Comic Review: The Mighty Thor Vol 1

Hey all, Dani here.

Today I am bringing you a comic/graphic novel review, and I’m excited to share my thoughts on it. Should I make a disclaimer that I just really enjoy superhero stories and so I may be biased towards more positive reviews? I generally don’t have negative things to say about these superpowered adventures. I might have minor complaints, but I find that it tends to happen when it comes to geeks and the things we are passionate about.

Anyway, let’s jump into the review.

Book Details

Text by: Jason Aaron

Illustrations by: Russell Dauterman

Summary

When Dr. Jane Foster lifts the mystic hammer Mjolnir, she is transformed into the Goddess of Thunder, the Mighty Thor! Her enemies are many as Asgard descends further into chaos, and unrest threatens to spread throughout the Ten Realms. Yet she wages her greatest battle against a far more personal foe: the cancer killing her mortal form. When Loki steps back into Thor’s life, will it ease her troubles or only add to her pain? There’s no such question about Malekith as he continues to fan the flames of a looming War of Realms — when he isn’t wedding planning, that is! And as Asgard is torn apart, the skies will shake in one of the bloodiest battles of all time: It’s Thor vs. Odin like never before! 

Collecting: The Mighty Thor 1-5

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

Honestly I’ve been curious about checking this series out for a while, because I was a bit intrigued by having a woman taking up the mantle of Thor.

But okay, so here’s my big complaint about this particular volume…it isn’t the start of the story. This starts when Jane Foster has been The Mighty Thor for a little while, and it seems like most of the other heroes in the Avengers and such have fully accepted that she is Thor and it’s totally natural. It’s Odin and Asgard that seems to have a problem with it.

Anyway, so if you want to get the start of the story, when original Thor is now unworthy and a mysterious new Thor appears, you need to pick up Thor, Volume 1: The Goddess of Thunder and Thor, Volume 2: Who Holds the Hammer? Those are apparently the start of Jane Foster’s run as The Mighty Thor.

There are a lot of characters most people know and love in this volume. I feel like even if you’ve just seen the Marvel movies, you can still pick this book up and enjoy it. Odin, Freya, Sif, Heimdall, Loki, Laufey, Malekith, and even Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and more all make appearances in here. And okay fine, Loki’s still up to his usual trickery, and so much of what is going on is the standard hero battles and issues.

But I feel like it is complicated a bit by so many of Asgard referring to The Mighty Thor as a False Thor and wanted her captured or killed. So I think the political aspect is rather intriguing.

The most intriguing thing is that in her mortal form, Jane Foster is fighting cancer, and every time she picks up the hammer and becomes The Mighty Thor it burns the chemo drugs out of her system. And then when she puts the hammer down it is like the cancer grows more. The problem is that I don’t feel that this volume really gave me enough information about this part of the story. It’s like it barely grazed the surface, or maybe that it was reiterating something that was revealed before.

So I definitely want to pick up the volumes that truly start Jane Foster’s journey, but I can also see myself picking up the rest of the series as well. It was a pretty fun tale to read, and I’m curious to see what will happen next.

Where to Get a Copy

You can buy your own copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, your local independent bookstore, or your local comic book store.

You can also request it at your local library.