Thor: God of Thunder #1

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic

I have been a fan of Thor as a character for years and longer than I've been a comic book fan. This is due to my obsession as a child for myths and mythological God's. It also helped at along with Arthurian, Egyptian and Greek mythology Norse was one of my favourites and the most interesting. I have also enjoyed the comic series' over the last few years enjoying J. Michael Straczynski and Matt Fraction's runs especially. I was however sceptical when I heard Jason Aaron would be doing the new series as I disliked most of his Incredible Hulk series, but he has however done a good job on this first issue.

Plot

This issue sees a mysterious creature eliminating God's throughout time with Thor stuck in the middle. These God slaying's affect Thor past, present and future and Thor is the only one capable of defeating this Butcher of God's, to prevent more God's from dying.

Review

This was an amazing issue and I was never expecting Aaron to do as brilliant a job as he has. I really have to give the guy credit and hope that this is him back as a great writer like he used to be. He has done a great job of writing Thor and I really enjoyed the way he writes him in the past present and future. I also liked how he developed the story in this issue as you have this mysterious creature killing of God's with Thor in the middle from time to time. I do hope that Aaron can keep up this brilliant work as he started off very good on Incredible Hulk but dropped in standard after the first couple of story lines.

Esad Ribic's art was simply amazing and some of the best art I've seen on a Thor comic in years. He really adds ton's of detail and draws Thor throughout the years very differently whilst making sure he's the same character. He also adds emotion to Thor who is usually a calm character but this time realises that this creature is no easy feet as it is anything but hard to kill a God whether it be Norse or otherwise. I also thought that Dean White's colours were fantastic and added lots of mood and feel to Ribic's art, and real made it pop out. I also liked that he god the colour setting perfect and that each sequence felt different.

The battle between Thor and the God Butcher was also epic and a nice edition to the issue. I say this because most of the issue is dialogue, set up and information that some people might find too overwhelming or confusing, whereas adding a fight scene draws away from that and adds more excitement and drama to the issue. Besides that the battle although short was very good and very exciting and I look forward to seeing Thor face this creature in future issues.

When I first heard that this series would show Thor throughout different periods of his life I expected that it wouldn't work and that I'd be very disappointed but I couldn't have been more wrong. The addition of Thor throughout the years was brilliant and I loved how we see his attitude changes with it as he was very cocky and overconfident early in his life thinking of the God Butcher as just another thing to be smited, whilst his present self takes the creature more seriously and the future self takes him very serious not caring any more and just wanting to be rid of the creature.

The God Butcher itself was a brilliant villain and it was very nice to see something different for a change. I also liked how we have something that can stand toe to toe with Thor and has a good chance of killing him. I do however have mixed feeling on whether I liked the villains lack of character as besides being a threat to Thor he doesn't really do much in this issue. I do however think the lack of character and personality adds a lot more suspense and makes you realise that this character has no conviction in what he is doing or why he's doing it. I am also interested to find out why this creature is killing off all these God's, and hope this is revealed throughout the story.

Final Verdict

An amazing first issue for the God of Thunder and a very unique one at that. I would highly recommend this to anyone whether new or old readers as it caters all and is a great jumping on point for new fans.

Rating: 5/5