The Mighty Thor #7 Review

A prelude to Fear Itself…  AFTER Fear Itself?

The Mighty Thor #7

This is the behind the scenes story of Odin and his brother Cul.  As children, their father, Bor, the original All-Father, died.  Cul, the oldest of Bor’s children took the role of the new All-Father.  As the eons passed, Cul began to listen less and less to his brothers Odin, Vili, and Vi and relied more on the council of his “Worthy” twisted beings who each possessed a hammer of power.  Cul ruled with fear and Odin saw that as a direct threat to the mortals that worshipped them.  Odin sacrificed his right eye to learn how to deal with Cul.  It is then that he learns of the fate of his son, Thor.  Odin goes to confront Cul, but the “Serpent”, as he’s now calling himself, banishes himself and his Worthy for a better time in which they can rule.  We learn that all trace of his rule was removed and his empire, Aesheim, was renamed Midgard.  Knowing that only Thor’s life would end Cul’s he begins running from the truth hoping to never have to face that day that Thor would die.

Let me start by saying that this isn’t a bad issue.  It almost feels like one of the .1 issues that Marvel’s done.  It’s also kind of acting as a buffer between Thor and a new God of Thunder that will likely eat up the next six or seven months of this series.  Matt Fraction, as he should, crafts a nice backstory to match what he created in the Fear Itself title.  Pasqual Ferry delivers some really good pencil work that certainly gives us lots of eye candy to look at.  So from a basic “How do I like this book” kind of way, I’d say it’s definitely not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

However, I do have a couple gripes.  I don’t care that this comes after Fear Itself ended.  I don’t care that it’s giving a breaking point between the series when Thor was the star to what looks to be a new Thunder God.  What does disappoint me slightly is that this story is very short.  This is kind of a big deal.  I would have loved to see this spread out over two issues.  I kinda understand the pattern of this story feels like one of those really old legends or mythical type of poems that leaves an open ending with room for interpretations and so on, but I kinda feel this could have been filled out a bit more with some more examples of what makes Cul tick and was he born evil or was he corrupted by the power he took for himself?  In some ways I wonder if this would have worked well as a 3 or 4 page backup feature in the main Fear Itself book.  Each issue we get a little more info on what happened between these two brothers.  Finally, we learn that it’s Thor who would be the sacrifice to stop Cul.  Of course, we’d see that it’s written in stone after we saw Thor give his life.

Again, not a bad issue in technique and execution, but it could have worked so much better in a couple ways.

Tags: Fear Itself Marvel Matt Fraction Mighty Thor Olivier Coipel