Thor, Vol. 2: Road to the War of the Realms

Thor by Jason Aaron #13

by Jason Aaron, Mike Del Mundo, Tony Moore (Illustrator)

Jason Aaron's epic THOR run continues! Part the mists of time and peer into the distant past - for a tale of a young Odinson from the Viking age! Every time Thor travels to the mortal land of Midgard, he finds all the mead, battle and romance that a young god could possibly want. But he still can't figure out how to prove himself worthy of the mighty hammer Mjolnir. Now Odin is determined to keep his son away from Midgard for good - and young Loki knows just the way to do it! Then, in the modern day, Thor is held prisoner by the fearsome warriors of the Tenth Realm: Heven! Can even the intervention of Valkyrie and Thor's deadly sister Angela help Thor escape the inescapable prison of angels?

COLLECTING: THOR (2018) 7-11

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Fantasy

120 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2019

About the author

Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.

Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.

In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.

Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.

In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.

In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.

After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

There wasn't really one long story arc here, but more like interesting one-shots in preparation for War of Realms.
Which was fine with me. I got a little bored last time, so only having to focus on one issue at a time meant this one was a bit less tedious.



You get to go back and see Thor's 1st love in action. And how Loki fucked it all up.
Or did he?



There's a Thor, Angela, Valkyrie team-up, where the pets save the day and the Angels get their asses kicked.



Oh! And Roz gets to be an Agent of Wakanda! That one was fun.



A Thor & Odin story about the miscommunications between a father and a son.
They just beat the shit out of each other while his dad internally regrets not knowing how to communicate with his son. This seems to be a universal problem with a lot of fathers and sons.



And the last one features Thor and his mom. Awww.
Step-mom? I. did. not. know. that.

Anyway, I thought this was one of the better Thor comics I've read and I'm gonna try to finish this run out with Marvel Unlimited.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thor loves Midgard.

Odin hated that Thor spent so much time on Midgard hanging with his Viking homies.

Loki has a plan to make sure Thor will eventually hate Midgard and return to Asgard and go bowling with Odin.



Appeal to Thor’s, uh, hormonal urges.





And, yes, it works about as well as any of Loki's other misguided schemes and what the hell is he wearing on his head?

Thor’s immediate family gets a look see in this volume, but it’s Thor’s relationship to Odin that garners a lot of attention.



Come on! Hug it out!



*sigh*

Oh yeah, Malkovich the Evil Elf wants to conquer the realms (with baked goods, natch!)…



…and everyone’s choosing sides.

And the angels are on the side of evil. When a bell rings, an angel smacks Thor upside his head.



Just call me angel in the morning…uh…baby...

Thanks, Marvel for finally recognizing the immense entertainment value that talking animals bring to your comics (Howard the Duck notwithstanding), Bats in Dr. Strange and Thori here.

Kudos!



Bottom Line : I approach most recent comic book cross over events with a fair amount of trepidation, “fool me once” and all that, but this one looks more promising than most…



Oh, okay…

[Artemy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jason Aaron, you magnificent bastard. I was expecting nothing from this, considering how poor Aaron's first volume of this yet another new Thor series was (not to mention that abysmal first volume of Avengers), but he just went and wrote the best Thor volume he did in years. While it's technically a lead-in to War of the Realms, this volume is actually more a collection of one-shots focused on different characters in Aaron's Thor lore, and it's bloody fantastic. This is my favourite type of Jason Aaron book, actually — I always, in all of his runs, love it when he pulls back from the ongoing story and focuses more on the side characters and the world around them, occasionally jumping back in time to add more backstory. This is something that I felt was lost in his recent comics, so I couldn't be more happy with how this one turned out. We get issues focused on Odin, Roz Solomon, Freyja, Jane Foster, young Thor from the past, a tiny bit of Angela (yeah, I might be the only person who genuinely likes her, and I missed her a lot in recent years) and even some good Loki moments for a change! Normally Aaron is absolutely horrible with his handling of Loki, so it was nice seeing him acknowledging that he's more than just a scheming evil henchman, even just for a bit. Roz Solomon's issue was probably my favourite — she's one of the best things to come out of Aaron's whole Asgardian epic, and I really want her to get more attention than she gets. According to editor's notes, there's more of her in Aaron's Avengers run — cheap move, guys, but it absolutely makes me want to clench my teeth and go read that book some more in hopes that it'll also improve. Art-wise, I was not a fan of Mike Del Mundo on volume 1, but here his stuff really worked for me for some reason. Maybe he did draw it a bit more clearly, maybe it just worked for the story, I can't really tell. But what I loved even more is Tony Moore's sublime guest artwork with John Rauch's gorgeous colouring on issue #7, it looked absolutely awesome and was such a perfect fit for the heartfelt flashback to the story of young Thor's first love. Overall, this is the best volume of Thor Jason Aaron has written in years, and makes me that much more excited and hopeful about War of the Realms and the looming grand finale for this 7-year long epic story. I'm sorry I was so salty about Jason Aaron's writing in recent years, but thankfully he still can write books like this one to remind me why I love the guy as much as I do.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aaron focuses each issue on supporting characters as we wait for War of the Realms to actually begin. I feel like at this point Aaron doesn't have much interest in writing Thor himself, but he really likes all of the supporting cast. I think the issue focusing on Roz was my favorite.

