Core Genre: Fantasy. Very much so. There are always the SFish cosmic overtones you get with Kirby’s work, but the bottom line is he’s a magical viking.

Anyone remember the Books of Magic ongoing, the one that followed Neil Gaiman’s initial miniseries? Great little title, with a very spooky atmosphere. It managed to have a distinctive voice that wasn’t a slavish recreation of Gaiman’s style.

Tim Hunter, the main character, was a kid with great magical power who would create creatures without realising it. One of these creatures was the Wobbly, a squiggly monster with a bird’s skull, an imaginary creation that lurked in a disused plot of land and disposed of things that Tim threw away. The Wobbly’s trapped there, but when Tim needs it to take away the broken-down car that his mother died in, he gives him permission to leave. “You can always come back, you know,” says Tim. “I’d just as soon you did.”

But this isn’t possible. “To go from a small here to a greater,” says the Wobbly. “That is to be living. But to go from the great to the small? That is death.” It’s a great little bit, in a great standalone issue (#14). John Ney Rieber wrote a lot of good stuff in the course of his run, and Peter Gross after him. The minis that followed the end of the ongoing series were a little ropey, but that’s more due to DC’s need to take the character in a less than ideal direction after Harry Potter pissed in the Bespectacled Young Wizard pot than any fault on the part of the talent.

To go from the great to the small; that’s what Marvel’s Thor is all about. To be diminished, to be humiliated, to die a little. And then to learn from it.

There’s an obvious Christ metaphor here, but it’s one I’m not keen on. Partly it’s because the motivations are completely different, but also because Norse mythology doesn’t need any bed-wetting hippy shit to prop it up. We’re not talking about aspects of a single god, we’re talking about an army of the fuckers, dead-set on getting arseholed and thumping people.

Controlling factors:

A) Big hammer
B) Elemental powers (specifically storm/weather based)
C) Humbled human alter-ego (medical background preferable)
D) An accompanying pantheon

There are a few elements to this character that aren’t really common to other superheroes. Firstly, he’s probably the most popular superhero taken from pre-existing myth. I mean, there’s not a Robin Hood title that’s run for several hundred issues, and is currently bothering the top of the sales lists. The creator credit for this character’s going to be interesting when they get round to making the film, because while he’s undeniably Jack Kirby’s baby, you can’t exactly say he’s created by the King.

His special powers are self-evident. There’s probably room to define his weather abilities, but he’s meant to be an all-powerful storm god so it’s best not to get too hung up on his limits. More important is an alter-ego that humbles him, that both raises and diminishes him. With Donald Blake’s recent return, it’s probably safe to suggest it has to be him, although I have to say I liked the Jake Olson EMT identity in the early days of Dan Jurgens’ revamp, and thought it was quite an elegant modern twist. Unfortunately then it got a bit silly and a lot confusing, and I’m certain there must have been some behind the scenes shenanigans because the first 12 issues were intriguing and consistant and the ones after just seemed to contradict things that had been set-up.

Also, JR Jr’s art was gorgeous.

I think the medical background is essential. First of all, it’s a contrast to the more barbaric image we have of viking berserkers, a civilising influence. Secondly, it suggests Thor would have to have spent a long, long time in the Blake guise, learning and training in a field that is, shall we say, somewhat tricky, requiring not a small amount of sacrifice. Thirdly, it’s seen as a selfless, humanitarian vocation (to which, considering some doctors I’ve dealt with, I say ho ho). It’s a deliberate role meant to inform the thunder god’s character, to give him a reason to protect humanity instead of the more attractive pursuit of pillaging his way across the cosmos in a goat-drawn shagwagon.

I think Thor is also unique in that the context that defines him isn’t as dependent on his rogue’s gallery. Instead, the facets of his character become illuminated by his relation to the other gods that surround him. His supporting cast are largely made up from the mythical Norse pantheon, with a few invented gods thrown in for good measure. There’s scope for decent stories in his search for them when they go missing (which seems to happen a fair bit), but a Thor series with them completely absent would be unthinkable, or at least so divergent from the average that it wouldn’t really be a Marvel Comics’ Thor story anymore. It would, however, still be a Thor story, in that the character has existed for a very long time prior to Marvel’s take, and it’s worth noting here that obviously there is a distinct difference between the two.

