Comic Review #41: Thor #451-452 (1992)

 

In my last Comic Review I mentioned that the next review would be Thor. A bad Thor comic from the 1990s. I searched the internet to find one that would work. Most Thor comics from the 1990s were pretty enjoyable. Not the best the character ever had but pretty quality worth owning in your collection comics. I didn't want to venture into the Heroes Reborn era because really I do not want to talk about Rob Liefeld and would like to keep it that way for as long as humanly possible. He and his comics are bad and you should feel bad for liking them. I then looked through some Thor covers and I saw this and I was like "Yeah this looks like something I could talk about" 

This comic was written by Tom DeFalco. He's worked for Archie and DC and Marvel for all kinds of characters. He does solid enjoyable work. His Spider-Man stuff in the 1980s was great. His Thor comics with Ron Frenz were pretty fun. He created Spider-Girl for What If and it was so popular they created a whole universe for her. Spider-Girl was good but the rest of it well I haven't actually read but they don't look to be as good as Spider-Girl. Her first series ran for 100 issues and her second series ran for about 30 I believe. She still has a huge following and I like her quite a bit. Gary Hartle drew the issue and his stuff is fine. I really can't say much about it but I do like the way he draws a demon. I always like a good demon. 

The comic starts out with Odin, a character who I think has always been a huge dick. Like seriously that fucker always seems to go to take one of his Odin sleeps whenever big shit is about to go down. He's like "OH SHIT SERIOUS STUFF BYE GUYS GOTTA NAP" Odin's a jerk too always trying to control his sons life. Fuck Odin right in the ear. He got his throne back from Heimdall, I'm curious as to what happened in those issues now. Odin's doing some shady shit for some reason and I'm interested in seeing where that goes. So at least the subplots are pretty good. At this point Thor was not Thor but Eric Masterson a human being, like back in the very early Thor stories where he was Donald Blake before those were retconned. People got angry at Jane Foster being Thor but it's not like there wasn't any history for those stories to happen. Eric Thorsterson apparently knows that the real Thor is in Mephistos realm. Now we gotta save them!

Thor then feels like Odin has given him the shaft when he's told that they need to work on getting Thor back from Mephisto's realm. He was brought to Asgard with Code Blue, a team of police officers that had super powered weapons which helped them in fights with supervillains. They were either very popular or Tom DeFalco who co-created them really liked using them because they appear a lot during this era of Thor. I like Code Blue they were a neat addition. It kinda makes sense that some police officers would have to use super powered weapons in the Marvel universe. The big powerful lady is saying goodbye to Fandral one of the Warriors Three. The Warriors Three are three of the best comic book characters ever and I love them. They get back to earth and Eric wonders if he should go see his son or visit the Avengers. Or get something to eat. We then see what really brings down this two part arc, Bloodaxe.

Bloodaxe is well very 1990s. He's an anti hero who shows crime what it REALLY deserves which is not a fair trial or anything but extreme death. All of these characters just popped of a conveyor belt and it doesn't feel anyone put any time into creating these characters. It appears he was popular as he comes back in a few issues. Hooray. Bloodaxe kills some drug dealers and it's harsh and cool and totally not try hard at all. I'm finding there's some fun stuff in the 1990s comic but every time I see a character like this I want to run back to the sweet beautiful arms of 1960s Silver Age Marvel. Bloodaxe pretty much looks like The Red Skull but on steroids. In the second issue we learn that the guy behind Bloodaxe might be controlled by the axe but I can't be assed to care about this try hard silliness. I do not like Bloodaxe.

Another subplot that will be finished up in #453 is when Sif and Balder the Brave, another set of great characters pop out of a damn portal and talk to Eric Masterson and when Sif finds out that the real Thor is in Mephisto's realm she just grabs the norn stones and flies to that realm without even thinking. It's pretty wild. She ends up fighting like a shitload of demons in the realm before being overtaken by Mephisto. Mephisto tells her he will let real Thor leave if she joins him. I think it's pretty silly that any hero believes what is literally SATAN of the Marvel universe but she does. Oh and Odin being a dick takes away magic away from Eric Masterson. Fuck Odin man. They end up going to that realm and see Sexy Badass Evil Sif waiting for them. I might talk about that issue some time later.

Since this was trying to be very Silver Age they also bring back a Silver Age era thing called Tales of Asgard. They were backup stories talking about the other Gods in Asgard. This story involves The Enchantress who was helping Hemdall take over Asgard. She ends up in the same realm that Odin threw Hemdall in. It turns out to be NIGHTMARE'S realm. You know the Dr. Strange bad guy. I love the way Geof Isherwood draws him in these issues. Yeah I should have talked about Geof in the paragraph where I talk about the people who worked on the comic but I'm very very lazy and I kinda want to get something to eat. The Enchantress fucks the shit out of Nightmare and his realm and swears revenge against Odin for well turning Hemdall into a damn jabbering husk of a man.

FINAL VERDICT: I can't call this a completely bad two parter because the stuff that does not involve Bloody Axe Joe or whatever his dumb name was really well done. It's just that fucker brings this whole story down. Still better than Iron Man. I don't know what's next but I'm sure I will end up talking about Captain America and The Fantastic Four and even Spider-Man during this whole thing. Why not?