Well this is supremely exciting, isn’t it? I believe most people will uniformly agree with me when I say that, post-JMS, Kieron Gillen’s take on Thor as he wrapped up the previous storyline and brought Thor into Siege was and is utterly fantastic. Gillen’s work had been said to be simply a middle point between JMS and the next writer so that whoever took over would have a fresh plate to start from. It was soon announced after that Matt Fraction (from Uncanny X-Men and Invincible Iron Man) would be that writer, with artist Pasqal Ferry (from Seven Soldiers and the Ender’s Game adaptations). Us legions of fans on the internet were sad about the loss of Gillen’s run, but we knew it wasn’t supposed to last and we were all just happy we had the books.
Then, in an out of the blue and shocking twist (almost like an M Night Shymalan film), the solicits for June came out with Gillen’s name still attached to Thor! What? At first my friend and I assumed that it was a printing error (because heck, Ultimate Spider-Man wasn’t even solicited and Bendis confirmed that there would be no skip month), but now Marvel has fully confirmed that Kieron Gillen will still be writing Thor! There appear to also be some changes to the solicits on Marvel.com, because now #609 and #610 have mixed up solicits – to the point where (I may be wrong here) they basically describe the same issue! I’m also fairly sure they switched covers on us as well, but that’s neither here nor there.
So it looks like even though Marvel taketh, Marvel still giveth! I am definitely a happy camper over this, and am very proud of Marvel in putting such faith in Gillen, who is a relatively new writer to their camp. Thor is his first major work for the company, having previously done SWORD and Ares (which I guess are both “minis” now). How long will Gillen remain on Thor? I don’t know. Clearly he has plenty of stories left to tell, and I suppose Matt Fraction could always use the spare time to tweet. Either way, congrats to Kieron Gillen! All of us at Multiversity are very much looking forward to the stories to come.
