Thor: The World Eaters

Thor (2007) (Collected Editions) #7

by Matt Fraction, Pasqual Ferry (Artist)

In the wake of Siege, Asgard must take its proper place as the Golden Realm, most glorious of the nine worlds of myth. But that means Thor's home isn't just a beacon...it's a target! And what happens to the Asgardians and the denizens of all nine worlds -- including Earth! -- when a dark, destructive force from another reality comes on the warpath?

Collecting: Thor 615-621

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Superheroes, Mythology, Graphic Novels Comics

212 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2011

About the author

"How he got started in comics: In 1983, when Fraction was 7 years old and growing up in Kansas City, Mo., he became fascinated by the U.S. invasion of Grenada and created his own newspaper to explain the event. "I've always been story-driven, telling stories with pictures and words," he said.

Education and first job: Fraction never graduated from college. He stopped half a semester short of an art degree at Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri in 1998 to take a job as a Web designer and managing editor of a magazine about Internet culture.

"My mother was not happy about that," he said.

But that gig led Fraction and his co-workers to split off and launch MK12, a boutique graphic design and production firm in Kansas City that created the opening credits for the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace."

Big break: While writing and directing live-action shoots at MK12, Fraction spent his spare time writing comics and pitching his books each year to publishers at Comic-Con. Two books sold: "The Last of the Independents," published in 2003 by AiT/Planet Lar, and "Casanova," published in 2006 by Image Comics.

Fraction traveled extensively on commercial shoots. Then his wife got pregnant. So Fraction did what any rational man in his position would do -- he quit his job at MK12 to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time comic book writer.

Say what? "It was terrifying," said Fraction, who now lives in Portland, Ore. "I was married. We had a house. We had a baby coming. And I just quit my job."

Marvel hired Fraction in June 2006, thanks largely to the success of his other two comics. "I got very lucky," he half-joked. "If it hadn't worked out, I would have had to move back in with my parents.

- 2009. Alex Pham. Los Angeles Times.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
You know what I miss? I miss the days when Straczynski was writing Thor. When he was writing this, I forgot that Thor was a guy who had wings on his helmet, whacked evildoers with a mallet, and shouted things like, " Come forth villain, and meet thy doom! ". With Fraction writing this...that's all I notice.
And I'm really sorry to say that, because I love what he did for Iron Man.

This whole story with the World Tree nonsense was boring. For a few panels there was some fun interaction between Donald Blake and Thor, but then it zipped right back to the Goblin Space Opera.

Really the only interesting thing that happened was when Thor brought Loki back, but even that felt forced and weird. Fraction should have come up with a better reason for Thor to want to bring him back. 'Cause the But he was so much fun when we were kids! excuse is doofy .
Alright. To be fair, it wasn't quite as simplistic as that, but it was close.

P.S. Balder the Brave is now going by the name Balder the Bipolar, and Thor's eyebrows look like wings.

[Jesse A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a bit to warm up to this one but by the end I was totally engrossed. Im officially 100% a Thor fan.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than I remember it being when I read it as it was published. I think at the time my expectations were set pretty high for fraction, so I was expecting some thing BIG from the start of his Thor run, and it's not that, but it's a decent read that to lead into Fear Itself, JiM and Fractions run proper

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

So with Asgard on Midgard, where Asgard use to be is now empty. The idea is that something will come to take its place. Something bad. That’s what Dr. Eric Solvang is trying to explain to Volstagg. That convo was great. It started off with a cool build up to this thing or people coming with all the people of the nine realms running to Asgard for help. Unfortunately the story never got to anything great and ended up just being average.

[Jonathan Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not exactly a Thor fan, but this collection makes a great case that I should be.

[Eli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm surprised that I didn't like this because I love some of Matt Fraction's other stuff (like Hawkeye and Sex Criminals). But this was just bad. Granted I have only read volume 2 in this series and that's partially why this didn't make sense. I've never been a serious fan of Thor despite some amazing comics I've read. But it's like all of his lesser traits come out in this because he's rash and mundane and just not that smart. I can't really explain what all about this I didn't like but I'll try. Thor is boring as a character, the plot was really busy and provided a poor explanation (if any), and the artwork just wasn't to my liking. That's about all I have to say about this. I can't give it just one star because I didn't hate it.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of big, universe-stretching action but not a lot of sense. Almost feels like Fraction is phoning it in. The big quantum-universe subplot seemed to have no particular point (unless it's a setup for later volumes). A few touches of humour but not so much of the zany.

The .1 issue was complete filler, no use to me.

[***Dave Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection read better as individual issues than all together. Fraction repeats exposition far too frequently, and the final conflict of the story comes across too much as deus ex machina (so to speak) than reasonable resolutions to the dire events occurring. Fraction goes for the big cosmic, but ends up with the pretty but incomprehensible.

The Return of Loki is good, even touching, but is far too rushed.

Pasqual Ferry's art is lovely.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed. I wanted more Thor and less everything else. The double page panels were difficult to follow and unnecessarily excessive. The opening with 3 or 4 pages of the same panel was dumb. It's bad when my favourite part was the Ironman cameo. Hmmm maybe Faction should stick with Ironman?

[Hannah McManus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The overall World Eaters plot was a little meh, but it was 1000% worth reading for the phenomenal Thor and Loki moments (first kid Loki appearance finally!!) and the lovely art. The last few pages were especially gorgeous.

[Jirka Navrátil · Rating 3 out of 5]

No nevím, po skvělém Gillenovy tu máme Fractiona, který mě nějak nepřesvědčil. A kresba je taky taková divná. Přibehově je to průměr, o kterém nebudete mít na druhý den tušení o čem byl.

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I'd written this review a few days ago, when I actually read this, I might have given it four stars, but the fact that it's been a few days and I have absolutely no idea what this was about probably means it wasn't the greatest thing I've ever come across.

I think I liked it.

... okay, it bugged me enough that I went over the the shelf and thumbed through it. It was about one of Odin's brothers that was evil. And then Odin was worried that he would destroy the earth... wait... dammit.... let me look again, that's the OTHER graphic novel I just read. Not this one.

...Okay, I really, really looked at this graphic novel this time. It's about something that looks really similar to Odin, except red, who has a kid that's a lot like Thor, except red... and evil... and they are coming to where Asgard used to be in the nether dimension, because without Asgard being there (it was relocated to Oklahoma) the multiverse had to fill that spot, so it did with some evil red Asgardian-like people, they were really mean and had to destroy earth for some reason... and Thor turned into a giant rock monster because Odin told him too. Also, Loki was dead, but Thor missed him, and decided to resurrect him, because I guess that's one of Thor's powers now, which seems like something important that he could have used on those occasions when other Marvel people get killed.

Well, maybe he's the reason that so many characters come back after being dead.

Regardless, Loki comes back as a cute kid, and he seems nice, but no one can believe Thor did that because apparently, Loki died in a mass murdery sort of event. I don't know, it wasn't clear.

So, um, rock monster thor chopped down a tree and the bad guys all disappeared. I had no idea what the hell was happening. I did, however, really like the art. And there were parts that were funny and all that. But I felt like this was a bit of a silly story, in fact, I'm getting the impression that Thor is the crux of all the Marvel Universe's problems, as I did kind of get this mixed up with the Fear Itself story I just read, which is a much better version of this exact same story.

Again, art is good. It's got some charm, but I feel like the overall plot was a bit generic.

[Maja · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Thor - what troubles you so?"
– "He was wicked and he was rancid, and he was evil. He lied and cheated, stole and betrayed. He shattered out kingdom. Loki is what troubles me, Sif. Loki. (...) And yet that wasn't always the way. He made me laugh like no one else alive. Sif, his charm, his cleverness... We hunted together as boys. I was never happier. I miss my brother, beloved. I miss my brother."

"I don't remember anything, you know? I just... My whole life, I remember, a season? a day? I can't tell. Even my name is fake. I just thought it sounded good. My memories..I have no memories. Guh-God. I don't - I have dreams. I have such hideous dreams. The things I've done in my dreams would convict me to the gallows in any court in the land."

I read this as part of my project to hunt down the entire plot arc of what I call kid!Loki in my head, and this is where it starts. So the premise is basically that Loki did a Bad Thing and helped destroy Asgard, then died in the process. But Thor misses him, and decides to bring him back (cue every other Asgardian being like "this is a bad idea"). So Loki comes back, but he's just a young boy with no memories of his past life. And I love this story idea, and every scene with or about Loki in this book is well-written and poignant.
But.
There's also another whole story happening with the World Eaters and the end of the world, and it's all very DRAMATIC, and it doesn't work at all. I think the main problem is that the World Eaters are ridiculous and I can't take them seriously. Then the pacing is very slow, and some character do utterly irrelevant stuff. There's a scientist called Erik who takes up way to many panels telling characters and readers stuff they already know. What was the point?
Also, did the people wrote the first Thor movie and the first Avengers movie look at this book? It really has some very similar elements. Also, I keep forgetting how weird comics!Thor and his alter ego Blake is, but this isn't relevant here.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thor is Epic. Thor's stories are about the Norse gods, so they need to be big and world shattering. Although I'm not convinced of this. I don't think Thor needs to be an epic tale every time. In the Thor the Mighty Avenger book Thor the Mighty Avenger - Volume 1, I would say his story is very less epic. It's more a personal story of one man's journey to discover who he is.

