Thor #1

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: Oliver Coipel

It looks like the wait is finally over as the world at large is reintroduced to Thor, one of Marvels marquee characters. There have been what seems like a never ending stream of strange comings and goings over at the house of ideas these days, and Thor looks to factor in to at least a few of the changes coming our way. Seeing Thor back in the books is also a testament to how much Marvel has changed in only a few short years. As this continuing change seems to be showing no signs of slowing, one has to wonder why now was chosen to be the time for the hammer hurler to return to the scene. With the ret-con treatment of the Sentry, it looked like Marvel had permanently exchanged one blond power house with another (also note the ‘return’ of Captain Marvel), has Marvel brought Thor back as a sort of failsafe in order to magically ‘fix’ all the current storylines in place right now? Thor is probably the biggest character in Marvel to not factor into the last three years of stories almost completely.

Coipel's rendition of Ragnarok

The other major development point to this rebirth is the return of Donald Blake to Marvel. I was too young to really remember or appreciate Blake (I came to be a fan during the Eric Masterson years), but the angle that Straczynski has decided to use has really piqued my interest. What kind of character is Donald Blake now that he has experienced the things he has? Are he and Thor going to simply continue the relationship that existed before, or will that dynamic be changed slightly? It already seems just from issue one that there will be more to Mister Blake than there was before. The ultimate question is of course what it has always been. Does anyone care about Donald Blake?

Marvel didn’t decide to kill off Thor because people were lining up around the block every Wednesday to get their hands on an issue. The title hadn’t enjoyed any real sustained success in years, and a lot of that had to do with difficulties with day to day storytelling that is difficult to accomplish with a character like Thor. What does Thor do on an off day? Does he get bored, play golf, or sunbathe? Typically, the more powerful the character, the harder they are to write for. This has plagued Thor (and many others) for decades, and the book has always lived or died based on what big events the book was tied in to at the time. This time, it’s ‘The Initiative’ and ‘World War Hulk’, but what happens to the book when those stories end? Hopefully Donald Blake will provide the depth of character that will be necessary for this book to be successful.