Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Carlos Magno
Color Artist: Matthew Wilson
Cover Artist: Alex Ross
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $4.99
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Thor has been caught in the spider’s web as Dario Agger, The Minotaur, CEO of Roxxon Corporation, has partnered up with Thor’s old enemies Amora The Enchantress and Skurge The Executioner. Their plan is to sap Thor’s power and intelligence to create a new one, Roxxon Thor. A “modern” Thor who is quite the company man. But the God of Thunder has had it and he intends to end this mockery. Read Immortal Thor #10 to see the true God of Thunder combat his ridiculous imposter.
Review:
Alright, so after the trio of Dario Agger, aka The Minotaur with the devilish duo of The Enchantress and Skurge The Executioner, execute their secret plan (pun intended) against Thor we get a new foe: Roxxon Thor. But it turns out there’s a little bit more to this false god of thunder than meets the eye. Fair warning, there will be SPOILERS in this review.
The entire story centers on Thor trying to regain his senses and himself to combat Roxxon Thor, who turns out is an old spiritual Familiar of The Enchantress called The Keep (I don’t make up these names). And the story magic skald spell that Enchantress cast on Thor is making his ability to form coherent thoughts challenging. But Thor manages to find a way to beat them at their own game and quickly turn the tables on Roxxon Thor. But it turns out that the Enchantress has even more schemes going on than this.
Now, I’m not the biggest fan of this story arc, but this issue still did a good job in entertaining me, which is the most important. The best thing is still how Thor is written, how he uses his warrior cunning to actually outwit his opponents while forcing him to show his true cowardice and let it work against him in their battle. On top of that, the art from Carlos Magno is also pretty good and does a great job in conveying the epic atmosphere we’ve come to expect from this series’ fights. So, the art was good to me.
While some who read my previous reviews might think I would be elated to discover The Executioner kill The Minotaur with Thor’s new ax, you’d be wrong. At first, I was happy but then it quickly dawned on me that this could be either a fake-out death. Or Al Ewing has more in store with Dario The Minotaur and will have Enchantress just resurrect him in future issues. Because of this, I’m not entirely fond of this development since it could easily be undone in a couple of issues. Then there’s the problem with what could be the Enchantress’ true goal here: to hurt Thor’s reputation. Or at least that’s how it seems at this point in the story.
See, by the end Thor is blamed for the death of Dario The Minotaur while his fight against the Keep, aka Roxxon Thor, was live streamed by onlooking civilians watching the battle. Now, the implication is that Thor will essentially lose face and reputation among the US, but this idea feels very detached from the Marvel Comics universe. By that, I mean that people have witnessed Thor killing all kinds of terrors, whether it’s monsters, demons, evil gods, supervillains, etc. he’s killed before and in public, with some people even cheering him. So, the idea that this will hurt his relations with the general public is ludicrous. Basically, this stinks of poor social commentary and even Al Ewing isn’t that good at it, but we’ll see.
Final Thoughts:
Immortal Thor #10 concludes the fight between Thor and the trio of villains of The Minotaur, Enchantress, and the Executioner. While we get another new artist, they manage to bring some epic energy to the battle between Thor and the faux Roxxon Thor. It’s also great to see Enchantress and Executioner take charge and do away with the Minotaur, but who’s to say if this is truly his final death or a decoy of some kind. Time will tell where this story takes the God of Thunder in the upcoming issues.