Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #1 Exceeds Expectations

Full disclosure: when Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #1 debuted a few weeks ago, I didn’t pick it up. I was familiar with the character because I’d read a bit of her adventures in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic; however, while I liked her, I wasn’t so in love that I wanted to know more. I’m not one to turn my nose up at a free comic, though, so when one of my coworkers offered me his copy, I was happy to accept it—and to my surprise, it exceeded my expectations.

Spoilers for the issue below the jump.

Thor: Son of Asgard Part 2—“Enchanted”

Last week, I talked about “The Warriors Teen”, the first section in Son of Asgard, a twelve-issue story about Thor’s youth by Akira Yoshida and Greg Tocchini. In some ways, I like “Enchanted” more than I like “The Warriors Teen”, but in other ways, I find “Enchanted” very problematic. It does have a lot of positives; for starters, it really delves into the issues Sif faces as a female warrior in a male-dominated world, but unfortunately, the story falls into many sexist and stereotypical traps along the way.

Spoilers ahead, and a trigger warning for sexual assault.

Comic Review: Thor: The World Eaters

The other day, I was going back through my comics when I came across The World Eaters again. This run is a few years old already, and it takes place right after the Siege storylines. The events of Ragnarok have already happened, and when Thor revived all his people, he brought them and Asgard back to life right in the middle of Oklahoma. To make a long and complicated story short, the people of Earth didn’t like this too much, and the result was a catastrophic battle that nearly destroyed all of Asgard again.

Now, with Balder as king, Asgard lies in ruins once more, Loki is dead, and Thor is in mourning. But unfortunately, the Asgardians can’t seem to catch a break, and something else is on its way to kill them.

Balder the Brave has proven his mettle as a warrior, but is an uncertain king; his people rightly wonder whether they can endure one more turn of bad luck. So the last news they need to hear is that a trans-dimensional force of implacable evil is headed their way. The World Eaters have learned Asgard has abandoned its place in the natural order of the Nine Worlds and now resides in the skies above Oklahoma, and they aim to take it—but that’s not the last claim they plan to stake. As they ravage Alfheim, Muspelheim and the other branches of Yggdrasil—the World Tree—Thor must stir his family of gods to face a most dire threat at a time when they simply have no margin for error.

When The World Eaters first came out, I don’t think I found a single person online who liked it, at least not in the far reaches of the internet that I frequent. And now that it’s been a few years since my first read through, I think I can safely say that I still greatly dislike this arc.

Thor: The Dark World Review

This review is a little later than I wanted it to be. I held off writing it so I could watch the movie at least twice. Normally, my opinion of what I like and don’t like in a film tends to change drastically after seeing it numerous times, and looking back, I can say with almost 100% certainty that I greatly disagree with many things in the posts I wrote about The Avengers and Man of Steel. So I figured it wouldn’t be fair to do the same for Thor: The Dark World. That said, I might as well not have bothered with multiple viewings, because my opinion of this movie has not changed in the slightest since the opening night. Of course, since I’ve willingly subjected myself to it multiple times, you can probably already guess that I liked it.

Spoilers be ahead.

Thor and Loki: Blood Brothers

Back in 2004, Robert Rodi and Esad Ribic wrote the comic Loki, a four-part mini-series told entirely from Loki’s point of view. I briefly mentioned this comic a while back here. Loki delves a lot more into Loki’s psyche than other Thor comics, and it manages to make Loki a lot more sympathetic and show him as something other than pure evil. Through Loki, we begin to see the horrible things the oh-so-honorable citizens of Asgard have done to him, which drives Loki into evilness. The comic doesn’t so much as agree with Loki as it simply shows the struggle between him and Thor in a new light, and it also shows that Asgard and all its heroes are not as moral and honorable as they claim to be.