Thor, Vol. 2 [Paperback]

J. Michael Straczynski (Author), Marko Djurdjevic (Illustrator), Olivier Coipel (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2009

We say thee HELL YEAH! With the mighty God of Thunder and Asgard to full glory, Thor is back in action with a vengeance! But as the Asgardians returned to this life and Thor returned to Midgard, so came the ills that have plagued the gods and man for millennia. Now, for the first time since their rebirth, Thor and his fellow hero-gods must venture forth from the Shining City to confront the growing evils that amass on their horizon - and within their walls. Collects Thor #7-600.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (August 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785117601
• ISBN-13: 978-0785117605
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 0.4 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J. Michael Staczynski was born in Paterson, NJ in 1954, from a lower-middle-class blue-collar family that moved 21 times in his first 18 years. He began writing in earnest and selling at the age of 17 and hasn't stopped since. He graduated San Diego State University with degrees in Psychology and Sociology.

As a journalist, he has written over 500 published articles for such periodicals as The Los Anglees Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Penthouse, Writer's Digest, San Diego Magazine, the San Diego and Los Angeles Reader and TIME, Inc. He has also published numerous short stories in Amazing Science Fiction Magazine, Pulphouse, and various anthologies.

As a television writer and producer, he has written over 200 produced episodes, including workj on The New Twilight Zone, Nightmare Classics and Murder She Wrote. He also wrote, created and produced the series Babylon 5, Crusade and Jeremiah.

Moving from TV to film, he wrote Changeling (directed by Clint Eastwood), Ninja Assassin (produced by the Wachowskis), provided the story for Thor (directed by Kenneth Branagh), wrote Underworld 4 (starring Kate Beckinsale), and has written numerous other films that are currently slated for production.

He has won the Hugo Award (twice), the Saturn Award, the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Lifetime Achievement Award, the E Pluribus Unum Award from the American Cinema Foundation, the Space Frontier Foundation award, the Ray Bradbury Award, the Christopher Award, and over a dozen others.

He was also nominated for a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for his screenplay for Changeling.

He writes ten hours a day, every day, except for his birthday, New Year's Day and Christmas Day.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars JMS' Thor run continues, and continues to be very enjoyable., May 26, 2009

By 

Sean Curley (Charlottetown, PE, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thor, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

J. Michael Strackzynski's first six issues on "Thor" featured the return of the Norse god and his people from the abyss into which they had entered following Ragnarok. It was a story high on mythic resonance and beautifully illustrated, but low on action and, I argued in my review, somewhat too slowly paced. With the setup out of the way, Volume 2 collects issues #7-12 and the renumbered #600 (an anniversary achieved by adding the numbers of this and the previous two volumes of "Thor" comics together), all written by Stracynski (save some of the anniversary material) and illustrated primarily by Olivier Coipel and Marko Djurdjevic. Some spoilers follow.

When examining the strengths of this volume compared to the previous one, the first thing worth noticing is the increased variance in the stories told. The first volume often seemed to be replaying the same conversation over and over again. The volume opens with a Djurdjevic-illustrated two-parter that sees Thor, having expended most of his power in the previous story, entering the Odinsleep (now the "Thorsleep") in order to rejuvenate himself. There he encounters the spirit of his father Odin, and learns of the fate of the demon Surtur, and some important information about Odin's own early life (which will be revisited later). Following that, issues 9-12 cover a variety of stories, including an issue primarily from Balder's perspective, an issue from Loki's, and a poignant commemoration of the death of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, Thor's close friend.

Of these stories, #11 and 12 merit close consideration. The former, the Rogers anniversary issue, contains some of Strackzysnki's best writing, in the scene in which Thor succeeds in summoning the spirit of his deceased comrade (Coipel's rendering of this scene is brilliant). At the same time, the point that JMS seeks to communicate here, namely, that Captain America should not be a politicized concept or used as a cudgel to lobby for one side, while a good idea in principle, also represents a colossal act of chutzpah on the part of the writer. Any follower of JMS' Marvel work will know that he was the prime mover behind turning "Civil War" into evil Bush-fascist Iron Man vs. saintly liberal-Democrat Captain America. Perhaps this could be read as his mea culpa, I suppose. The latter issue, as Loki time-travels into the past to insure his own future, reminded me strongly of a similar episode of "Gargoyles", and has some very strong sequences, though only time will tell whether the serious rewrite of Loki's historic motivations here will be considered a good thing (JMS essentially removes the idea that Loki and Thor's falling-out was a slow, natural process; Loki is now rotten from the start).

Finally, there is the big one: #600. Loki's scheming comes to a head, and, without going too much into detail, it is only fitting that it is this point that the book enters the realm of the "Dark Reign" currently featured in the Marvel Universe. My main complaint about this story is, simply, how stupid it makes Thor and Balder look. Whatever excuses you wish to make of them, they more or less stood around while Loki assembled the deathray in front of them, all the while occasionally telling Loki that they were watching her. For a writer best known for his subtle depictions of human emotional states, Loki's entire storyline possesses all the finesse of a sledgehammer hitting an eggshell.

