Writer: Al Ewing

Artist: Ibraim Roberson

Color Artist: Matthew Wilson

Cover Artist: Alex Ross

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Price: $4.99

Reviewer: StoryBabbler

The primordial gods of the realm of Utgard have been unleashed upon the Earth and the cosmos. A grave threat for Thor and his allies to face. But who was it that unleashed them from their realm? Who unlocked the gates to these fearsome elder gods? Thor’s birth mother, Gaea, a personification of the Earth itself. Now in Immortal Thor #8, the new All-Father has words with Gaea to find out why she did it.

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Review:

Now, I have much to say on this issue and the “story” we get here. And it’s not good. There will be massive SPOILERS in this review in the section titled “SPOILERS”, which will be long. From the very first issue, we knew that Gaea, Mother Earth herself, had freed the elder gods of Utgard from their exile. She’s responsible for why they sealed themselves away in the first place. And now she’s let them loose. The big question all of us, most of all Thor, have been wondering is “Why?”. And after venturing into one of Gaea’s places of power to talk to her, Thor finally gets his answer, as do we, and….wow. Just wow.

Okay, let’s get into the only two good things about this comic and then get into what makes not only this issue but the whole Utgard storyline just…off-putting. Firstly, Ibraim Roberson’s art is great, and while I will miss Martin Coccolo’s art, Roberson’s art paired with Matthew Wilson’s colors is still pretty good on its own. On top of that, after hearing Gaea’s reason for unleashing the gods of Utgard upon the Earth, Al Ewing keeps Thor’s heroic characterization intact and follows through on how far he’s willing to go to protect innocent lives from being destroyed, mortals and gods alike. So, that’s good. And that’s all the praise I have for this comic.

SPOILERS:

Okay, let’s get to the real meat of this comic. Why did Gaea unleash the Utgard gods? Simple, she wants humanity to “change.” In her own words as she said in this issue, “The Earth is not always kind. And if I look upon those who think they own it (humans) – who own me, as if I was given to them by some Greater God Still – if I see them and see that they will not change until change is forced upon them, then I will force that change, to spare them even worse. It was humanity that summoned the superstorm, Thor. I merely took them at their word.”

Where to begin? First, this issue is really just Thor listening to Gaea recap Earth’s ancient past that, credit where credit is due, is canon to how it’s portrayed in the Marvel Comics universe. But ultimately, there’s no story here, it’s all just recap from Gaea who’s dancing around telling Thor the truth so Ewing can pad out the page count. But the biggest problems are Gaea’s ridiculous reason for starting all of this, how it makes her look dumb, and how it really reflects Al Ewing’s disappointing lack of creativity for her and now this storyline. Let me explain.

Previously, Gaea was typically portrayed as a benign Earth goddess in the past decade of Marvel comics whenever she showed up. Look no further than the Chaos War event where she shows up along with many other gods. Yet here she’s more of an ancient primeval creature, and she’s more ruthless than she’s ever been. And while I admittedly like the design, it doesn’t change the fact that the character’s reasoning for causing everything is plainly stupid. See, the comic, and by extension Al Ewing, has Gaea say “change” so much, but it fails to specify what she actually wants, and what “change” exactly means here. What are her gripes with humanity? Is she mad about all the damage we’ve done to the environment? Does she want humans to go green? I suspect we’re supposed to just infer that’s what she wants, but the comic keeps things too ambiguous.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say Gaea wants humanity to go green and just be good, and she thinks she can force this change upon us by unleashing the gods of Utgard to do it. This plan makes absolutely no sense for practical and contextual reasons. First, how is humanity supposed to change their ways if Godzilla-sized elder gods like Toranos rampage and massacre humans by the hundreds of thousands or cause other types of world-ending catastrophes. If the idea is Gaea wants humanity to change its ways, then there are plenty of non-destructive ways for her to do so, or at least get the ball rolling. Not to mention, who’s to say the Utgard gods won’t turn on her in the end since she’s basically the reason they had to exile themselves. I’m sure Utgard-Loki’s got something special cooked up just for her as payback.

Then there’s the contextual in-universe reason why this plan stinks. Humanity in the main Marvel Comics 616 universe gets routinely attacked by super-villains, monsters, demons, killer robots, aliens, cosmic horrors, gods of all kinds, or some weird combination. And yet, despite enduring all of these things, even the literal destruction and rebirth of the Universe, humanity has pretty much stayed the same. So, why would Gaea, the Earth herself, think that unleashing more evil elder gods to force humanity to change its ways would succeed? This plan was always doomed to fail, and it makes Gaea look dumb. But what’s worse is it reflects Al Ewing’s disappointingly unimaginative, and surprisingly cliché idea for why Gaea would cause any of this to happen.

This all just feels like a cheap excuse for Al Ewing to do another story with the Roxxon Corporation’s CEO Dario Agger, aka The Minotaur, as the main villain, like he did in a story arc in the Immortal Hulk series. The end of the comic even has Thor going to the Roxxon headquarters to have a “final meeting” with The Minotaur, possibly as a way to appease Gaea. And since Marvel Comics announced a month or two ago that Al Ewing’s doing a big story event in this series with The Minotaur as the main villain, or at least the cover villain, it just feels like Gaea was merely used as a stepping stone to get that storyline going. The only thing that could save this storyline is if we find out in future issues that this isn’t the real reason she caused all of this, and there’s something else going on. But for what we’re given in this comic, it’s not good and kind of hurts my enthusiasm for this series a little.

Final Thoughts:

Immortal Thor #8 has the God of Thunder confront his birth mother Gaea, the Earth herself, on why she unleashed the Elder Gods of Utgard. Unfortunately, Gaea’s answer and motivation for why she caused all of this is bad, painfully cliché for a character like her, and it makes little sense in the context of the main Marvel Comics universe why she’d think unleashing destructive, skyscraper-sized elder gods like Toranos would lead to anything good. The only good things in this comic are the art by Ibraim Roberson and Matthew Wilson’s colors, and Thor’s stalwart heroic characterization.

6/10