Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Thor God Of Thunder #18Thor: God of Thunder #18
Marvel Comics
Aaron & Pastoras

One of better aspects of Jason Aaron’s run on Thor is that he breaks up his epic arcs with a couple of one-shots and this issue is exactly that. This particular issue is set in the 9th century (Earth time) and puts a younger Thor against a dragon. The book is light-hearted in some spots but is a very dark and disturbing story overall. While the comic book is a beautiful looking book I’m not sure the story completely drives the point that it is trying to make. It’s a good book but not a great one.

The book opens with Thor having slayed a dragon to help a village apparently made entirely of women. The book’s opening is fairly humorous as Thor is covered in vomit and struggles to recall the events that led him to the point where he wakes in the mouth of a dragon. The dragon is also not dead.

Aaron then embarks on a story where Thor and the dragon have similar issues with their fathers and the difficult expectations put upon them. The pair forges a strange friendship that veers off into confrontation as the book builds to a conclusion.

The highlight of the book is the artwork. Pastoras has a painted style that appears to blend pencils and colors in a mosaic fashion but not losing the details you hope to find in a super-hero comic book. The art is very picturesque as each panel appears to be a painted lifted off a wall and put through the scanner. There is a depressing aspect to the story that this style captures well.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe book struggles with the pacing. It’s not that the read is too slow or moves from scene to scene with little transition. It’s that the comic jumps from a funny interaction between Thor and the dragon to the overbearing father relationships. The book turns into a downer too abruptly I felt. While it’s a good read it simply goes into a direction that is unexpected and doesn’t leave much time to recover from the shift.

Thor is a great book under Jason Aaron. This is the kind of issue that any reader can pick up and get an idea of how Aaron approaches the character. Thor is a deep character despite the surface view of fighting, drinking and womanizing and Aaron tackles those themes well throughout the series. This is a very example of that. This is a good read and I definitely recommend it.

3.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles