3 out of 5

There are a couple of things that I generally haven’t warmed to with Walt Simonson’s work: believe it or not, one is his usual lettering mate, John Workman, whose layouts I find distracting, and the other thing – and I think we can agree that this is core – is his storytelling.  Simonson abides very much by required subplots – always have a B and C story running alongside your A story – and while he picks up pieces from those subs and eventually adds them to the main, his lead, Kirby / Lee style of storytelling packs such a strong punch that it always kills the momentum whenever he cuts away.  Adding to this effect is that those side stories are never too interesting in and of themselves; this is the ‘required’ feelings behind them: they provide elements that could easily have been presented within the A story more seamlessly, but because Simonson thinks that we should always check in with bit players, he tosses the story pieces to them instead.

And so: a mysterious character forges a mysterious item that will become important in volume 2.  Balder has a crisis of conscience; Volstagg tells a story; Loki and Lorelei plot some stuff.  Meanwhile, we have some truly rip-roaring adventures forefront, Simonson’s run kicking off with the grand ole time of introducing Beta Ray Bill, and then sending Thor, Bill, and Sif off on some demon fighting hijinks.  Thereafter it’s another Kirby-sized foe with Fafnir popping up again and again, and a pause for a viking tale.  This stuff is truly classic, told in bold exclamation point-laden speak in a way that only these golden and silver age guys can really pull off, and featuring, of course, Simonson’s gloriously bold and foreshortened artwork, zooming across the page, brightly recolored by Steve Oliff.

…Alas, those downbeats.  When there’s not much dialogue, sure, Workman’s gigantic sound effects are a blast, but all of the inbetween moments of exposition are a maze; John letters so big that he has to let balloons drift into other panels against reading order, and left-to-right up-to-down rules are constantly broken besides.  Once could blame the artist for not leaving space, but I’ve experienced this with Workman’s stuff elsewhere, so I find it particular to his sense of placement.  This, for me, significantly hinders the reading experience, slowing down what I’ve already outlined as rather dull portions of the book.  And since almost everything after the Beta Ray Bill bits is too clearly setup for that mysterious character, an overriding feeling of stalling mars the flow.

Narrowed down to the parts of the book that focus on the title character for whom we would’ve been buying the title, John’s ability to layer in a top-down mythology, alongside his influences from the greats, definitely presents one of the best Thors we’ll undoubtedly ever have.  All of the other stuff in this volume is a bit of a bummer, though.