Comics 101: The Mighty Thor

The story of Thor really begins in Norse mythology. Thor was the son of Odin, king of the Norse gods. He wielded a powerful hammer named Mjolnir and was married to his fellow goddess, Sif. His greatest adversary was his half-brother Loki, the trickster god. Thor had grown too proud in the eye of Odin, and his father decided to banish Thor to Midgard aka Earth so he could learn what it was like to be mortal. Thor's soul was placed in the body of crippled med student Donald Blake, and all his memories of godhood were taken. And for a few years, Thor lay dormant inside of Blake, until Blake takes a vacation to Norway and witnesses a fleet of aliens landing nearby. Blake scrambles into a nearby cave where he discovers a plain wooden cane. When he accidentally strikes the cane against a rock it transforms into Mjolnir and turns Blake into Thor.

Comics I'm Getting This Week

BOOM! Studios
Darkwing Duck #2 (of 4)
Muppet Snow White #3

DC Comics
Batman Beyond #2 (of 6)
Batman: Streets of Gotham #14
Brightest Day #6
DC Universe Legacies #3 (of 10)
Justice Society of America #41
Legion of Super-Heroes #3
Power Girl #14
The Spirit #4
Supergirl #54
Superman/Batman #74
Time Masters: Vanishing Point #1 (of 6)
Zatanna #3

IDW
G.I. Joe Cobra II #6

Image
Invincible #74
Shadowhawk #3
The Walking Dead #75

Marvel
Age of Heroes #3 (of 4)
Amazing Spider-Man #638
Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son #3 (of 4)
Atlas #3
Avengers #3
Dark Wolverine #88
Deadpool #25
Heroic Age: Prince of Power #3 (of 4)
Lady Deadpool #1
Marvel Zombies 5 #5 (of 5)
Marvelman Classic Primer #1 (One-Shot)
The Marvelous Land of Oz #8 (of 8)
New Avengers #2
New Mutants #15
Thunderbolts #146
Web of Spider-Man #10
X-Factor #207
X-Men: Phoenix Force Handbook

Vertigo
Air #23

Wildstorm
Welcome To Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #1 (of 6)

Event Fatigue: Second Coming

Second Coming
Written by Zeb Wells, Mike Carey, Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Matt Fraction
Art by Ibriam Roberson, Esad Ribic, Greg Land, Terry Dodson

If you are wanting to jump into some of the most dense, hard to navigate continuity in comics today then look no further than Marvel's X-Men titles (New Mutants, Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Legacy, X-Force, X-Factor). The X-Men characters have always seem to occupied their own little corner of the Marvel Universe, only occasionally linking up with characters like the Avengers and Spider-Man. So, when an event goes down amongst the mutant community its always very self-contained but rarely simple. The most recent event, Second Coming was all about the rebirth of the mutant race. Five years ago, Magneto's daughter, Scarlet Witch used her reality bending powers to erase the majority of mutant powers from the face of the earth, leaving only 200 mutants left. Over the next few years, some of these mutants died and the creeping fear that their species would be wiped spread over the community. That is until one new mutant was born.

Back Issue Bin: Marvels

Superhero comics are traditionally told from the point of view of the beings of great power. From time to time we glimpse the man on the street reacting to the "gods" battling above his head. In 1994, writer Kurt Busiek and painter Alex Ross united to create a ground breaking mini-series that would influence comics books still today. If you know anything about comic books in the 1990s, you know that it was the boom and bust period. X-Men #1 sold a million copies, a group of upstart creators left Marvel to form Image, DC gimmicked the hell out of the Death of Superman. There was a cynicism that underlined the majority of material being released. Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns had really colored everything that came after them, but were interpreted for all the wrong elements. It appeared the average comic creator saw those texts and thought "higher levels of violence and sexuality", instead of "tightly crafted storytelling and manipulation of the genre tropes". Busiek and Ross decided to take readers back to a time when heroes were objects of wonder, not agents of destruction.

Breaking Down The New DC Promo

So DC Comics has released a promo image tied to their current Brightest Day theme running throughout their books. The images here gives clues and metaphorical images about where the various titles are heading in the next six months. Let's break it down, shall we? (Click on the image to enlarge)

Comics 101: Martian Manhunter

In 1955, in the back pages of the Batman focused Detective Comics, a new superhero was introduced in a story titled "The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel." Dr. Erdel was a Chicago based astronomer who has constructed a device to communicate with the planet Mars, which Erdel believes is inhabited. The device malfunctions and accidentally teleports a Martian to Earth. Erdel is so shocked by this he has a heart attack and dies leaving the confused Martian alone on this strange new world. His Martian name is J'onn J'onnz and, due to his ability to shape shift, he takes the alias John Jones and fakes credentials to become a police detective in the Windy City. J'onn would keep his Martian identity secret for many years, using his telepathy, flight, and ability to phase through solid matter to foil criminals without them realizing it. But, he could only hide for so long.

Back Issue Bin: Y The Last Man #1-60

Here's an entry from DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. Y the Last Man ran from 2002 to 2008 and was written by Brian K. Vaughn, with art Pia Guerra. The covers were provided by the insanely talented J.G. Jones. If you're a fan of Lost then you're familiar wit Vaughn's writing, he was a writer on staff for seasons 3, 4, and 5. He even received a Writer's Guild nomination for his Season 4 work on the show. Y the Last Man is one of the comic book series that feels like a perfect framework for a television series as well. We have a regular cast of characters involved in one large arching story, with small six issues arcs along the way. The series looks at some issues of gender in global culture and is one of those great philosophical science fiction stories.