Thor: God of Thunder 19

thor 19Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Thor: God of Thunder 19, originally released February 12th, 2014.

SpencerIt’s easy to take a cynical view of environmentalism — personally, I’m thinking specifically of how that one-time donation of $20 I gave to my state’s Wildlife Conservation Fund has been spent three or four times over just paying for the junk mail they’ve since sent me — and its even easier to turn stories about environmentalism into preachy tirades. Amazingly, in Thor: God of Thunder 19 Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic avoid those traps, somehow presenting us with a nuanced and “realistic” tale of the titular God’s fight to save the Earth itself while also taking the time to remind us of our planet’s beauty — and what the planet could end up looking like if we fail to protect it. Continue reading

Thor: God of Thunder 12

thor 12

Today, Ethan and Drew are discussing Thor: God of Thunder 12, originally released August 28th, 2013.


Ethan
Religion is a funny thing. The effort and complexity inherent to trying to establish a useful way of thinking about where stuff comes from and how we should keep it going forward is difficult to wrap your head around. We humans are bundles of passion and logic, of guilt and pride, of doubt and certainty. Whether you think that’s thanks to some awkward midpoint of evolution, or intrinsic tension between physical and spiritual existence, it’s a heckuva weight to walk around with, and religions (or opposition to them — a kind of religion in itself) is seemingly one of the only ways we’ve got that get our species through each day and each millenium. Rather than a denial of the tension between our daily life and the unthinkable bigness of space and time, religions find ways to incorporate the vast distances that are out there into our miniscule doings. In the issues of Thor, God of Thunder leading up to #12, we’ve mostly focused on the Big, Godly Conflict; this issue takes its time to let us steep in the Small, Human Cares and to explore how those two scales are linked.

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