Which brings me to World Eaters. This is one of Thor Epic stories. This is a story about a warrior race from another dimension coming to take over Asgard. Seeing as Asgard is now in Oklahoma this might make things a little more interesting, but it really doesn't. It's mostly about These warriors destroying the nine worlds of the world tree so they can take over Asgard in the end. Thor has to come up with a plan to defeat these warriors and win. Mostly a big spanning story. There is one small part of human/god growth for Thor. That is when Thor realizes that he misses his brother Loki. He remembers having great time as a child with him. This surpasses all the evil Loki has done to him as an adult. It makes him want to have his little brother back. Even when the rest of Asgard tells him it's a bad idea.

The story was okay. For Matt Fraction I excepted more. He can write some of the best stories out there, I feel like this is not one of them. I do not like grand epic stories. This might be a problem I have with the entire line of Thor books. I loved Thor the Mighty Avenger because of it's personal stories of Thor. I want to see Thor grow as a person versus him fighting a race of aliens out to kill all the worlds. On a side note, the art was amazing. To just be able to look at the art and see the beauty it was. The art made up for lack of personal growth in the book. I understand most people love epic, I'm just not one of them.

[Ricardo Noronha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly, this is the first time I've read a comic book which I didn't like.

In my modest opinion, the only good thing this book has is the explanation of what happened to several key characters, prior to Matt Fraction's Mighty Thor run.

But even those outcomes are poor. Balder and Tyr dead just "because" (aka pointless suicide).
Loki's resurrection is acceptable (as well as how Fraction brought him back), because it shows how much Thor cares about him despite all he as done.

Odin's return is borderline awful (just smash the casket and he's back). I mean, it required Thor a tremendous amount of effort to revive all other Asgardians but in Odin's case, he only had to "Hulk" (pun intended) a box.

I'm also not a big fan of the art but that's not even an issue when compared to the plot.

So the World Eaters are basically raiding the Nine Worlds of the World Tree and then they are stopped by Odin and its Blood Legion? Asgardians are already gods, how much more firepower do they need to stop someone who had major losses against simply 2 Asgardians? (Balder and Tyr) It was not only a bit of overkill but also the closure of it all was, by lack of a better word, bad (Thor as a Colossus chopping the World Tree).

And that's it, here's the abridged version of the plot.
Nevertheless, I still intend to read Mighty Thor's run (of which I expect to enjoy more than this book) which precedes the famous Aaron run.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I was interested in the Kid Loki stuff, and I wanted to see where it started. Ok, fair enough. And I did find the stuff that directly related to Kid Loki interesting enough. On an emotional level, I do get Thor wanting back the brother that he loved when they were children. Honestly, I would expect that Thor has felt that very thing many times over the years, and this might be his chance. So I have no problem with the premise of the story, and I am interested to see how this develops.

But the rest of the story... I don't know. The interdimensional invaders are never fully developed. I never got a sense of why they were doing all this. Their motivations are barely more fleshed out than the locusts in On the Banks of Plum Creek. And I never felt like Asgard would really be in danger, so I couldn't get worked up about the whole thing.

If you're trying to read up on Kid Loki, obviously you have to hit this book. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

[Alex Sarll]

Ferry provides some impressively European-style art here, really blurring the lines as to whether Asgard runs on magic or technology, or whether that distinction even means anything at such a level. The story, alas, can't help but feel disappointing when one has been reading Aaron's note-perfect run; it hits a lot of the right epic notes, but elsewhere lapses into pastiche Grant Morrison in its attempts to make multiversal structure a plausible plot engine. The biggest problem for me was the antagonists, who never really rose above generic spiky bastards, and whose 'World Eater' schtick is surely going to bring some serious intellectual property grief from Galactus.

[Ableabelian · Rating 2 out of 5]

How about this: when I looked down and saw I had this on my read list and needed to add it to Goodreads, for the life of me I couldn't even remember what had HAPPENED. That tells you how much the story stuck with me.

Honestly, it was pretty forgettable with no moments of resonance for me.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Loki & Thor side of this was fun, but the main story felt very rushed

[Jason Tanner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm about to go off on a bit of a rant here. I have a really hard time believing that this was the same guy who wrote The Immortal Iron Fist. It's just so bad.

The concept is sound. One of the things I love about Thor's world is the combination of weird space stuff and faux Norse mythology. Simonson did great work with this stuff. But the way it is done here is just...ugh. You know how Grant Morrison likes to tell like 3/4 of the story, frontload a lot of high concepts, and let your imagination fill in the rest, and sometimes it really works and sometimes it really doesn't? Fraction's storytelling feels kind of like he's sort of doing that, only by accident. He will kind of introduce an idea, and then something happens that is probably tied to that idea, but it doesn't really flow and it kind of breaks your brain trying to make it work. I did not enjoy the experience. And it did not help that the art did not do a single thing to help convey the story. Good art can really elevate mediocre writing. This was not what I consider an example of good art.

