Marvel Monday 5/9 Behold the Power of Thor!

“Whosoever holds this Hammer, if he be worthy shall posses the power of Thor!” The words resonate across the world as Thor swept the box office this weekend. Last week Marvel Monday hooked you up with two great Thor mini series at half-off the normal price. Today we’re letting the hammer drop once more with another helping of half-off Thor stores this time featuring the mighty avenger himself.

Right now get the first 13 issues of The Mighty Thor for only $0.99 featuring the jaw-dropping art of comic icon John Romita Sr. along with long time Thor scribe Dan Jurgens. It’s a new Thor for a new era and it all begins in these first 13 issues. Add them to your digital collection today and keep an eye out for more mighty surprises throughout the week!

Marvel Monday 5/2 Half Price Loki and Balder The Brave

Hearken! The most mightiest of days is upon us once more. Marvel Monday is here and it tells thee save! As just in time for the big screen debut of Thor, Loki, Balder and Volstagg we’re offering half price issues of both Loki and Balder The Brave to those most eager for tales of heroics and treachery.

View Asgardian lore from new eyes as Loki rewrites the history of the golden city and its denizens! In this story, Loki’s insatiable lust for power, his conflicted sentiments toward Sif, his antipathy toward Balder, and the feelings of longing and resentment toward his older brother, Thor, and uncaring father, Odin, will take on new meaning.

Plus it’s a classic tale from the Asgard of old in Balder The Brave by master scribe Walter Simonson. While away from Asgard, Balder’s lord and master, the mighty Odin, perished. But for the gods, death is not the end… He’ll have to join Thor for a journey in the underworld realm of Hel! Not only have the Frost Giants besieged the realm of Nornheim, they’ve made off his beloved Queen Karnilla as well! The journey through the Nine Worlds begins!

Verily this sale won’t last long so take advantage of the savings while it lasts add these comics to your digital collection and don’t forget Thor hits theaters May 6th!

Recommended Digital Comics: Thor

I was treated to a timely surprise when I worked on the first few issues of the Dan Jurgens/ John Romita Jr. “Thor” that came out on the Marvel Comics application earlier this week. The late 1990’s series, from Marvel’s Heroes Reborn era, is a great contemporary forerunner for two of the books I’ve got on my pull list for the weeks to come: Robert Rodi’s “Thor: For Asgard” and Bryan Glass’s “Thor: The Last Son.”

The Jurgens/Romita Thor story delights with magnetic Kirby-esque art but remains grounded in the twin lives of the almighty Thor and Jake Olson, his modern host. In both this tale and Glass’s (which follows former Thor host, Donald Blake) we see the essential duality any and all Thor books should contain. We have entwined characters, a shared godliness and humanity at once. But don’t be mistaken. The Jurgens book is jam packed with the celestial, too.  It plumbs the cosmic politics of Asgard that we get a taste of in Rodi’s current book and taps into the classic sibling rivalry of Loki and Thor.

If that wasn’t enchanting enough, the first two issues have Thor teaming up with Captain America and Iron Man, giving us a companion to the dynamic John Romita Jr. art we’ve got on the stands right now in “Avengers.” The Jurgens/Romita “Thor” does it all. With Marvel’s Thor movie on the horizon is great to see such strength and variety in Thor books new and old.

Thor: First Thunder with Bryan J.L. Glass: A podcast worth doing somersaults for

Harvey Award winner Bryan J.L. Glass joins us once again to show how he makes lightning strike with Thor: First Thunder #1! We also talk app stuff as Image United joins our ranks and make sure we have all our shots with Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers! We keep the magic rolling with Zatanna, go to Infinity (Gauntlet) and (Batman) Beyond, and try to see what’s the story with Morning Glories.

Listen To: It Came Out On Wednesday: Thor: First Thunder!

Is that a magical Norse Hammer, or are you just happy to see me?

Comic covers are a wondrous art. They most often serve two diverging roles. One type of cover seeks to encapsulate a book.  Literalist covers highlight a distinct moment in the comic. Other similar covers aim to capture the spirit of their specific issue, extend the styling or themes within through representational or abstract means.

Then there are covers that are wildly tangential. These covers upend the content inside the actual comic.  By going beyond the confines of an issue, this variety of cover amends the meaning of the single issue with it’s own unique images and ideas. This offbeat strand of cover is a surprisingly effective method of entry for Big Two superheroes—characters so reduced to essentials but ever open to reconsideration and reinterpretation.

This front for “Thor: For Asgard #1” is a weird amalgam of these two approaches to covers. Mjollnir, Thor’s hammer, dominates the image. The weapon defines the foreground, its edges sharply contrasted with Thor’s body. More than that, its upright handle appears exceptionally… ribbed? Do I really need to spell it out people? It’s emanating lighting for Odin’s sake– and do look where the lightning begins!

At first glance, the cover, by Simone Bianchi, seems wildly irreverent. It is a disruptive image so free and forceful that your eyes are bound to be drawn to it at your comic store. What separates this eye-grabbing Thor cover from others of its ilk is that it is wholly appropriate. “Thor: For Asgard” recounts a tale from the dark days of Asgard. Odin is gone and his son is acting as regent. Asgard is trapped in a perpetual winter that risks destroying the supply of golden apples that sustain the Norse gods and keep them immortal. The entire issue consists of Thor shoring up his masculinity in the face of his father’s absence and godly in fighting.

Writer Robert Rodi brings things to an all too appropriate end. Thor is stirred from his sleep by Lady Sif, who confronted him and Tyr earlier in the issue. She comforts him with pointed bedchamber philosophy:

“…such things are never to be discussed with heads on pillows. Here, there is no Tyr, no rebel nations, no endless winter, no Asgard. There is only we two… nameless and without history… a man and a woman…lost in love.”

Rawr. I do love me some pseudo-Norse pillow talk. What follows is a wordless three-page sequence. Thor wakes, roams the empty halls of his palace, and enters a room where Mjollnir stands fixed on a pedestal. He grabs hold of the hammer and in a classic sword in the stone styled moment, tries to raise the magic hammer from its place. Bianchi owns the scene, drawing Thor thick with shadows, his hair a billowing mass. Despite all his exertions, Thor cannot lift the hammer.  So while Thor asserts himself among his fellow gods and even satisfies his sexual desires, he is unable to stake his rule through this figurative act. We are left with a failure of mythic manhood. The cover is both companion and witty counterpoint to this conclusion. It indulges in the resounding impotence felt in the ending with an image of hysterical virility. The cover’s magic hammer might be pulsating with electricity but it’s still sheathed in ice.