By incorporating the mythological pantheon, a different spin is given to the usual superhero template. It makes the non-mythical rogue’s gallery less important (which is good, because that side of things tends to be weak), but gives the character a strong supporting cast, and some absolutely cracking mythological bad guys. I mean, elsewhere in comics we see a lot of myth-based evildoers, but are any of them as good as Loki? Surely Thor’s arch-enemy is up there in the list of all-time great comic book baddies. The practical result of the pantheon’s existance is that there’s less of a need for the comic to deal with Thor locating these antagonists. At the simplest level, he knows them because myth tells us he’s been engaged in battle with them for centuries. Thor didn’t need to ‘discover’ Loki, or the frost giants, and neither does the audience, because of the pre-existing literature (which isn’t to say the writer shouldn’t still define them within the context of the Marvel U, of course).

Finally, one aspect of the character that always interests me is how, considering his all-powerful nature, Thor is the Marvel character best suited to deal with the theme of death. A lot of that is inherited from the mythology, of course. Norse culture was very clear that all stories had to have an ending, and that a hero’s tale wasn’t complete without his or her death. With Ragnarok, the people of the north made it very clear that not even the gods could escape from this. What’s fascinating is how the Marvel version of the character embraces these themes. As I said at the beginning of this post, to diminish Thor from god to human is in one sense to kill him. The Marvel U not only incorporates Ragnarok, but has inflicted it on its characters several times (and not even the vikings were that cruel to their gods). Death becomes just another element of a cycle, a reflection of an overarching superheroic theme: our heroes die, but they always come back. And Thor becomes Donald Blake, yet always returns to godhood.

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Other news has Kenneth Branagh in talks to direct Thor. This is a great idea. His Frankenstein film came up as a conversation topic the other day, and although I remember it having a lukewarm reception, it really was a decent film, with a great cast, and probably one of the steam-punkiest films to ever have a wide release. If Branagh brings that kind of atmosphere and imagination to the Asgard scenes, the film’s going to be amazing. On one hand, I’d love to have a crazy Kirby-fest, but until someone gets Pixar to make Michael Chabon’s 60s set Fantastic Four film it’s not going to happen, so I’ll settle for Oddly Gothic.

The Green Lantern film appears to be ramping up. I don’t see why they don’t just adapt the recent Secret Origin storyline, because I really love that story. I mean, I’m one of the (apparently few) people who quite liked Emerald Dawn, but I don’t really want a screen adaptation of it, and I’m glad the crippling-his-mate-while-drink-driving thing’s been retconned (ret-retconned?) away. I’d be interested to see who they tap for the aliens. I bet Weta’d do an awesome job, but I’d be happy with the Henson Creature Shop too. No news on Sinestro, but he’s got to be in it. Presumably as Hal’s mentor in the first one, and the antagonist in GL II.

Johns has been playing down Sinestro’s alien-ness in Secret Origin so far, in that when he turned up in Rebirth a big deal was made of his, well, sinister demeanor and alien unknowability. Which was really cool, playing up the idea that not every alien species in the Corps was just humanity with a funny skin colour. It gave a sense of original Star Trek-type mystery, the vibe that it’s cold and scary out in space, something that doesn’t always come through in space comics. Of course, that spin doesn’t quite fit with the other Korugans we’ve seen, or Sinestro back when he was a Lantern. Perhaps the cold freakishness isn’t an alien thing, but a symptom of his time spent exiled, either on Qward or inside the Battery. Which is quite cool, too.

Quite looking forward to Neil Gaiman’s new book. It looks a bit more up my street than some of his other work. I think Gaiman’s a great writer, and when he’s good, he’s brilliant. I love Neverwhere, and the original Books of Magic, Anansi Boys was a lot of fun and I’m making my way through his Sandman stuff in the Absolute editions. But I never really got American Gods, I found Eternals a bit lacking and 1602 was let down by a weak ending after a great start. I always meant to go back and read Gods again because I’d probably get more out of it second time round, but I can’t find much enthusiasm for it, really. I think I’d be too busy trying to figure out where all the different gods came from, and while a little bit of that can be fun, the sheer amount of them in the book makes the whole thing too much like hard work.

But a story about a kid raised by ghosts in a graveyard? Kind of thing you wish you’d thought of yourself, really. I’m a little underwhelmed by the McKean cover, but it’s ok because they’re also offering an alternate one by artist Chris Riddell. Riddell’s a fantastic cartoonist, one I remember really clearly from my time as a bookseller. He really stood out amongst the children’s illustrators, his “Rabbit and Hedgehog” books in particular. Even if they may skew a little young for the Journal’s readership.

