Marvel Pick Of The Week - February 11, 2015 [SPOILERS]

Pick Of The Week:

Thor 5, by Jason Aaron and Jorge Molina

When I picked the first issue of this relaunch as my Pick Of The Week, I pointed out how deftly the team handled the transition of the title character. For those readers who didn’t get on board back then, Thor was convinced that he was no longer worthy to use the magic hammer, Mjolnir. All the men of Asgard, including Odin, tried and failed to pick it up, and when no one was looking, a woman (we don’t know who yet) grabbed the hammer and took off to take down some frost giants and dark elves and millennia of patriarchy. Last issue, she fought Thor, and he came to a respectful understanding that though he is probably going to get the hammer back someday, this is her time.

The plot for this issue sees the new Thor pitting her hammer against classic foes Titania and the Absorbing Man while Odinson (the previous Thor) begins a series of interviews with the important women in his life, trying to figure out which of them has his hammer. The woman’s story is funny, bright, and a little metatextual with how impressed Titania gets that her opponent isn’t degrading herself with a “She-Thor” or “Lady Thunderstrike” moniker. The man’s story is emotionally powerful, as he heads to a bar to ask Sif if she’s his new replacement, but to get that information, he has to honestly apologize for his boorish history with her and take an interest in her views of the shift in Asgardia from an All-Mother to an All-Father political system. And after attempting but failing spectacularly, he shouts, “Bartender! My survival and yours depends on me receiving more mead with all haste!” It’s a punchline earned through emotional depth, and a line I think I’m going to modify for my own entertainment.

In this issue, Odin is having a hard time accepting that a woman he doesn’t know has caused this many waves, leading him to ever more desperate political moves to try and secure his way of life. Though his frustration leans close to the scenery-chewing woman-hating straw man we see in so many liberal arguments, Jason Aaron also shows that this is a powerful man who is afraid to face that the world may have moved beyond the political structure he knows so well. As was so clear in the first issue, this is a feminist book, and not because the characters and creators hate men but because the characters and creators respect women. This book is less provocative than Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Bitch Planet, but it is just as intentional in its representation. In a year that’s seeing female leads in Marvel comics including Elektra, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Storm, She-Hulk, Squirrel Girl, Gamora, Angela, Spider-Woman, Silk, and Spider-Gwen, not every book has to make a big deal about what a great job Marvel is doing for the respectful visibility of women. But when a book represents this demographic as well as Thor does, the team deserves to get credit for it.

Honorable Mentions:

Amazing Spider-Man 14, for closing out the amazing Spider-Verse crossover so well, as Nick Tylwalk knows, but also for the scene where Spider-Gwen is fighting some multiverse versions of the Green Goblin, and all the Peter Parkers in the room just kind of lose it. That was cute in and of itself, but the exchange below, where Gwen finally loses it about everyone being overprotective just because she’s dead in a lot of other worlds, feels real without being too aggressive.

Spider-Woman 4, because I am really excited about the debut of her new look next issue, but I’m going to miss the classic suit. And what better way to say goodbye to it than a scene where she just shot a monster to pieces with a comically oversized gun, then poses?

All New Ghost Rider 11, because the spirit of a Satan-devoted serial killer has started to possess a little boy, and the readers get to see this by a Babadook style of messed-up shadow play. The book gets even darker than the scene pictured below, but this introduction had me jumping.

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Marvel Pick Of The Week – February 11, 2015 [SPOILERS]

By Matt Conner | Feb 11, 2015

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