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Salutations to everybody reading this week’s Marvel Snapshot! I’m going to continue with the Siege theme in anticipation of the final issue coming out this month and spotlight the Son of Odin, Thor! This character is near and dear to my heart because he is my favorite hero of all time! Let us now take a look inside his storied life.

I’m sure most readers will know quite a few things about Thor. He has a list of friends and allies a mile long but I’ll only speak of the most important ones right now. First, the woman he loves is the stunning Asgardian beauty Sif. She is much the female version of Thor as far as her skill and heart are concerned. Now, he did love a human girl Jane Foster, but that was long ago and she’s been married then divorced so Thor regards her as “damaged goods” (so I’ve been told). Thor’s next closest friend(s) would have to be Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, or The Warriors Three as they are commonly known. I know back in the day, Thor was all chummy with Balder but after he kicked Thor out of Asgard, that isn’t the case anymore. Speaking of Balder, he’s made some really bad choices since becoming ruler of Asgard. If you don’t know, Thor went into hibernation after the events of the last Ragnarok and didn’t awaken until his hammer, Mjolnir, fell to Earth. Thor came out of the void where he was sleeping and once again used his alter-ego Dr. Don Blake to walk amongst the humans. After waking up and recreating Asgard though, while Balder was in charge, Balder moved the Asgardian population to Latveria, home of Doctor Doom (yeah, bad idea).
After a short while, Thor was tricked into fighting his grand-father, Bor (Thor #600). This lead to Thor killing his grand-father and being banished from Asgard for that crime by Balder. Thor also beat the crap out of Iron Man during Civil War and fought the Skrulls responsible for Secret Invasion. He also reunited with kindred spirit Beta Ray Bill during that story too. Asgard was rebuilt by Thor and he was residing in Broxton Oklahoma which is the town underneath the hovering home to the rest of Thor’s Asgardian kinsmen. Recently, Thor learned of a plot by Doctor Doom to find out how Asgardian physiology works. Thor discovered that Doom was dissecting Asgardians for an unknown purpose. Well, to make a long story short, Doom figured out that the Destroyer Armor (a magical armor built by Odin to stop the Celestials) needs an Asgardian soul to operate so he learns how to obtain a soul after death and reanimates the armor and battles Thor. Doom loses his battle with Thor but an even bigger threat is on the horizon for Thor in the form of Robert Reynolds- A.K.A. The Sentry!
We’ve seen in the first three issues of Siege that Thor will do anything to protect his homeland. He flew right into battle against Norman Osborn’s troops and fought them all by himself for a short period of time. Thor was about to lay a beating on Osborn when The Sentry came flying in and grabbed him. The two began a brawl for the ages but when Osborn’s forces started to lose the war, he told The Sentry to “bring it all down” and “don’t let them win”. The Sentry, who not much earlier took a full force hit to the face from Thor’s enchanted hammer Mjolnir, starts to smash Asgard into pieces. After all this, The Sentry then changes into his alter-ego The Void and is ready to kill everybody! Thor and all the others watching are terrified because they don’t know how to stop him. Oh, and a quick side note: this is all Loki’s fault as usual.
Thor has had many great adventures with The Avengers, solo, and so on but his ongoing title has always been the best in my humble opinion. Many great writers have been assigned with the writing duties of his solo book. Stan Lee and Walter Simonson did it best I think, but Roy Thomas and Len Wein aren’t exactly hacks either. Currently Kieron Gillen writes Thor but very soon Matt Fraction will take the reigns and will hopefully pick up right where Gillen leaves off. Thor’s friendship with the now dead Hercules was always good for some laughs too. They were usually on somewhat of an equal footing so it was great to see two characters that both thought they were the greatest fight it out. I’ll leave a good reading list for you but honestly, you can’t find a bad Thor book! Until next time, I bid thee farewell yon readers!
Recommended Reading
Thor: The Eternals Saga vol.’s 1 & 2 Tpb
Thor: Blood Oath Tpb
Avengers Disassembled: Thor Tpb
Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson vol.’s 1-5 Tpb
Thor vol. 3 #1- current
JLA/ Avengers Tpb
Thor vol. 1 # 337-340 (first appearance of Beta Ray Bill)

Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net