Thor: God of Thunder #18 – Review

by Jason Aaron (Writer), Das Pastoras (Artist)

The Story: Dragons are the original party animals. True story.

The Review: This is a rather weird issue to review really. While some issues are impossibly easy to analyze in terms of general appreciation, there are some that simply are very different, demanding a deeper inspection to see if there are some aspects that you might have missed or if you actually like or dislike some of its elements. While something that requires a second reading is not an indicative of general quality or a lack of it, it does leave a certain puzzling sensation that manage to take a hold of your thoughts for a while.

This issue of Thor: God of Thunder had this exact effect on my person. While it certainly has its moments and does feature some particularly unexpected qualities, it also falls a little bit short of the mark in some of its aspects. As a continuation to some of the theme presented in Jason Aaron’s tenure, it’s solid, yet as done-in-one it doesn’t exactly does the best of jobs.

Where it works, it does so splendidly, though. Presenting the tale with the younger Thor from the past as the protagonist, the definitely less wise and more impulsive personality of Thor is on full display here. Pushing forth the lessons that Thor needs to learn as well as the impetuosity and proneness to party and drink around in ways that could be counted as excessive, the writer makes for a tale that manages to hit many different notes in ways that feels right. The relationship between Thor and Skabgagg, the dragon, builds up in ways that feels fun, sad and then tragic in a way that present snippets of what Thor had to live through, showing a lesson that he had to learn that make him very enjoyable to read in this issue.