Thor #3

If you’re a little leery about reading Thor this time around, allow me to make you feel better about your possible choice. The book is great, and you’re only three issues in, if not now my friend, then when? What is most appealing about this new Thor series is the return of Donald Blake (who should have gotten an honorable mention for greatest comeback character this month) to the series after a very long absence.

To put it into perspective, Donald Blake was the original secret identity for Thor, but was done away with by the nineties. When Thor ‘died’ recently, the door was left open for his return, but it was also obvious that he wouldn't be back until something could be done with him. For those of you not aware I’ll simply say that Thor was the ‘Superman’ for a comic universe that just didn’t need one and had to go away (the return of Captain Marvel and the intro of the Sentry just makes it more apparent how useless that kind of character can be). The good news is J Michael Straczynski is fresh off his stellar run on Amazing Spider-Man and looks poised to do great things for Thor, and hopefully for the core Marvel books.

The first two issues have seen Thor returned to normal existence, the recreation of Asgard on earth, and a mission to find the Norse Pantheon and restore them to life. Readers have been curious about how the events of Civil War will have an impact on the Thor books, fortunately they didn’t have to wait long, because issue three answers that question beautifully. I’m a comic book geek, and I’ve had several geeky conversations that can only be described as perfectly stereotypical, one such topic is always who would win in a fight, this guy or that guy. For years I explained that Thor was way more powerful than he let on in the story, without giving too much away, I was right.

Iron Man shows up in this issue very much in his ‘Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ role attempting to tell Thor what was what (the way he did Ares in the first issue of Mighty Avengers) and how things were going to work now that the status quo had changed. Let’s just say that Thor reminded Iron Man about the differences between gods and men. I can’t wait to see what the meeting between Thor and Ares will be like if at all. With the Marvel U in the state its in, Thor is one of the better lenses to view it all through especially for new readers. He presents a character that is very familiar while still providing a great deal of mystery and intrigue. Read this book, it’s beautifully drawn by Olivier Coipel and Straczynski’s track record with Marvel should at least grant him a second look.