THOR #615

I've never been a fan of this character, so perhaps it's not really saying anything when I admit that I didn't like this issue very much. If you've never read Thor than you probably vaguely know that he's a Norse God dude with a hammer. What you might not know is that he can change into an earthling doctor (lame) and that he speaks in a ridiculously silly Norse God dialect that gets annoying fast. Everyone will realize this when Kenneth Branagh's film version hits next summer. They will also probably realize that a character like this worked wonders in the 1960's but his very hard to make cool or entertaining now. Writer J. Michael Straczynski, who's over at DC these days, had a fantastic run last year on this book. He surprised me by making the book engrossing (it also didn't hurt that he had Marvel's best artist, Olivier Copiel, on board). It can be done, but it's rather difficult. Case in point: this issue is borderline awful. The new writer on board is Matt Fraction, one of Marvel's big boy writers. He also writes Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men. I've never been a fan of Fraction, and this issue feels like a B-version of a well-crafted, bizarre Alan Moore script. There is a blue alien race somewhere that gets attacked by a conquering army of red aliens. There's also a scientist explaining parallel worlds. And there's Thor attempting to help pick up the pieces of the fallen Asgaard. Certainly the art (Pasqual Ferry) isn't anything spectacular, but the colors by Matt Hollingsworth are wonderful. The actual plot is thin and will eventually (and hopefully) shift and shape itself into something larger and more entertaining, but so far it just falls flat. This issue is scatter shot and dull. I see no reason why anyone would bother to buy the next issue after reading this mess. *