A Descent into Dullness

Fun movie, especially all the "I may be the hero, but I'm kind of a doofus" moments (especially the Dr. Strange ones).  Hemsworth & Waititi make for a good combination.  Also very much enjoyed the various call-outs, especially the Warbound and Skurge's Final Stand.  Hela/Blanchett maybe my favorite of the MCU I AM EVIL villains.  Goldblum was golden as the Grandmaster, Ruffalo/Hemsworth was also great - in both forms and Tessa Thompson's Valkryie/Scrapper-142 was a delight. (even if I had to look her up to remind myself I'd seen her in Dear White People & Creed).

I think my favorite of the nods to comics nerds was the Big Mook from the Thor/Sif/Warriors 3 fight being one of the rock aliens from the original Thor comic.  But the rest of the movie was generally good as well.  A big, fun, space-fantasy adventure that rose above its flaws.  Like not enough Warriors 3 or Sif (but more Idris Elba than the first movie).  Or how protecting one of the 9 realms involves waiting for space bandits to attack some small village and then beating them up and thus saving the WHOLE world from wide spread chaos.  Or why only two fighter jets show up during the London invasion (but the Dark Elf fighters in the invasion of Asgard were pretty sweet, as were the Asgardian flying boats).  And Hiddleston's Loki pretty well stole every scene he was in...

I also stayed past the initial credits for the Benicio Del Toro as the Collector cameo, setting up for Guardians of the Galaxy, but I didn't stay thru the second credit roll to see what the final extra might have been...

Thor The Mighty Avenger written by Roger Langridge, art by Chris Samnee, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Rus Wooten

Langridge and Marvel here present a fun, main-line continuity-free re-telling of Thor. Capturing the basic elements of what makes Thor appealing. Pseudo-Norse mysticism mixed with super-hero punchery. Plus the basic Thor/Jane Foster dynamic. Here Thor is partially amnesiac, unsure of why he is on Earth but still drawn to acts of heroism. And of course still plagued by the trickery of his brother, Loki. Langridge grasps what makes Thor work and his art partners back him perfectly. Making for an enjoyable all-ages, easy entry comic. So of course its already been canceled because apparently to few people actually want that...

But that means it will be an easy series to go all completest on at least. And as a bonus, this first volume includes reprints of the original Thor stories from Journey Into Mystery #83 & 84...

Thor: Visionaries Walter Simonson by Walter Simonson, additional inks Terry Austin & Bob Wiacek, letters by John Workman Jr, colors by George Roussos & Christie Scheele

The "Visionaries" series is meant to showcase those whose work exemplified a series. And few people left a greater mark on book than the Simonson did during his run on The Mighty Thor. This book collects issues #337-348 of his legendary run. It has the introduction of Beta Ray Bill, the fight with Fafnir, Malekith the Dark Elf and the opening of the invasion by Surtur and his armies. Which is annoyingly where the book ends. On a massive cliffhanger. Happily I see there are four more volumes of Simonson Thor. Sadly, I see volumes two and three are out of print and have tripled in price on the teritary markets. Annoying...

But given my volume one is a fairly new printing, hopefully that means Marvel will reprint the rest. I mean its not like Marvel would instead put out "Visionaries" books collecting the "legendary" Daredevil run of Kevin Smith or the X-Men run of Joe Madureira. Seriously, I bought damn near every X-book in the 90s and I couldn't even guess which ones Madureira wrote...

But Simonson + Thor = Gods'-be-damned awesome. I mean it has Sif and a talking space battleship teaming up to kick the crap out of space-demons. Balder tries to be a pacifist. Loki gets his head cut off (he gets better). Comics where everything is larger than life and twice as colorful...

Astronomy Photo of the Day



Explanation: NGC 2359 is a striking emission nebula with an impressive popular name - Thor's Helmet Sure, its suggestive winged appearance might lead some to refer to it as the "duck nebula", but if you were a nebula which name would you choose? By any name NGC 2359 is a bubble-like nebula some 30 light-years across, blown by energetic winds from an extremely hot star seen near the center and classified as a Wolf-Rayet star. Wolf-Rayet stars are rare massive blue giants which develop stellar winds with speeds of millions of kilometers per hour. Interactions with a nearby large molecular cloud are thought to have contributed to this nebula's more complex shape and curved bow-shock structures. NGC 2359 is about 15,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Canis Major.