New Year, New Comics: Bringing Down The Hammer With ‘Thor’ By Walt Simonson

Welcome to New Year, New Comics, where the Comicon.com team wanted to share their new comics resolutions for the year.

This could be a series or run we’ve never read. A story that we loved and want to revisit. Or something we want to give a second chance. So come back here every day this week to see what our comic goals are this year (and maybe a follow-up on last year).

I’ve been a big Marvel head for a long time. The big thing about that though is that I’ve read very little pre-Onslaught (what a landmark for my comic reading). What I have read prior that time has been almost entirely X-Men and Spider-Man, outside of a few landmark stories like Born Again, Avengers: Under Siege and Captain America: Operation Rebirth.

Here’s the thing for me though- I’ve come to love Thor. Really, he’s become my favorite Avenger, hands down. And yeah, that has a little to do with the MCU’s Thor, but really only to get myself on the path.

Ever since that first Thor movie, I’ve more or less had Thor on my pull list constantly (taking a break for the later half of Donny Cates’ Thor, but otherwise…). However, outside of occasionally buying back issues as I see them, I haven’t gone backwards to catch up on the Thunder God.

So while I continue my read-through of Uncanny X-Men (last year’s goal), I’m going to start to alternate stories with the big daddy of Thor runs. Yes, my comics reading goal this year is Walt Simonson’s epic run on The Mighty Thor, the gold standard.

Simonson took a series that had always balanced the lines between mythology, superhero action and a hefty dose of Marvel cosmic, and turned it into a years-long epic about the mightiest hero in Nine Realms (the tenth realm wouldn’t come until much, much later). He introduced enduring concepts like Beta Ray Bill. He fleshed out the universe around Thor, and added depth to his cast — particularly Loki.

Essentially every epic Thor moment you’ve seen memed or homaged in a film comes from this run. There’s the cover of Thor and Bill clashing. There’s Skurge’s last stand, assault rifles in hand. And at the end of it all, there’s Thor, Odin and Loki, facing the ultimate end of all things — Ragnarok.

It’s a run that embodies what comics are at their best, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of it. So it’s time to read it beginning to end.