Journey Into Mystery #644 Review

Asgard is teetering on the bring of utter destruction!

Journey Into Mystery #644

Loki is on the run from just about everyone.  Thor is betrayed and looking for his brother’s death.  Asgardia knows his role with the Manchester Gods who have now joined Surtur in an attempt to destroy the Nine Worlds.  Now that he’s stolen the Twilight Shadow, even Surtur has sent a Hel-Wolf on his path.  When Loki’s finally hunted down by the Hel-Wolf, Hela finally makes her move and sends the cavalry to save him.  She then gives Loki 5 minutes in the past in which to adjust the book he wrote in to defeat the Serpent to change the outcome of the present.  When he returns, he’s diverted to Surtur.  Thanks to the changes made in Leah’s story, she rebels against Surtur, but she and Loki may not be enough to prevent their own destruction.  Meanwhile, Thor gives into the lake of fire and actually dies, bringing him to Hel where he’s greeted by an army from Valhalla throughout all history for him to lead to victory.

This is an excellent jumping off point from the previous issue.  Just a week ago, in Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen’s The Mighty Thor #20, the story took an extremely dark turn as Loki’s plans required him to betray everyone, the Manchester Gods invaded Asgardia, and Asgardians are being transformed into enemies.  Overall, the tone was that of a real bummer.  It was a well written bummer, but that classic idea of it getting to a point where there doesn’t seem to be any chance for the heroes to win.

And so we come to what happens next as Loki’s plans, for however painful they may have been to pull off, for it to make waves or for everything to go wrong and fail.  What I really liked about this part of the story was Hela’s role in all this.  We were left to believe that she was going to stay out of this.  What we didn’t know was that she only stayed out until the right time for her to intervene.  She needed Tyr to get the heroes of Valhalla mobilized and wait for Thor to finally give in and be delivered to her.  It was a very cool moment in the story and perfectly sets up the finale for the story.

I also love how Carmine di Giandomenico’s art has fit his pieces of this story so perfectly.  Between Journey Into Mystery and The Mighty Thor, di Giandominico and Alan Davis has been launching the ball out of the park in each chapter.  What makes their pairing so great is the tone of their issues.  It seems to almost be completely driving this story to another level.  Fraction and Gillen have scripted a near perfect big story for Thor and Loki, but the look of each issue has only enhanced the story that much more.

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Tags: Journey Into Mystery Kieron Gillen Matt Fraction Slider Thor