Immortal Thor vol. 3: The End of All Songs

Now Thor is not only the God of Thunder, but also the God of  Being Wanted for Murder.  While we know what really happened,the optics are now that he’s persona non grata on Midgard right now.  Which is fine because he’s got some godly, family business to take care of first.  Tyr, the Norse God of War, has gone missing for too long and must now be found.  This is going to require the aid of all of Odin’s progeny, and a couple who have been missing for a while now.  Then Hercules comes calling to follow up on some old Avengers business:  Nyx, the God of the Night, is back and is looking to rebuild her power.  This leads Thor, Hercules, and Loki to Antarctica to deal with her only to find themselves pitted against a very angry and vengeful godly father.

Writer Al Ewing’s plan for “Immortal Thor” becomes more clear with this volume. The God of Thunder continues to be tested in ways that are relative to his family tree and his general cleverness as the title character’s death looms at the end of them.  Though there is plenty of flashy superhero action to behold here, the emphasis is on how the title character will be able to think his way out of the problems at hand, and the ways he does that here are plenty satisfying.  That can also be said of the ways in which Ewing builds the two arcs here off of the backs of previous storylines – Jonathan Hickman’s “G.O.D.S.” and Ewing’s work alongside Mark Waid and Jim Zub on “Avengers:  No Road Home” – in ways that are sensible and don’t require the reader to have read them in the first place.

Yet it wouldn’t be fair to conclude this series of reviews about the first three volumes of Ewing’s run on this title without mentioning the price of this volume.  This volume collects five issues for the low, low price (relatively speaking) of $18 which at least suggests that Marvel’s plan of tacking on an extra $10 to the first volume wasn’t as successful as they thought it would be.  Or rather, trying to extort extra money from the reader for the first volume of an anticipated new series backfired so spectacularly that they haven’t tried doing so again with any other title.  Whatever the case is, I’m glad Marvel hasn’t tried it again recently, even if it did this entertaining series no favors at all.