Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Jan Bazaldua
Color Artist: Matt Hollingsworth
Cover Artist: Alex Ross
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Thor has been surrounded by threats both among the Gods and humankind. And now the All-Father has been caught in an ambush by some of his oldest foes, rallied together by the villain Dario Agger. Now, having been petrified by the supervillain Gargoyle, and smashed by Mr. Hyde, read Immortal Thor #17 to see what trial awaits the God of Thunder now that he’s on the verge of death.
Review:
Fair warning, there will be Spoilers in this review.
Okay, last issue ended with Gargoyle petrifying Thor into stone and Mr. Hyde smashing him to pieces. Personally, this was the part of the comic I was looking forward to the most, to see how Thor gets back into the fight. Turns out it’s not really Thor who puts himself back together but the Enchantress. Once he’s back in the flesh and blood, Thor just curbstomps these fools quickly before they get beamed out of danger back to the resurrected Dario Agger.
After that, the comic really does become a bit of a talk fest between Thor, Sif and Enchantress. It’s at this point where the comic is weirdly at its most boring and most interesting. See, Enchantress made a spicy ultimatum to Thor: bring her son from Valhalla or she’ll make trouble for him on Earth via Roxxon. Thor and Sif discussed the pros and cons of such an act, where it seemed like Thor tipped toward Sif’s perspective of allowing Enchantress’s son to remain in Valhalla. But after she basically saved him earlier, and because of their spicy past, Thor decided to fulfill her request and resurrect her son.
Of course, Thor isn’t that foolish and points out how Enchantress’ deadbeat mom status leaves the reasoning of why she really wants her son back among the living in doubt. But she manages to persuade him by making a magical blood oath that she truly wants her son back. Again, this part is really a lot of talking and if you’re like me, you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop at the end of it all. But the thing is that Enchantress, and by extension Al Ewing, does pull a fast one on us all. See, this whole time Enchantress always kept saying she wants her son back, exploiting Thor’s honor and guilty conscience to do it. But while Thor and the rest of us thought she meant her recent son (fill in his name here), in truth she meant another son. One that people familiar with Norse Mythology know about, but someone that Marvel comics fans might not be. Turns out she wanted to resurrect Thor’s son Magni, but it’s a little different here.
See, Magni is one of Thor’s sons he had with Sif from Norse Mythology, who’re supposed to succeed him after Ragnarok. But neither has made an appearance in the comics proper, or at least not in this universe. Turns out Thor and Enchantress (not Sif) had a son named Magni in an alternate timeline, who arrived in this timeline but fell in battle so he went to Valhalla. And now he’s back among the living, the big question is “why”. Obviously, we’ll see in the next issue.
But that’s the only real interesting thing this whole comic. See, I said earlier that I was looking forward to how Thor got out of being petrified stone bits. But it disappointed me there. And while it was a little fun to see Thor best the villains, the fact is they’re not real threats except Gargoyle, and that’s only if he can get close. Thor even admits that himself in the comic that they weren’t a threat to him before he became All-Father and they’re still not now. So, there’s nothing exciting to look forward to with these guys except for two of them, Gargoyle and Radioactive Man. It feels like Al Ewing needs to pick better villains for Thor to fight, but it’s too late for him to shift gears. We’re stuck with some of the most underwhelming supervillains around for the next couple of issues with the similarly underperforming Dario Agger to boot.
This also stems from the comic trying to juggle multiple plot lines at once without resolving any of them or making substantial progress while adding new ones. The comic even has characters like Donald Blake list some of them for us. Thor hasn’t defeated any Utgard Gods, heck, he barely beat one and hasn’t encountered any others since aside from his great-grandfather Tiwaz, aka Buri father of Bor and grandfather of Odin. Gaea’s still threatening to change/destroy humanity if it doesn’t “change its ways”. And while I thought his problems with Dario Agger were finally resolved, Al Ewing disappointingly brings him back to life a couple issues later.
And now we got Enchantress plotting and orchestrating the resurrection of Magni. Either Al Ewing’s got a really good story cooking up, or he’s doing what he’s done before in his previous “ongoing” series after Immortal Hulk ended: introducing too many things and not doing anything with them until the very end in a sloppy and rushed conclusion with no stakes. If we’re all lucky, it’s the former or something close to it.
Final Thoughts:
Immortal Thor #17 concludes the fight between Thor and Dario Agger’s motley crew of villains. Once the fight is wrapped up, the story has Thor conclude his business with The Enchantress, or so we think. This comic isn’t that excitable, and it somewhat reminds readers of the slow progress on the Utgard storyline. However, the ending does provide a surprise reveal as to whom Enchantress wanted to bring back. But it still begs the question of “why”. Naturally, we’ll see in the next issue.