Thor: God-Size Special #1 – Review

By Matt Fraction (writer) Doug Braithwaite (art) Dan Brereton (art) Mike Allred (art) Andy Troy (color) Laura Allred (color) Frank D’armata (Color)

The Story: After realizing that their collective memories of their former compatriot Skurge the Executioner have been manipulated, Thor, Balder and Loki travel the nine worlds to uncover who or what is behind this treachery. After a run in with Hela, the Mistress of the Dead, and battles with a horde of dark elves and a grumpy storm giant, the team finally learns who’s behind their maligned memories. But they quickly realize that not just their memories are at stake, but rather the fate of all creation.

What’s Good: Well, I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes thinking and flipping through this comic to recall or find something that I thought was good and nothing is really surfacing. The beginning and the end of this comic that deals with the fate of Skurge are the best parts of this read. Matt Fraction does a good job of painting him as a tragic hero. But this is only about eight pages of this oversize issue, which brings me to….

What’s Not So Good: This one-shot suffers from relying on strong characterization, rather than an actual good story when the former relies on the latter. The retelling of Asgardian family dynamics while Thor and his siblings  fight enemies that seem to come from nowhere and have no connection to the task at hand is tedious and boring. Fraction’s characterizations come off as pretentious and drain any sense of adventure that might arise in this story.

The idea of bringing in different artists to tell different parts of this story is novel, but doesn’t really bring anything to the over all tale. Sure, there are some pretty panels, but not pretty enough to save this comic.

Concussion: I’ve enjoyed all of Fraction’s Thor one-shots save this one. There’s too much back story and retelling of Asgardian personalities and not enough action and adventure. In the previous one-shots we were shown something novel about Thor’s persona, like his rebelliousness for example. But here we’re just treated to Thor the cliche, rendered by different artists.  Pass on this one.

Grade: D+

-Rob G.