Thor #616
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Pasqual Ferry
1. Thor rebuilds his throne room while an epic threat approaches in Fraction and Ferry’s second issue of their new arc. The world eaters are coming.
2. The Broxton Oklahoma (where Asgard landed on Earth) Biddy Brigade trying to cheer up Kelda for his loss of Bill is excellent and maybe the best thing in the issue. This lingering subplot of Kelda’s heartbreak is great for humanizing Asgardian’s.
3. Volstagg remains hilarious, but this scientist, already frustrated by Volstagg making him explain about the World Eaters 50-times last issue, is too blunt with Thor and Balder and so gets shut down.
4. I’m not a fan of emo Thor here who misses Loki and is a jerk to this random scientist. The dude hangs out with Tony Stark, you’d think he would respect human science by now.
5. I like that the World Eaters are getting their own politics and personalities, but wasn’t really interested in them, unfortunately.
6. Thor trying to get Loki back works for me, but only if we get a kinder, gentler Loki for a time. Slott, Gillen and Bendis went a long way to redeeming him towards the end of his life and I’d like some more of that for a time.
7. The gods here are appropriately visually impressive, but Ferry could stand to work on his facial expressions and posing.
8. Matt Fraction has become Marvel’s go-to writer besides Bendis. His Iron Man is a definitive run on the character and his X-Men is the best of both worlds between the Whedon and Morrison approaches. If Thor follows suit, along with creator owned Casanova being must read, Fraction has a case for comics best writer.
9.Grey Scherl Guest Thought: Kelda’s pointy ears are new, and weird. I went hunting for a good shot of how they looked before just to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
See? I’m totally not crazy. They gave her pointy ears!
10. <b>Rating: 4/10</b> – This isn’t so much a story yet as an initial situation for two issues. This isn’t as bad as the rating suggests, but a slightly obnoxious main character and the quiet after all the recent horrors makes it feel like more of a let-down than it probably is. This will hold together better in trade.
