The Mighty Thor Annual #1 Review

It’s Thor and the Silver Surfer caught in the middle of an ancient war between some cosmic entities!  Check out our review of The Mighty Thor Annual #1…

The Mighty Thor Annual #1

After a friend of Don Blakes turns into some strange luminescent being and flies off for space, Thor chases her to find her part of a hive mind of the typical gray style of aliens.  They seem to be in the employ of a being called “The Other” who is fighting against another being known as “Scrier”.  Scrier has approached Galactus and asked for assistance.  The Big G sends Silver Surfer despite neither truly trusting the cosmic being requesting the help.  When Thor comes across Scrier and Silver Surfer, Scrier convinces the two heroes to fight against the Other.  However, it turns out that this was all a game and it takes Galactus getting involved before the destruction of all of reality happens.

Classic Marvel scribe J.M. DeMatteis writes this old school and classic Annual that is so beefy and so packed with story that it actually takes a while to read.  That’s a good thing too.  These days, it seems comics can be read in a matter of minutes while the books I grew up on (many of which were written by DeMatteis) was marathons at times.  So with that beefiness, you know there’s a complete story here.  It tells a tale that works in and out of continuity and has a tongue-in-cheek quality that is unabashedly written in the style of comics of old.  It’s one of those times that the story in your hands is worth every bit of the 500 pennies you spent on it.  Even if you don’t fully enjoy the story or the cosmic-ness of it all, you can’t deny that you were actually charged a fair price for the book.

Generally speaking, I’m not the biggest fans of annuals.  They tend not to truly connect to much of what’s going on when they are released.  Case in point, this annual takes place prior to The Mighty Thor #1 (at least to my best guess).  It’s usually not written in the same vein as the regular, monthly books.  Again, this one being written by DeMatteis who isn’t the regular writer of the book.  Sometimes major characters are effected (Sue and Reed getting married in Fantastic Four Annual #3 way back when).  Sometimes major characters are introduced (Rogue in Avengers Annual #10).  Overall, it’s usually a strange story.  However, this one has a good mix of what’s going on now in Thor comics and a much more cosmic story that was common in Thor books of the 70s and 80s.  Without a doubt, I can say this book gives you a solid 30 minutes of enjoyable reading.  It’s not going to have you beg for DeMatteis to take over the regular series, but you’re going to be happy he was the writer.

Richard Elson provides the art (as well as this week’s Journey Into Mystery #639) and he does a bang up job.  Thor looks tough and imposing as one of Marvel’s greatest heroes.  Scrier, Oblivion, The Other, and Galactus all look super cool.  There’s some nice detailed work going on in these pages and the coloring by Morry Hollowell and Wil Quintana further give the book the look of what most readers grew up on.  There are some great full page splashes from Elson and an awesome two page spread with multiple Thors and Silver Surfers bursting into action.

You may or may not love the story, but I can definitely get behind this nicely paced and full story from DeMatteis with some pretty awesome art from Elson.

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Tags: Thor