A Mighty Thorsday: 9/18/2008

THOR #374

Written By: Walter Simonson

Drawn By: Sal Buscema

This issue is interesting to me because its one of the first issues I can ever recall Thor totally owning a guy to the point of death. Sure hes destroyed robots, killed giants, and slayed beasts, but just outright killing a person? This I have yet to see. Not until Thor #374.

This issue takes place during the Marvel Crossover known as the Mutant Massacre, where Thor pretty much plays the role of the old man yelling "What hell is going on down in that sewer!? Don't make me come down there!" Oh, and tons of Morlocks die. You know the mutants that have the unfortunate powers. Ones that really mess them up cosmetically unlike those Gap models who call themselves the X-Men. Yeah, well loads of them die and Thor has had enough.

As Thor descends into the forgotten sewers of Manhattan, he comes in contact with three of the Marauders: Harpoon, Blockbuster, and Vertigo.

As you can see all of them talk trash and then get a grade "A" Thor beat down. After their retreat, Thor recovers the body of Angel and begins to head back to the surface. Meanwhile the villains stew about their defeat. You know, their the defeat at the hands of a God. Its really something they shouldn't beat themselves up about. Of course Sabertooth, who has met up with the trio, is a dick and pisses off Blockbuster.

This is where things get interesting...

Eventually Blockbuster finds Thor and an all out slobber-knocker erupts. Hell, Blockbuster even breaks Thor's left arm and drops him out of the fight. In all the commotion the once unconscious Angel tries to help but just lands himself in a choke hold. Then it happens...

THOR KILLS BLOCKBUSTER.

With a deft throw of Mjolnir, he just ends him. I can't really be surprised. I mean Angels life was in danger, Thor had a broken arm and after all, this is the Norse god of thunder we are talking about. But how often have you seen one hero slay another? Granted this isn't one of Thor's arch enemies, but its still a life, and often the heroes respect that and just knock em' out so the authorities can handle it. But Thor just kills him. Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose and this case, it was defense. Oh well.

You Will Be Missed

BLOCKBUSTER

RIP

OCTOBER 1986 to DECEMBER 1986

Braggart: Secret Invasion #6

Thor finally made his appearance in Secret Invasion and the Marvel U at large, which is... TIGHT. Granted there was hardly enough smashing and Thor bragging (I'm sure most of this will come in the next two issues) it was still really enjoyable.

I mean, did we at least get to see Thor kick some ass?

Other points of interest were Thor meeting the new Captain America and the Avengers Big Three somewhat reuniting.

As much as I wanted to see the true Avengers get back together, what I really wanted was a conversation between Thor and Bucky, the two best-friends of Steve Rogers. Instead what we got was some Thor speech and a one liner from Bucky.

Originally on IGN.com they had previewed the line work from this issue when the two meet. It looked something like this:

Obviously they made some changes.

As you can see to the left of Cap, Secret Invasion artist Leinil Yu originally drew the Winter Soldier standing behind Bucky. Actually it looks like it could be a WW II Bucky Barnes, but its a bit hard to make out from Yu's thick line work. Regardless I think we were seeing some sort of pseudo flashback or perhaps even some Odinforce abilities showing Thor who is in the Captain America uniform. But as we can see from the final art:

The image was changed. Just something I caught.

Overall, I was pretty happy with this issue. There was some strange pacing, but the art is awesome and watching Thor interact with the new and old of the Marvel Universe was surprisingly nostalgic and awesome. Seriously look at the last 4 pages, 60-70% of those characters are BRAND NEW. Looking forward to a great conclusion.

See you Thorsday!