By: J.M. Dematteis (writer), Brian Ching (pencils), Rick Ketcham (inks), Rob Schwager (colors), Simon Bowland (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)
The Story: An amnesiac Thor, in Donald Blake form, does battle with Glory while protecting a comely widow.
What’s Good: The art is pretty good in this tie-in to Chaos War. Brian Ching is given lots of opportunities to draw Glory. This isn’t the normal version of Glory, but a demonic looking thing that has fallen to Earth after being smote by Thor in Chaos War: Thor #1. This demon looks very…well…demonic and Ching draws him really well. The art tells the story very effectively and coloring is right on point too. He even gets in a few very nice pages of Thor once Don Blake get’s his mojo back.
What’s Not So Good: This is the epitome of an event tie-in that didn’t need to happen. If there is a desire to show what is going on with Thor during the events of Chaos War, then it should appear in the pages of Matt Fraction’s Thor. That’s what they’re doing with Incredible Hulks right now and while I didn’t LOVE the story in Hulks, I did respect that attempt at a coherent continuity.
It just isn’t necessary to show what is going on with Thor during this event. Almost the entirety of the Marvel U. is ignoring this event, why not just leave Thor alone and let the tie-ins be limited to Dead Avengers, Alpha Flight, etc?
If you accept that this tie-in series must happen, there are still things to pick at. The story just isn’t very interesting and exciting. Most of the action is spent waiting for amnesiac Don Blake to turn back into Thor so he can clobber Glory (a B-lister of a villain). And there is never any doubt about how this will turn out. I just don’t think there is a lot of room in this marketplace for super-hero comics that “don’t matter” and it would be nice to see Marvel acknowledge that and stop pumping out multiple versions of a hero like Thor who can historically barely support a single title.
And even the storytelling itself has some challenges. Most of the action is narrated in past tense by the comely widow who Thor defends. That is not my favorite storytelling methodology by any stretch because it leads to heavy melodrama: “A blending of spirit and memory, wisdom and will: I melted into him, He melted into me, and we BECAME ONE — with each other and with something INFINITELY LARGER than both of us.” Spare me.
Conclusion: It is a shame that some of the Chaos War tie-ins are weak because the event itself is quite good. But, of all the tie-ins so far, this is the worst.
Grade: D
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion