So Journey Into Mystery was re-titled Thor, due to limits on how many different books Marvel could actually publish a month back then, and went like that for decades. The title was revived briefly in '96 when I'm guessing Thor was supposed to be dead (or in Heroes Reborn, same difference), continuing the numbering. It was an Asgard book, then Shang-Chi's, then Black Widow's. That ran to #521.
In 2011, it returned again, as a Kieron Gillen-written book starring Kid Loki for 24 issues (which Marvel of course shipped over 18 months.) Then it became a Sif book, as part of one of those Marvel NOW! things they were doing in the early-to-mid 2010s.
Kathryn Immonen got 10 issues all told, 9 with Valerio Schiti as artist, one with Pepe Larraz, and Jordie Bellaire as color artist throughout. I don't really know what the status quo was with Asgard at that point. It's still in Oklahoma, but now it's Asgardia. Odin is nowhere to be seen, but I'm not sure who is actually running the place.
At any rate, the place had been attacked and severely damaged - again - and Immonen plays up Sif's frustration with this. She's a warrior, but she keeps failing to protect her home. Asgard(ia) is supposed to be great, but it keeps getting burned to the ground. I thought that whole cycle was kind of the point, but I can see how it would wear on you after a time.
The first arc is Sif looking for an ancient power that will help her make sure she can protect her home, and finding. . .not that. Something Heimdall knew of, but kept secret, and when he learns Sif knows of it, sends her away in an attempt to protect their home from. Immonen's version of Sif and Heimdall are not particularly close, though I've rarely seen them written that way by anyone else, either, so no quibbles there.
When Sif eventually concludes she wasn't looking for power so much as a chance to just stop caring about consequences, the second arc has her trying to protect in other ways. Gaea is trying to regrow a garden in Asgardia, without much success. Sif is trying to help, also without much success. Eventually they end up in space, Beta Ray Bill shows up.
Immonen writes Bill as kind of a moron. It's not great. Like, yes, he's very earnest and in the "noble hero" image, but that doesn't make him stupid. But Immonen's Sif is also very, "hit things first, hit things second, take a breather, hit them some more," type. There's even a set of panels in one of the issues of Sif just hacking away at a blue-blooded '60s Marvel sci-fi monster, pausing in the middle to wipe some of the blood from her eye, then resuming hacking. Nobody's really demonstrating much in the way of brain cells.
It does allow Schiti to show off some excellent physical acting in the characters. Sif is expressive, not necessarily with large gestures (Bill definitely talks with his arms and hands, though), but with a particular glance or the tilt of her head. Lots of shadowing of Sif's face in the first arc, when she's under the effects (or thinks she is) of the incantation, a lot of close-ups on the uncomfortable looks of everyone else around her.
Bellaire saves the brighter shades and more unusual colors for the stranger things. The sci-fi monsters are vivid oranges and greens. The mysterious living ship that attacks Bill and Sif is a bright, bloody red. The interior is aglowing orange, but a different shade from Bill or Ti Asha Ra (the alleged Korbinite Galactus restored in Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter). Makes a nice contrast from the Avengers space base Stark built they're using, which is all dull gunmetal grey. Enhances the otherworldly aspect of those elements, or Gaea, whose skin is a light, brighter, cleaner shade than Sif's. Something more than even a god of Asgard.
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