Beta Ray Bill and Sif have a heart-to-heart, while Thor and Galactus descend into the heart of the Black Winter to confront the many deaths of Thor. Brought to you by the ever-metal team of Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson, and VC’s Joe Sabino.
Chris Eddleman: Well, it’s been frankly far too long since we’ve last seen the Prince of—scratch that, the KING of Asgard. Last we saw of him, he and the fully powered up Galactus were face-to-face with the yawning maw of the Black Winter. I’m interested to see how our arc enters its endgame, even if my well-known stance on the newly minted genocidal Herald of Galactus hasn’t abated. Maybe he’ll do some good heroics!
Vishal Gullapalli: We’re back! We’re back! Finally, the All-Father has come back to local comic book shops worldwide. I don’t know if you can still smell what Donny Cates is cooking, but for me it’s been some real fun action that’s ended up real decompressed. I’m also very excited for more Nic Klein art, every issue of this book has been gorgeous – and as y’all might already know, I very much disagree with my co-writer’s take here, but that’s okay. Being wrong isn’t the end of the world – the Black Winter is.
Meanwhile, Back at the Sad Ranch
CE: Throughout this arc, there’s really only been two main perspectives—that of our very conflicted King, and that of his also conflicted but rather powerless subjects. It’s nice to have some moral centering in the form of the other characters to be honest, and I’m rather historically fond of the pairing between Sif and Bill, so this scene was a panacea to the brutal happenings with our A-plot.
VG: Bill’s still pretty torn up that Thor laid the smack down on his candy-ass, but more than anything he feels like he has to have faith in his dear friend that he knows what he’s doing and won’t be irrevocably changed by this. Something that we as readers are pretty dang certain isn’t true! Sif seems less hopeful, but more than anything it’s just kind of sad to see Thor’s friends feel this powerless – I think it’s done really well, though. What Thor’s dealing with is deliberately on a different scale from almost everything he’s ever done, and Cates is doing a great job (for my tastes) showing Thor trying to reckon with a threat on a scale he’s never dealt with.
CE: To pivot to art a little bit, I love Nic Klein’s work in this scene portraying the contemplative Sif contrasting with the absolutely raggedy Beta Ray Bill. Wilson’s colors here particularly show the bright cheery realm of Asgard, which clashes strongly with the dark imagery we’re confronted with later in this issue. This issue shows Asgard, and particularly its inhabitants, as Thor’s conscience, and I think that’s shown through art choices, but also through one line I liked a lot—Bill’s admitting to praying for forgiveness for anyone. It shows the complicity of Thor’s companions, something that’s driving me a little up the wall.
VG: So, I don’t agree that Thor (or his allies) are, like, guilty of committing genocide – Thor had a plan to not kill anyone that worked until Galactus went rogue. There’s a level of responsibility he has for it for trusting Galactus, but I don’t think this is a permanent blight upon the character – Iron Man came back from far worse morality blips. I do like that his companions have differing thoughts on his actions and his ability to come back from them, though – I think I end up falling more on the side of Bill while Chris aligns more closely with Sif.
CE: Look, “Team Sif Is Right” has plenty of vacancies for those that want them. Regardless, this book is delving into moral grey territory, which is an interesting direction after the finale of the last run. It’s not an ideal position critically—to do any sort of comparison with old runs. However, it’s inevitable after Aaron and Co’s instant classic. I’m just wondering if we’re really treading interesting ground with this run. We do have the fact that Thor is still “worthy,” which is sure to be followed up on later, even if it isn’t really touched in this issue.
VG: That reminds me! Between the unintentional break and all the plot stuff this issue, I almost forgot that Loki picked up the hammer! I have to know what’s going on there. I need to know. There’s one way to make me scream about an issue and that’s Good Loki Content. I’m still interested in all the Black Winter stuff going on, but if Asgard’s ruler is struggling to lift up the hammer that says he’s a good person, and his brother is able to lift it for the second time in his life, methinks there could be some change in the winds.
The Many Deaths of Thor
CE: So this is the meat of the issue, and while I wasn’t into it upon my first reading, it’s starting to kind of grow on me. The Black Winter is sentient (surprise, surprise) and it has to do a little bit of hero taunting, as any good villain is wont to do. It does this by devouring Thor and Galactus but, instead of facing oblivion, our antiheroes face an MC Escheresque dreamscape packed to the gills with simulacrums of Thor villains.
VG: These kinds of dream sequences are almost always dope, like that one in the otherwise-bland Spider-Man: Far From Home (although, weirdly enough, there was another one in this week’s Iron Man 2020 that didn’t work at all for me). Thor having to face everything that has killed him and everything that would reasonably kill him is a really cool premise for the scene, and I’ll never complain about Klein getting to draw a whole host of awesome villains. Cates’ narration also works well over this scene – he has a style that’s less old school Epic than Aaron’s but draws from it into something a bit more goth.
CE: The premise of this started to percolate for me. The Black Winter alludes to all of Thor’s many deaths—from the gruesome to the epic, but mainly uses them demonstratively to show that none of them were Thor’s true end. Even King Thor, which is set up to be the finale of Thor as a character, didn’t really end anything (such is the way of serial superheroes). But, something is eroding at the history of Thor, his very destiny. These kinds of stories call to mind a meta-timeline, how a character’s history changes over time. Whatever force (Black Winter or otherwise) that is attacking Thor is doing so at the core of his character throughout time. It’s very hypertime.
VG: Yeah, I was just gonna say this was some Grant Morrison kinda stuff, which fits right in with me being in the middle of reading everything Grant Morrison’s ever written. I love the basic concept of “something bad is happening and it’s changing the future” – it both establishes a predetermined future and the fact that the future can be broken, and it’s led to some of my favorite stories ever (52 says hello). I’m really excited to see if Cates delves more into this or if it’s going to be abandoned like that time Al Ewing tried to explain Marvel’s sliding timeline.
CE: It also read to me less like a taunt, or more like a warning? Is the Black Winter maybe not so bad after all? It would be almost silly to have yet another level of cosmic force for Thor to fight but, I wouldn’t be surprised by it. Donny Cates loves some escalation. And hyphens apparently. That got a little old for me, all of the very metal sounding hyphenated phrases.
VG: I’d love to see some time dedicated to fleshing out the Black Winter – I’m sure Donny has *plans* but there’s something really interesting about the idea that there’s this entity that’s larger than Galactus but which is also somehow more personable. Seriously, Galan makes the Black Winter look like a party animal. I also really hope that we get some proper exploration into whatever’s changing Thor’s future – I don’t need to know the future, but I love textual mechanics for symptoms of ongoing superhero stories.
Why Doesn’t the Black Winter, the Largest Galactus, Simply Eat the Other Galactuses?
VG: So, to get ahead of it a little bit, the big reveal of the issue is that Galan of Taa wasn’t just the lone survivor of a universe ended by the Black Winter. No, our favorite Big Friendly Giant was the sole survivor because he was The Black Winter’s Herald. And Galactus’s own Galactus wants his herald back. Remember in Hickman’s Fantastic Four when Franklin said the dope line and made Galactus his herald? Yeah it turns out that that’s not the first time this has happened.
CE: Poor twice Herald’d Galactus. Yeah, this was an interesting reveal. The concept of Galactus is one that’s been a bit muddled recently. He’s gone from your garden variety planet eater to the Lifebringer, which conceptually was as close to as enlightened as superhero comics get. It was cool and high concept, and of course it barely lasted past the run it originated in. Now, we’re delving from the defeated and desperate parasite that required five delicious planet cookies, to a subordinate—an eternal subordinate. This is some nice sci-fi style escalation, but the reveal didn’t pack as big a punch for me as I wish it would have. It’s very cosmic Cates, utilizing his “rule of cool” style for superhero comics. Moving back a touch, how did you feel about the reveal that Galactus’s vision from earlier issues was simply this Dark Thor form that the Black Winter took?
VG: Honestly, that was the one part of the issue I didn’t like, it felt underwhelming. I feel like the idea that Galactus genuinely did see Thor as the being that would kill him was a lot stronger, since it’s what sold me on the run to begin with, but at the end of the day I’ll definitely wait to see where Donny takes this. I’ll echo your sentiments on the Lifebringer though, it was a real shame how quickly that got reverted in what was otherwise a pretty fun event.
CE: I think the most interesting turn this took was the Black Winter having seemingly no interest in actually destroying the universe. This might be a bit of a reach, but Galactus seems to have done some fibs here with Thor. I’m speculating that our buddy Galan wanted the power-up to fight the Black Winter because he didn’t want to be snatched up by the extracosmic being. But then why did we see so many scenes of universes being destroyed, and how was Galactus injured? I rag on this run a bit, but I’m interested in the mystery at the very least.
VG: I really like pretty much any time writers lean on Galactus as a person with massive power rather than a cosmic force with a personality – this guy’s a jerk who lies to people sometimes, and I’m really intrigued with where Galactus as a character and concept is headed. Is there a way for him to be the same old Galactus after we’ve been introduced to Galactus^2? Is it possible that Galactus can eat the Black Winter? Is the Silver Surfer gonna get involved? And when will Knull show up? Donny, I know you’re thinking about it.
Marvelous Musings
- Apocalypse, a well-known villain of Thor? No Hela?
- A Lockjaw cameo is always appreciated.
- God-spine, huh?
- I like that we only got a glimpse of Jormangundr on the villain splash page – he’s massive.
- Thank you to Allison Senecal for editing- Chris
Chris Eddleman is a biologist and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
