Thor: Son of Asgard Part 3—“Worthy”

“Worthy” is the final part to the Son of Asgard comic and by far my least favorite. It’s not even that this story is bad—it’s just boring, and if you’re familiar with Thor, you’ve seen it before. Though I know this comic was published before either the live-action or animated feature, it is still our obligatory and predictable “Thor proves himself worthy” narrative. We know that Thor is going to prove himself worthy in the end—there’s no question about it—so the only thing we can possibly be interested in is how he proves himself worthy and see the struggle he goes through. Unfortunately, to me, that struggle is not enough to redeem this arc.

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.

Thor: Son of Asgard Part 1—“The Warriors Teen”

A little while back, I reviewed the animated feature Thor: Tales of Asgard, which I had been remarkably underwhelmed by when it first came out, and have continued to be underwhelmed by every time I’ve watched it since. My biggest issue with that story is that it does nothing new. It had the exact same plot as the first live-action movie, and as such, the animated feature just seemed pointless.

Before going into Tales of Asgard, I initially thought that the film would be based on the comic Son of Asgard. However, the only thing the two stories really have in common is that they take place during Thor’s youth. This is a shame, since Son of Asgard has a far stronger plot and more likeable characters.

Son of Asgard is a twelve issue series, divided into three parts, “The Warriors Teen”, “Enchanted”, and “Worthy”. It first came out back in 2004, and was written by Akira Yoshida and illustrated by Greg Tocchini. Initially, the first part, and the longest at six issues, was originally meant to be a limited series. However, due to popular demand, it became an ongoing series and lasted for another six issues. In some ways, I’m a little disappointed that the series is over, but on the other hand, there’s only so much of teenage-Thor and teenage-Thor drama that I can take before it gets annoying.

Though I found some of the characters very likeable—such as Sif and Balder—the exact opposite can be said for some of the others. Loki is the embodiment of evil, Odin is a horrible parent, and Thor is arrogant and not yet worthy. It has the standard setup for a lot of the earlier Thor comics. Its only real unique feature is that the characters are teenagers. But even then, it’s still a better story than Tales of Asgard.

Spoilers for Son of Asgard after the jump.

Thor: Tales of Asgard

Now that Thor’s second movie has made it to theaters, I decided to go back and revisit Thor: Tales of Asgard, the movie—not to be confused with the comics of the same name, which it has nothing to do with. Or with the comic, Thor: Son of Asgard, which it also has very little to do with. Thor: Tales of Asgard is a direct-to-video animated feature about Thor’s and Loki’s youth that was released a few days after the first Thor movie hit theaters. Considering that its release was meant to coincide with the live-action movie’s, I also naïvely assumed that its story was also meant to coincide with the live-action movie’s. Alas, I was wrong.