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A review by trike
Thor: God of Thunder, Volume 1: The God Butcher by Jason Aaron
5.0
One of the problems with mainstream superhero comics is that we know the hero isn't going to die. Or if they do, it doesn't take and they come back. Can't mess with the franchise, after all.
So titling this "The God Butcher" and making it about a creature who kills entire pantheons, leaving planets without their gods, gave me a bit of hesitation. Fortunately Aaron doesn't go in for that fake melodrama of pretending to kill the main character. Instead, he writes an epic fantasy as a murder mystery, one that spans the universe and thousands of years.
Right away we see Thor as a (relative) youngster palling around with Vikings in the 8th century, then in current day consulting with Iron Man briefly and then at the end of his life, gray-haired and one-armed, the last god of Asgard waiting for the titular God Butcher to finish him off. So there's none of this false tension of "will he die or won't he?" that writers try to pass off.
My only minor quibble is that he uses "I would have words with thee", Thor's new catchphrase that everyone went "Oh hell yeah!" when he first uttered it, but now it's being overused. However, he does have an original legitimate "fuck yeah!" moment early on to balance out the borrowed one.
The art by Esad Ribic is spectacular. I've been a fan of his since I first became aware of him and it was the initial reason I picked the book up at the library. 15 minutes later I had read the first chapter and was hooked, so I grabbed all three volumes. Very much looking forward to the next two installments.
So titling this "The God Butcher" and making it about a creature who kills entire pantheons, leaving planets without their gods, gave me a bit of hesitation. Fortunately Aaron doesn't go in for that fake melodrama of pretending to kill the main character. Instead, he writes an epic fantasy as a murder mystery, one that spans the universe and thousands of years.
Right away we see Thor as a (relative) youngster palling around with Vikings in the 8th century, then in current day consulting with Iron Man briefly and then at the end of his life, gray-haired and one-armed, the last god of Asgard waiting for the titular God Butcher to finish him off. So there's none of this false tension of "will he die or won't he?" that writers try to pass off.
My only minor quibble is that he uses "I would have words with thee", Thor's new catchphrase that everyone went "Oh hell yeah!" when he first uttered it, but now it's being overused. However, he does have an original legitimate "fuck yeah!" moment early on to balance out the borrowed one.
The art by Esad Ribic is spectacular. I've been a fan of his since I first became aware of him and it was the initial reason I picked the book up at the library. 15 minutes later I had read the first chapter and was hooked, so I grabbed all three volumes. Very much looking forward to the next two installments.