Mike del Mundo's art was somewhat better in this. At least it had panel structure. It wouldn't surprise me if someone in Marvel editorial sent him blank paper with the panels already outlined and then instructed him to fill them in. Lee Garbett's art in the last issue was too scratchy for my tastes and had an indie comic look to it.

[The Lion's Share · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aaron is back on course to writing the shit out of Thor.

Really need an omnibus of the whole Aaron run. So good I've read the whole run again this year.

Now to finish with War of the realms. Is this what it's all boiling down to?

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

So here we have the story of Erika the red like Thors first love and its really well executed and I kinda liked it and then a story with Odin and like how he feels about Thor and its well done for sure, Aaron giving a touching moment between the two and something with Roz Solomon and her new status quo and its nice to see Aaron tie this into his Avengers run seamlessly and then the big story being King Thor battling Doom above all and like what his powers are and what happens there-after and its interesting seeing these two fight it out and teasing big things to come1

So yeah a good read overall and is full of action and one shot stories and does well to lead into WOTR in an epic, spectacular fashion and also the art gets better in the future story specially! <3!

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The War Of The Realms looms large, and Thor and his allies can feel it brewing. As Malekith draws his hordes together, flash back to tales of the past that set the stage for the future, while Thor stages a breakout from Heven, and Roz Solomon takes on Frost Giants!

I'm not sure if Jason Aaron misjudged how many issues of Thor he needed before War Of The Realms or what, but a lot of these issues feel a bit inconsequential, kind of a reminder that characters like Angela (a personal favourite) and Roz Solomon exist before they take centre stage in the main event.

Of all of these, I think issue 10 is my favourite, as Odin takes the narrative reins and reveals why he's such a giant bastard all the time.

I have to applaud Jason Aaron for his use of female characters though - three of these five issues focus on them specifically - Aaron has done a lot for the Thor mythos, but making Freyja such an unrelenting badass should be very high on his list of achievements.

Mike Del Mundo takes the three middle issues, including that Odin one, and the breakout from Heven which looks gorgeous under his psychedelic colours, while Tony Moore of all people pencils issue 7, and Lee Garbett returns for another go around with the Asgardians in issue 11. Aaron's Thor run has been full of top talent, and this volume, while a little lighter on the ground in terms of story content, isn't scrimping on the artistic quality.

Thor's on the Road To War Of The Realms; it's just a shame that he seems to be taking a bit of a meandering path to get there. The character studies are great, and very well done, but there's definitely a sense of 'are we there yet?' about this entire volume.

[Malum · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entire volume was filler in preparation for an upcoming event.
Some specific problems I had with this volume:

Yet another Asgardian gets a hammer. I want MCU Odin to go over there and paraphrase his line from Thor: Ragnarok: You're not the gods of hammers!

This volume commits one of my personal cardinal sins of comics: they had an issue where the title character was barely in it. If a comic does this, it had better be done fantastically and/or for a darn good reason. This had neither. If you want to write comics about side-characters, then give those characters their own comics. I am here to read about Thor. Bonus negative points for another issue that had Thor in it, but the comic wasn't from his perspective. It's like they didn't have enough for Thor to do except wait around for the upcoming event.

Fans of Aaron's "Old Man Thor" stories will be disappointed to know that there is barely any of that in here.

This might be good or bad, depending on how they do it: Jane Foster is coming back in some capacity. She might be a Thor again or maybe they are just doing a bait-and-switch. I actually liked Jane Foster Thor, but I can also see how they could screw this up fantastically. We will have to wait and see.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not feeling this series that much. All over the place and not all that interesting. I don't really care too much about Loki here, and I also don't care that much about Young Thor or his adventures with his mother. Kind of boring. Owell...on to realms!

