNOW that he’s going to do the “right” thing all the time. Is Thor facing that same dilemma? He needs some ambiguity to be more interesting?
I don’t think we’ve run out of good Thor stories yet! I would like to see more tales that challenge him instead of fracturing him!
About Author