</Interminable Weekly Arthurian Snark>

In other news, modern design as applied to the humble drinks flask has brought the field of liquid containment immesurably further than it stood all those years ago when I had a plastic thing with a picture of M.A.S.K. on it. Speaking of which, stuff GI JOE, I want a motion picture event based around that 80s franchise, with Adam Baldwin as Matt Trakker, Hollywood’s All-Purpose Asian Guy John Cho as Bruce Sato and a darker, edgier T-BOB. Because I just can’t get enough of transforming vehicles.

And Spectrum’s got such sooh-per vih-hision. Muh muh muh muh, MASK.

My God, I think I may have found my life’s purpose; the pursuit of a faithful film adaptation of this lost gem, with Boulder Hill and everything.

But back to the flask. The heat retention ability of the Thermos® is nothing short of revolutionary, and it doesn’t leak. It’s what living in the 21st Century is all about, folks.

Anyway, I ended up bashing the smaller model and decide to upgrade. Only the 1L version is a hell of a lot bigger in real life than it looks in the box. Seriously, you could refuel a Boeing with the fucker. Plus, it means I’m getting through a litre of coffee a day. I’m not a hundred percent certain why I bring this whole flask thing up, except maybe to explain why posting is likely to get a little odd, then sporadic, then stop entirely when the palapatations assplode my heart.

While we’re waiting, let’s get our geek on.

• I’ve had a lot of good things to say about The Dark Knight, so here’s a bad thing. Comic book movies- well, movies period- aren’t really any good with their portrayal of women. The Dark Knight isn’t particularly exploitative, I don’t think, beyond Bruce Wayne’s dating habits as a cover for the Bat missions. The problem is how women are essentially an irrelevance in the film. Wayne’s mother is nothing more than an afterthought (hell, even Thomas Wayne got screen time in the first one), and Rachel Dawes is the definition of a pointless character. Or rather, a character who’s only point is to die and motivate the male characters. She’s subordinate to every man in the film, and only drives the plot by dying. They shove her right into the refridgerator, then nuke it, Spielberg-style. I know the problem’s caused mainly by faithfulness to almost 70 years worth of man-centric storytelling, but that’s just not a good enough excuse anymore.

• Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, does far better gender-wise. A little shaky when it comes to race, maybe, but points for having a Latino lead character. Veeeeery heteronormative, though. I’ve finally started to catch up, finishing Series Two and starting on Series Three. Bloody hell, this is grim stuff. And incredibly close to the bone, what with its use of insurgents, bombings and prisoner torture. I’ll probably have more to say after I’ve watched a bit more.

• I’m just finishing the sixth Rebus novel, Mortal Causes. It looks like Ian Rankin’s comics writing debut will be happening at the new Vertigo Crime imprint rather than as a Hellblazer story, which may be for the best. After all, while I’ve got no idea whether the man can do horror fiction or not, he can write the shit out of crime stuff. I’ll probably do a round-up of the Rebus series once I’ve finished with them. As Rankin himself says in the foreword, Mortal Causes is certainly the first of the “grown-up” novels, in that there’s less of an emphasis on a good-gosh-whodunnit twist than on the lives and motives of the police officers and the criminals. Pretty grim, too.

• Incredibly, it’s been over two months since I picked up any comics, and over a month since I got the first JMS Thor hardcover (have I written about that yet? Can’t remember. Anyway, very good, very epic, fantastic art and bound to be cocked up once it stops being a self-contained series and starts getting all crossovery). I still need to plug a few single issue gaps, like the last issue of Casanova and the last couple of All-Star Supermen, but apart from that I think I’m pretty much dedicated to the waiting-for-the-trade thing. Thank you, Comics Companies, for being so crap over the past year with one thing or another and making the decision so easy.

• This post has turned all too negative. Let’s go look at pictures of M.A.S.K. toys instead.

“When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go “OH FUCK IT’S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE’S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER” and if they don’t then that writer and artist FAIL.” – Sean T. Collins (via Journalista!).

You can’t tell me the above quote doesn’t sum up the character perfectly. Sean Collins also mentions Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant’s Song, and if Black Sabbath get an airing on the Iron Man trailer then Matthew Vaughan should keep the former in mind for his Marvel feature. Either that, or something indistinguishable from Queen.

Speaking of Queen, has there ever been a better matching of band to soundtrack than Highlander? Epic pomp covers both music and film. And damn, Highlander was a great film. I always thought the whole sword-fighting immortal thing was so mythic that it’s almost impossible to believe it wasn’t actually a pre-existing legend. I think maybe what I’m getting at is, if Thor gets his own film then they wouldn’t go far wrong with stealing vibe and atmosphere from Christopher Lambert’s finest couple of hours.

