Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

“Thor: If Asgard Should Perish” by Len Wein and John Buscema

I picked up this book on a purely nostalgic whim. It reprints Thor 242-253 from back in 1975-1976. These are the first issues of Thor that I ever read as a child. I still have most of the issues included here on my shelf but I can’t remember the last time I read or even looked at them. It may have been way back in High School or even Junior High. I was nine and ten when they came out.

Thor was never even a favorite of mine. Sure I bought his book for years back in my youth but it was never among my top comics. It was always solid but forgettable. Hence my never having revisited these issues in thirty years. So why did I bother to buy this book you ask? I think it was just because I never in a million years thought these issues would be collected in a nice hardcover collection. It was just kind of cool and nostalgic. That and I had nothing else to buy that week.

Then a funny thing happened. I read these comics for the first time in thirty years and they were really good. As a youth Thor always left me a little cold. He was a god, talked in this pseudo-Shakespearean dialect, and was generally distant from humanity. But in reading these as an adult I really appreciated the craft of Wein’s writing. He did an excellent job with the plotting and with the language.

The Thor stories in this volume are all about Thor, The Warriors Three, Odin, Asgard, and all things Norse god-like. They’re on Earth for part of the story but most of the humans are just story props. The book is all about fantasy adventure. Wein’s use of the pseudo-Shakespearean language really helps sell the adventure. I kind of found it like discovering a musician who I may have heard before and dismissed but I am now hearing with new ears. The writing is in a style that was peculiar to Thor and fell out of fashion decades ago but is well done. I have to say that it’s fresh again.

It’s also been so long since I’ve read a John Buscema penciled story that I had forgotten how good he was. Not that I had really forgotten but to read this story with fresh eyes made me amazed all over again at his talent. The guy can draw and tell a story. The half of the book that is inked by Joe Sinnott is really nice to read and look at. The Tony DeZuniga inked half of the book wasn’t as pretty but was still good.

So there you go. A purchase made out of pure nostalgia ended up being a lot better than I remembered. It’s not often that happens.