Looking over this review, one might think I have a lower opinion of this series than I do, but I offer these criticisms in the spirit of JMS' series, which positions itself as a very intellectual story. I couldn't rate it any lower than 4 stars (and there is no sequence anywhere near as awful as the Iron Man fight in Volume 1), but I don't feel it sufficiently meets its own goals to the extent of earning five. Recommended, nonetheless.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straczynski and Coipel have done it again!, June 7, 2009

By 

J. LaGory "Jaque Nargg" (Chicago Il) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thor, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

I'll begin by saying that if Amazon allowed us to make half-star ratings, I would be giving this book 4.5 stars rather than 5, for reasons I will get to later.
In this second volume of Straczynski's run on Thor, we see even more character development and even more beautiful artwork by Olivier Coipel. This time around, Marko Djurdjevic fills in on art duties for 2 chapters. Djurdjevic's art fits nicely into the series, creating a grittier visual experience when compared to Coipel's cleaner, more refined art. The art here never misses a beat. The battle scenes, settings, character expressions, and dialogs are wonderfully depicted.
While the first volume of this title dealt with Thor's rebirth and the recreation of Asgard, this book delves more into the history and politics of Asgard, Thor's royal lineage, and Loki's scheming. As the book progresses, we get a truer sense of Loki in his/her new form, and we find out for sure where his/her intentions lie. It's a load of fun to sit back as this villian is slowly established. Because of the shift in focus, Thor himself takes a back stage to much of the plot, but the story never suffers.

Compared to the last volume, this one has much more action. We see wonderfully rendered battles on snowy plains between the noble Asgardians and their enemies, the brutal frost giants. The final chapter (Thor #600) shows an intense urban battle between Thor and his grandfather Bor, and Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers make an appearance as well. This reminds us that this wonderful fantasy story takes place within the Marvel Universe with superheroes and all. In fact, this juxtaposition is one thing that makes the story work as well as it does. On one hand, we see epic struggles between the Gods, but on the other, we see classic superhero battles and Thor's mortal host Dr. Donald Blake (sort of like a secret identity, only they share a body and not a mind) going about trying to make connections with people from his past.
My only complaint about the book is when Thor visits the grave of Captain America on the anniversary of his death. Cap's ghost is summoned and a dialogue ensues between the two former Avengers. The problem with this event is that 1.) nothing that was said is really relevant to Thor, and 2.) The anniversary of Cap's death is officially happening in the upcoming 600th issue of Captain America. Continuity errors are almost guaranteed to happen, and it's a shame because this scene of the book is one of the low points in the Thor series as a whole, and could easily never have happened. But it's a minor nitpick and I'm willing to let it slide.
So definitely pick this book up and try to get caught up with the Thor series. It's truly one of Marvel's best books right now, and it may only be a matter of time until writer Straczynski moves on to other projects.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant second installment in Straczynski and Coipel's take on Thor, June 13, 2009

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thor, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

In the second volume of Straczynski and Coipel's resurrection of Thor the plot, as they say, thickens. I enjoyed the first volume a great deal, but I liked this one. I thought the star of the first volume was Copiel, with series of absolutely brilliant illustrations, and renderings of Thor that are, in my opinion, the best that we have ever seen. I thought the story was a tad thin in the first one, moving perhaps a tad too slowly to the climax, the resurrection of the Norse gods. In the second volume Stracynski gets a much more interesting and involving story going, dealing with the backstory of the semi-death of Bor and the failure of his son, Odin, to bring him back to corporeal form, and the machinations of Loki to generate conflict among the Asgardians.

In comics I find that I generally prefer slower rather than frenetic paces. I recently finished reading the Green Lantern Sinestro Corps War volumes by Geoff Johns. They were fun, but the stories and panels were so stuffed to overflowing with content and detail that the stories didn't have room to breathe. In these Thor stories, on the other hand, less proves to be more, as the pace allows a fuller appreciation of the details. The result was one of the more satisfying superhero stories that I've read in a while.

There are many great moments in the book. There is a nice though small reunion between Thor and Steve Rodgers at the site of a monument to Captain America and later a nicely shocking moment when Thor tries to summon the Avengers, but gets the Dark Avengers instead. And throughout Coipel's artwork remains inspiring.

One nice personal payoff in having this volume (finally) come out after many delays is that I have some individual issues that I can now read. I decided after reading the first Thor volume by Straczynski and Copiel that I wanted to subscribe to the series. So I started buying the individual numbers for the issues that would follow this volume, setting them aside to read only after this was published (my local comic book store lacked Issue #8 so I had to wake for the hardback). So now I get to go read more Thor!

On a side note, I get most of my books at my U.S. Post Office box in downtown Chicago. I open the packages, looking at the books as I walk back to the building in which I work, often stopping at some place to buy lunch along the way. I pretty much never, ever have anyone say anything to me about any of the books I receive (and I receive a hundred or so a year), not even the graphic novels that I get. But the day that I received THOR Vol. 2, four or five people commented on it. Each one got excited and expressed how much they loved Thor.

By the way, shooting on the new Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard film CABIN IN THE WOODS recently ended. This teen horror flick, which Whedon promises will be the end all of all such films, has had some amazing luck with its casting. The day after it was announced that Richard Jenkins was going to be one of the stars, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in THE VISITOR. And then near the end of principal shooting it was announced that Chris Hemsworth, best known for his work on the Aussie series HOME AND AWAY, would be playing Thor in the upcoming Marvel Studios feature film. This is one of the crucial steps leading up to an Avengers film. The Avengers are assembling!