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one didn't grab me so much, perhaps it was the constant cycling between POV characters, time periods, and art styles.


Give me metal but COLOURFUL!

Drunk old Odin as an abusive father figure wasn't terribly appealing either although there are clearly elements in his interior monologue strongly foreshadowing a future redemption, but I cannot be bothered to get there.

If this comic's main job was to get me hyped for this War of the Realms it has not come close to succeeding. I think I'll give this event a pass.

[Travis Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than I expected for the warm up to "war of the realms". Jason Aaron continues to write Thor with ease and this volume actually has a lot of content going on. I appreciate the amount of Loki in this book, its just the right amount. Odin and Thor take center stage and have a good old fashion family feud....O.K. feud is putting it lightly. I also really like the attention to detail with the relationships between Thor, Odin, Loki, Laufy, and Freya. It is a family affair and actually much bigger but the emphasize on family is subtle but powerful. The war of the realms is tying in a lot of stories and I hope it doesnt get to big for it's own good. This was a solid volume 2

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a frenetic, mediocre chapter in the history of the Thunder God. Highlights are the flashback to his time with Erika the Red and Odin's inner monologue about his realization of his failings. Letdowns are the rest of the scattered lead-up to the War of the Realms crossover event. I'm still in it for the long haul, but Aaron isn't firing on all cylinders like he was during the Mighty Thor run.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Foot dragging and throat clearing rule the day as Aaron shuffles down the road toward his big crossover. There are a whole lot of character moments at least. I only wished they weren't colored in such ugly neons and pastels for the middle chunk of the book. Probably trying to distract from the subpar line work of Mike Del Mundo, as emphasized by the much better opening and closing chapters by other artists.

[RG · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok but as advertised more of a prelude to the main event. Im kind of at that stage where I'm ready for Aaron to finish his Thor run.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, the War of the Realms is still in a holding pattern as the rest of Marvel gets ready for the newest invasive crossover, but this is actually a good bit of hiatus. Aaron uses the last bit of time before the War to focus on individual characters. We get the stories of Young Thor, Angela, Roz, Odin, and Freyja, most of whom have been woefully neglected in the run-up to the War. And, these one-off stories each offer great insights into the characters. I loved the hints at worthiness in Young Thor, I adored the story of Ros and what she dreams of, and I loved learning more about Freyja's relationship with Thor.

The quality of the stories varies from good to great, but this is clearly Aaron writing to his strengths.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just okay.... It had some very boring parts.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quando eu tinha lido o primeiro volume de mais uma nova fase do Thor por Jason Aaron, que por acaso era essa, eu havia dito que tinha me cansado demais da leitura. Tive essa sensação por causa da arte de Mike Del Mundo que fica linda nas capas, mas não funciona tão bem na narrativa em quadrinhos. Pois bem, eis que deixo esse segundo volume marinando nas bancas e o resgato prestes a ser recolhido. A leitura é mais fluida, principalmente na edição que é desenhada por Tony Moore (The Walking Dead) que mostra o Thor mais jovem. Aliás, todo esse encadernado é sobre relações entre pai e filho. De um pai que não dá a mínima para o seu filho e, por vezes, até o despreza - coisa que muitos de nós vão se identificar. Odin e Thor. O pai de todos é o pai de ninguém. Dessa vez, uma maneirada na arte de Mike Del Mundo deu um tom mais agradável a esse encadernado, que nos prepara para um novo grande evento da Marvel que vem aí e, como você já adivinhou, se chama Guerra dos Reinos! O responsável será Jason Aaron mais uma vez e rogamos às nornes que ele não repita os deslizes de Pecado Original.

[Lucas Savio · Rating 4 out of 5]

com histórias mais independentes este encadernado nos prepara para oque virá e o quão próxima se encontra os elfos de malekith de midgard (Terra) por ter uma variedade maior de desenhista consegui ler mais rápido, pois sinto que o del mundo é ótimo em mostrar cenas estática sem movimento porém na ação n é mt seu forte. QUE VENHA A GUERRA!!!

[Desa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entre 3’5 y 4 ⭐️

Ya está todo listo para War of the Realms... ahora toca empezar con los Avengers de Aaron (confío en él) y después me pondré (por fin) con la guerra de los reinos. Nervios!

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

60%

Good story line but not so good graphic imagery.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh..

