Written by Roger Langridge
Illustrated by Chris SamneeHarvey Award Winner ROGER LANGRIDGE & CHRIS SAMNEE continue their epic reimagining of the God of Thunder! In This Issue: The Awesome Asgardian does battle with Raging Robots! Pick up the book that ComicBook Resources.com says is “quite possibly the best new super hero title of the year and is exactly what any lover of super heroes should be reading.”
After flying under my (and indeed most people’s) radar for nearly five full issues, I finally discovered this marvelously charming series starring everyone’s favorite Thunder God. In fact, by the time I finally tracked down and read those first five issues, I was caught up just in time for the book to cancelled after its eighth issue, thereby making this issue the penultimate chapter of this vastly underrated comic. In a buying culture where readers seek only books that “matter” to a given company’s mainstream continuity, small, charming, all ages, out-of-continuity books drop like flies on a regular basis (and in the cases of Dr. Voodoo and SWORD, even in continuity books starring lesser known characters end up suffering.) So was the case with Thor: The Mighty Avenger, and with just one issue left to complete its story, it remains one of most smartly written, impeccably drawn Marvel comic books on the shelves today.
Unlike the dire, depressing and downright rude (but thoroughly entertaining) antics over in the main Thor book, the backbone of this book has been the growing relationship between Thor and Jane Foster following Thor’s banishment from Asgard. Since this book is not in continuity, it thereby gets to play with the best bits of Thor’s long history (as well as select bits of Marvel Universe history as well), hence why Thor is in his most recent, Olivier Coipel designed costume at what is essentially the beginning of his time on Earth, which in this universe is void of Dr. Donald Blake (so far), and takes place in Oklahoma. As of last issue, Thor and Jane’s relationship shifted from “just friends” to “significantly more than friends.” I think taking six and a half issues before they ended up in bed together was the perfect way to show their relationship build and convincingly portray the couple falling in love. As such, this issue contained many charming scenes of them exploring their newfound relationship as Thor continues his exploration of our non-Asgardian world. Which just makes the cliffhanger ending of Thor being carried off by mystery assailants and Jane having no idea where he us completely heartbreaking rather than dangerously cliché. Which proves to be the modus operandi of this book: make us care about these characters so that when bad (or good) things happen, they actually MATTER to us. For that and that alone Roger Langridge should be given assignment after assignment after this series ends.
So too with Chris Samnee, who’s art has been consistently fantastic from the start on this book. His style blends traditional, 1950s composition with a very 90s design aesthetic that just works perfectly to convey not only the heartwarming scenes of human interaction, but the scenes of intense battle and metallic carnage that the book calls for. He manages to create a very distinct visual identity for himself that I can only hope leads to even more mainstream work for him moving forward (though, to be honest, he’s getting to the point that anything he draws will be a must buy for me.)
Overall, I can’t be happier with this book and every fanboy that claims to be a Thor fan that did not pick it up should be ashamed of themselves. YOU let this book fail…now go cry yourself to sleep.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy Goddamnit!