Thor’s a great character, both in myth and Marvel. Although I felt it ended up going off the rails a bit, Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr’s first year on the Heroes Return title was absolutely awesome, the perfect mix of Kirby cosmicness and human soap opera. I haven’t picked up any of the Straczynski run but I plan to at some point. I know there’s been some negative reaction online, but when is there not? And besides, while I understand that JMS’ style isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve always really rated him.

Babylon 5 is still the best spaceship series I’ve ever seen, even beyond the mighty ST:TOS. Maybe better (and whisper it, lest Paul C’s head explodes) than Who. Sure, it has its flaws (many, many flaws), but it’s rare that any series, spaceship-based or otherwise, has engaged me as much. And part of it is due to JMS’ idiosyncratic writing style, one that’s individual enough that I can see why it rubs some people up the wrong way.

I really enjoyed his Spider-Man stuff, and despite all the controversies and the interminable Civil War/One More Day bits, he was exactly the kind of writer the title needed when he came on. Yes, I know the Gwen Stacy stuff did to the hardcore fan what my previous paragraph is currently doing to my mate Paul, but for fuck’s sake, before JMS came on the Spider titles hadn’t been any good for about fifteen years. Maybe more. They weren’t even barely competent during the 90s (then again, what at Marvel was?). Besides, no other writer (apart from Ultimate Bendis) has ever written Aunt May half as well, or the sadly-missed Spider-marriage.

And I’ve never understood the fanguish about the “mystic” spider stuff, either. Even JMS pointed out in the story that a possible “mystic” explanation doesn’t need to contradict the “scientific” (and come on, you’re telling me “bitten by a radioactive spider” isn’t a mystical explanation?) origin, any more than the scientific origin of the Sun can’t coexist with its religious significance. If anything (and I’ve touched a little on this some time ago), it offers the option of seeing how the cosmic science of the Marvel U is perhaps reflected in the Astral Plane, and how Ditko and Kirby’s vision may just be two sides of the same coin. Besides, as has been proven time and time and time again, there’s nothing one writer can do that can’t, or won’t, be changed by the next writer on the title, so everybody chill (and I guess that goes double for me, in re: Tony Stark).

Got a bit side-tracked there, actually, as this was meant to be a post about the Thunder God. But then again, there really isn’t anything to add to the initial quote, is there?

Let that sink in a moment, because I can see you’re overwhelmed by my god damned analytical genius.

It does make sense of a kind. The kind you get when you’re flat on your arse drunk and talking crap to your mates about how you just innately understand how Harry Potter is a Marxist parable of emancipation from mental slavery, sure. But sense nevertheless.

My point is that both characters are aspects of the “trickster” archetype, the unstoppable outsider that enters then forever changes a specific state of affairs. A character we all identify with, that sometimes we even wish we could be, but one that is ultimately alien to us, next to impossible to understand.

Of course, there’s one obvious difference between the two: Frank Castle would probably have a breakdown (erm, an even breakier breakdown) if he killed someone he considered innocent. Who knows how far the Doctor (some of his incarnations, that is) would go for the greater good?

Anyway, poking the Whovian nest with a pokey stick isn’t really the purpose here. Obviously the above musings don’t go much further than a surface interpretation, so I doubt there’s much to gain by going deeper. But the whole “trickster” spin is a fascinating one; after all, it’s pretty rare that protagonists of any stripe get to be as ambiguous in their motives as, say, John Constantine used to be.

Here’s a question, though: How many female characters get to play the trickster? And out of them, how many get to be a trickster without having to seduce anyone?

Take the first two that spring to mind: Typhoid Mary in Daredevil and Deadpool (maybe Elektra, although she’s probably more of an anti-hero) and the Enchantress in Thor. And let’s face it, their archetype is Evily Sexy Seducer Who Wants To Make With The Sex. The only character that kind of fits is Jenny Sparks in the Authority, though at a stretch her archetype is Cynical Arsey Old Man Ellis which is practically a category all of its own.

Maybe I’m missing someone obvious; I probably don’t read enough in the fantasy genre to be certain, as that seems to be the area where that kind of character would turn up. But it seems to me that a female character from that mould hasn’t been done much, and would have a fair bit of story potential.

[EDIT, 9/2/08: It turns out that yes, I am indeed missing someone obvious. In an astonishing twist that brings the whole god damned analytical genius thing into question, it turns out Marvel's Loki is currently a woman. Oops. Many thanks to timeismine for pointing this out in the Comments.]