Category The Mighty Thor

May 21 2018

A Roadmap for Jane’s Future in The Mighty Thor: At The Gates of Valhalla 1

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The Mighty Thor: At The Gates of Valhalla isn’t what most readers probably thought it would be. Despite the timing of its release, it’s explicitly not an issue meant to transition from The Mighty Thor to the upcoming Thor — outside the cover, Thor Odinson doesn’t even put in an appearance — and despite the title, it spends no time in (or near) Valhalla, Jane’s Thor likewise doesn’t appear, and Jane herself has relatively little screen time. Instead, this special serves as a road map for the future of the Thor mythos, and especially for Jane’s place within it.  Continue reading →

Apr 26 2018

Mighty Thor 706: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Spencer Irwin

Mighty Thor 706

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Genesis 2:2

Drew: Can gods be heroes? I might posit that immortality voids the noble qualities like courage and sacrifice that define heroism. To me, anyway, gods and heroes are mutually exclusive groups, which might well be the reason we created the concept of demigods — Hercules slaying the Nemean Lion is less impressive if he has infinite time and power at his disposal, and Jesus dying on the cross is literally meaningless if he can’t die. In this way, we understand that Jane Foster’s nobility comes not from her godliness, but from her humanity — from the sacrifice she can only make because she isn’t a god. But still, she was a god, at least briefly, which maybe entitles her to a bit of rest after all of that sacrifice. Continue reading →

Mar 26 2018

Mighty Thor 705: Discussion

by Spencer Irwin and Ryan Mogge

Mighty Thor 705

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Spencer: Jane Foster is willing to do what must be done, no matter how hard or dangerous, no matter what the consequences might be, even when nobody else can or will. It’s what makes her a hero, what makes her worthy; it’s also what brings about her downfall. The Mighty Thor 705 is the swan song our beloved Jane deserves, a beautiful, action-packed, heartbreaking issue that highlights everything that made Jane’s Thor an inspiration, everything that made her important both in-universe and out. Continue reading →

Feb 28 2018

Giving Meaning to the Inevitable in Mighty Thor 704

by Drew Baumgartner

The Mighty Thor 704

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Heroes are predictable, at least in terms of the noble qualities that define heroism. That is, while a hero’s cunning plan or stroke of genius may surprise us, that they would try to save the day — even and especially at great risk to themselves — is kind of a foregone conclusion. And no hero represents that quality of self-sacrifice better than Jane Foster, whose daily choice to wield Mjolnir to protect others has slowly allowed her cancer to advance. So that she would take up the hammer once again, even with the knowledge that doing so would surely kill her, isn’t exactly a surprise Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman could have hoped to withhold. So instead, they spend this issue detailing exactly what that decision means to her beyond self-sacrifice, getting at just what it is that makes Jane so selfless in the first place. Continue reading →

Jan 26 2018

Mighty Thor 703: Discussion

by Taylor Anderson and Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Taylor: One of the hardest lessons to learn growing up is that everything has a cost. This is a particularly difficult lesson to learn because when we’re young, things tend to not really cost all that much, if anything at all. It’s only once we become adults and begin to age that literally everything has some cost associated with it. Want to go out and drink all night? The cost is a hangover. Want to get a master’s degree? The cost is crippling student debt. Heck, even want to find love? The cost is putting in the time and effort to cultivate a meaningful relationship with someone. This isn’t to say that things aren’t worth their cost – love is a good example of something that more than pays for itself. However, the cost of things always has to be collected, as Jane and her friends learn in Mighty Thor 703.

Continue reading →

Jan 4 2018

Best of 2017: Best Covers

Best Covers of 2017

You know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t mean you can’t judge the cover on its own merit. This year found us marveling at covers that weren’t just carefully designed and lushly colored, but that actually did a great deal of storytelling, cramming all of the drama, excitement and emotion of the whole issue into one succinct image. Some did it literally, some did it metaphorically, but all moved us in some way beyond simply broadcasting which of our favorite characters would appear in the issue. These are our top 10 covers of 2017. Continue reading →

Nov 20 2017

Creating Stakes in Mighty Thor 701

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS! If you haven’t read the issue, proceed at your own risk.

700 issues in, the gods of Asgard have faced annihilation numerous times. But they have always pulled through, because that’s how decades-long serialized mythologies work. Every threat must be bested in order to perpetuate the franchise. This isn’t something that bothers me: the “what happens” never concerns me as much as the “how it happens.” But for anyone demanding meaningful, lasting, concrete consequences in their storytelling should welcome the rise of Mangog. Mangog is here to kill the gods, and by the end of issue 701, he’s already got a definitive Win in his column. Continue reading →

Oct 4 2017

The Power of Humanity in The Mighty Thor 23

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS! If you haven’t read the issue, proceed at your own risk.

Late in The Mighty Thor 23, as Thor and the War Thor clash over the fate of Svartalfheim, Thor yells that they “have to behave like gods!” I have to wonder what gods she’s been hanging around to make that statement, because almost all of the gods Jason Aaron has presented us throughout his Thor epic have been reckless and arrogant at best, and downright sociopathic at worst. Throughout this issue, Aaron and artist Valerio Schiti seem to be arguing that godhood is more of a weakness than a strength.  Continue reading →

Jul 24 2017

Hammer Time in Mighty Thor 21

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

When it was first announced that a woman would take up the mantle of Thor a couple years ago, people were shocked. The uproar about this wasn’t so much about a different person being labeled Thor, but the fact that a this person was going to become Thor while using the Odinson’s signature hammer, Mjölnir. (I would be remiss not to mention that blatant sexism and fragile male egos also contributed to the backlash against a woman being named Thor, but that’s a different discussion entirely). There have been plenty of versions of Thor in the Marvel pantheon, but the idea of Mjölnir going to someone else seemed to agitate fans. That this bothered people raises a question: if a person is Thor, or a version thereof, based on which hammer they wield, who is actually the hero, the hammer or the person who uses it? Continue reading →

Jun 26 2017

You’re A Hero or You’re Nothing in Mighty Thor 20

by Taylor Anderson

Mighty Thor 20

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The conflict between a superhero’s alter-ego and their heroic identity is well chronicled. For some, like Black Widow, balancing two identities is cakewalk. For others, like Batman, one identity takes over completely. However, even though the Dark Knight identifies more as Batman than Bruce Wayne, he can still vacillate between his two identities as he pleases. Jane Foster, on the other hand, doesn’t have this luxury. Soon the stage 4 breast cancer that is infecting her body will take her life. If she wants to live, she has only one choice – become Thor forever. Continue reading →