Thor by Walter Simonson volume 1

Thor by Walter Simonson, Vol. 1 by Walter Simonson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who is the monster called Beta Ray Bill and why has he come to earth? What is the mysterious dragon rising from the waters of the Atlantic? And who is forging a sword in the heart of an alien sun? That's up to Thor to find out...

Thor has never been my favorite Marvel character but I've read a couple dozen issues of his comic, mostly from the Ron Frenz-Tom DeFalco run, and a handful of Walter Simonson issues. I stumbled upon this at the 2016 Planet City Comicon in Kansas City and couldn't resist. That's not true, I managed to resist reading it for a couple years...

There was a short period during the 1980s that Walter Simonson could do no wrong. It was during this period that he was tapped to write and draw Thor and he wasted no time shaking things up. The word epic is overused/misused a lot these days but Simonson gave Thor an epic feel immediately.

In the first issue, Thor gets his hammer taken from him by the bionic alien Beta Ray Bill. Soon after, Bill and Thor go on a mission to save Bill's race from demons. It goes well but soon Thor finds himself free of the Donald Blake identity, for better or worse. Meanwhile, in the background, someone's making a sword that's going to smite everything, the act of creation alone sending shockwaves through the universe. Yeah, this is some serious shit.

Simonson's art holds up fairly well, probably because the guy knew his shit. The Jack Kirby influence is evident but the style is more detailed than the Marvel House Style, which was almost a thing of the past at this point. He's able to convey a majestic scope without relying on splash pages. The nine issues of this volume were balls to the wall, no filler. The only real gripe I had was where the volume ended.

There's a lot to like in this volume, even in between the cosmic battles. Thor struggles to live as Sigurd Jarlson, a construction worker. He wears glasses as a disguise and even bumps into Clark Kent in a funny cameo. Nick Fury is classic Nick Fury.

There's no wonder Walter Simonson's run on Thor is so revered. It's largely become the Thor measuring stick due to how revolutionary it was at the time. I need to read the rest of this run posthaste! Four out of five Mjolnirs.

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