Asgard, having been moved to Earth, left a void in the space where it once was. This left an opening for a group of extremely powerful beings from beyond the universe (or the Nine Worlds, in Asgard speak) to invade. A human scientist has figured all this out, and is rushing to tell the Asgardians. Meanwhile, Balder is depressed over his failure and the destruction of Asgard (from Siege). Thor is inexplicably nostalgic for Loki despite Loki bringing about the literal destruction of Asgard twice in the last five years. And Kelda has turned from an avenging elemental goddess into a shell of herself half-mad with grief. Heimdall is going insane from end-of-the-world visions. And Odin comes back from the dead to be an asshole again.

All of these things are reasonable. But they are executed so poorly that the squandering of that potential makes the story even worse. Nothing is properly explained. Except the stuff with Eric Solvang, which is overexplained, ostensibly for comedy. But Solvang, despite his prominent role in the first couple of chapters, doesn't matter to the story at all. Everybody in Asgard who matters already knows what's going on, and Solvang's insights don't offer any kind of unique, human solution to the problem. Iron Man has a cameo, and doesn't do anything useful either. Loki's back, as a child for some reason, but he doesn't figure into the story either. Jane Foster is just...there. Donald Blake bickers with Thor in their shared consciousness for a page or two and then disappears. Odin is back, and a huge dick. And Thor...Thor has no voice at all in his own comic book. He's still technically an exile, but nobody seems to care? He's just around, doing stuff because the story needs him to do it. His main actions in the book include shouting at Solvag and resurrecting Loki. I guess he resurrected Odin, too? Or did Odin resurrect himself just to bitch Thor out? It's a little unclear. And I guess Thor cut the roots of the World Tree in a shockingly poorly rendered climactic scene.

Also, why did Odin morph the Asgardians into mud creatures for the final battle? What the fuck is going on here!?!

It's all so pointless.

And the Asgardians are all shouty dumb brutes again. This is the thing I hate most about older Thor comics I've read. The overblown, mock-Shakespearian speechifying juxtaposed against the inability of any Asgardian to even attempt to solve a problem in any way other than punching it in the face. The pompous verbosity was easily the worst part of Dan Jurgens' run in the late 90s, a run that I otherwise enjoyed. I thought Straczynski put all that nonsense to bed.

And the visual storytelling is as bad as the writing. I don't particularly like Pasqual Ferry's style, but I've read enough of his comics to know he's a competent storyteller most of the time. I'm not sure what's going on here. The panel layouts are just grotesque. The story doesn't flow at all. Sometimes you are supposed to read across both pages, and sometimes you read one page and then the next, but in both cases, the panels are laid out the same. And you can't let the dialogue guide you in these cases, because it's all f***ing nonsense anyway. I started reading comics in the 90s, so I'm more than familiar with nontraditional layouts. But bad is bad, and this is bad.

I wanted to like this. Really. But after reading two of Fraction's Thor TPBs, I can see why the run's reputation isn't so great. And considering that TPBs of the rest of the run are out of print and prohibitively expensive, I may really be done here.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thor and Loki's storylines were REALLY good in this and enjoyable to read. I loved the introduction of Kid Loki, he was definitely the best part of the comic. Unfortunately the antagonists and the rest of the plot were both pretty uninteresting.

Favourite part was Thor flying while Kid Loki sat on his shoulders.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Thor comic was alright I could not get super into it but the art was great. The enemies and the story line we okay it was a bit confusing if you are not overly familiar with Thor. Still fun to read, and would recommend of course to a die hard Thor fan.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt Fraction builds on what has gone before beginning with Stryzinski's run. Homage is paid to much from the past characterizations. The artwork is very suitably other worldly. I can't wait to see where else Matt Fraction takes us and the Asgardian universe.

[Edmund Davis-Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's strange how a book with so much action can be kind of boring.

Plot matters.

[matt murdock · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

only part of this that i enjoyed was kid loki

[cam · Rating 3 out of 5]

qsy te amo kid loki my poor little meow meow

[ISMOTU · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry bring epic cosmology and a new enemy to Asgard’s doorstep. This creative team always brings some zany fun to the page.

[Nicolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This run started just great under JMS. Everything after that has been diminished returns.

[Sheldon Wiebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Fraction and Pasquel Ferry join the Lee/Kirby, Walt Simonson and JMS/Olivier Coipel runs as the best Thor runs ever.

[mayleh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realmente Thor não tem uma hq de pura paz, sempre tem alguma guerra acontecendo, mas eu amo ent ok.

Loki esta de volta como uma criança?