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thor volume 2 is an improvement over the previous volume. This one starts slow, but finishes with 3 strong issues. Del Mundo's art is easier to follow this time around, however he relies heavily on foreground and background blur that just doesn't look natural. This is a solid setup comic for the long-overdue, War of the Realms.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely feels like it's buying time for the War of the Realms, which is finally about to kick into gear. I liked the issue with Erika the Red, and the issue narrated by Odin is surprisingly effective, given how much I dislike the comic book version of the character. The rest is ok, largely throwaway issues that still feature some good character moments. Freyja in particular has flourished while being written by Aaron, so it's good to see a bit more of her, being very All-Mother indeed.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's get this thing started already. This seemed like kind of a place-holder more than anything else. I really don't care for Mike Del Mundo's artwork...

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much cleaner art than the first but the story is still a bit scattered, leading to another event.

[Luan Ramalho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ótima preparação para a Guerra dos Reinos!

[Billy Jepma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about the first volume of Jason Aaron’s new Thor ongoing (mainly in regards to the art, which seemed needlessly chaotic and hard to follow, and also because his run with Jane Foster’s Thor was one of my favorite comics of all time) but most of my concerns have been addressed with this second volume as Aaron proved yet again that he knows these characters better than anyone else.

This volume is as much a prequel, a calm before the storm that is the upcoming “War of the Realms” event, as anything else. But it’s also an introspective exploration of who Thor is, what he’s endured over the years, and how those closest to him have come to admire, fear, and judge the God of Thunder he’s become. As such, outside of the first issue here, Thor is a supporting character. And it works extraordinarily well. Aaron’s writing is excellent, thoughtful, and emotional in ways I was totally unprepared for. A couple moments almost had me misty-eyed, and that’s saying something.

I still don’t love Del Mundo’s art though. The colors are stunning, and his layouts are great, but the almost-watercolor-like style of his work makes his lines difficult to track. So when there’s combat—which there actually isn’t a ton of in these issues—it reads like a blur of colors and motion but lacks the definition I tend to prefer. Still, his work is growing on me, I think, as he does have some great pages and layouts in here that paired with Aaron’s thoughtful scripts really well. The final issue’s guest artist—Lee Garbett with Antonio Fabela on colors—was a nice change of pace, but guest artists are always a bit jarring.

Overall though, this volume was a return-to-form that reminded me why I love the stories Aaron has told—and continues to tell—with Thor. Some personal problems with the art style aside, this is a great volume of comics that genuinely has me excited for what’s coming next.

[Alex Sarll]

"She smelled of innards and old leather. Her body drenched in enough blood to drown a full-grown Saxon. She was a reaver, a wanton pillager, a notoriously savage pagan princess who spit like a viper, drank like a shark and roared like a boar. In other words... Gods.. I am so in love."

Aaron's epic Thor run nears its end, with only one mega-crossover and one last Volume 1 (his seventh, by my reckoning to go). So what better time to take stock? The sort of taking stock which involves killer space prisons, tsunamis and god-on-god throwdowns, granted, but then at its best this run was always grasping for the sort of epic pitch where that makes sense. So we see Thor's long-ago first love, and his terrible chat-up lines ("Do you slay here often?"); we see Jane Foster's own ongoing battle (I'm not ashamed to admit I cried a little at adorable, murder-obsessed Helhound pup Thori walking her to her medical appointment, muttering about how he would murder cancer). We see a former agent of disbanded SHIELD given new purpose, what Loki has been up to lately finally sort-of explained, and far closer links than hitherto with Aaron's Avengers run. We also get an issue about fatherhood which is as raw as anything in Southern Bastards, given mythic heft by the fact it's centred on the Allfather, who in this metaphysic pretty much literally invented toxic masculinity. My hopes for the big smackdown into which this leads are no longer all that high, because the hit rate for Marvel crossovers lately has been deeply patchy. But this overture is a delight.

[Lucas Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

On this one, we got some close chapters where Aaron plays with Thor's past, and some important characters of it's mythology. We have Odin, Freya, Loki and all. But the issue where Roz became an Agent of Wakanda and just kills a frost giant is great. It made sense for me and the ending was awesome, as a super agent would do in a spy movie.

[Emmett Spain · Rating 4 out of 5]

More a series of one-shots than a single story, Jason Aaron takes some time to flesh out supporting characters before the War of the Realms kicks off. Thor gets plenty of development too, through some backstory along with his scenes with Odin and Frigga. It’s really effective and sets the table for the big event. Let’s go!