Random Back Issues #62 - The Mighty Thor #379

I know, just six weeks after the last time we looked at Simonson's Thor run we're back again. We're almost to the end of it now. Thor's just narrowly avoided getting thrashed by some frost giants Loki was collaborating with. Not killed, because Hela's cursed him to be easily injured, never heal, and never die. Meaning no death in battle for Thor. He'd almost given in to despair, but seeing his brother fight an entire horde of frost giants got him moving and he finished his new armor and saved the day.

So Loki wakes up to trashed citadel, no frost giants, no Iceman (who he abducted as part of his scheme) and no Thor. His magic gets the walls to tell him what happened and he predictably throws a hissy fit over Thor saving his life. I mean, it was a terrible idea on Thor's part, but Loki could try bearing it with grace. Instead, he searches for Grundroth and his frost giants, who have traveled to Earth to awaken the Midgard Serpent. It's supposed to die in a final battle with Thor, but with the thunder god being weakened, they figure it can be convinced to take a run at him and break its fate.

 

Loki actually thinks that's not a bad plan, and leaves them to it, focusing on his own plan to get revenge on them instead. Which involves going to some mountain peak on Earth and retrieving a pile of melted metal. The purpose of that becomes clear in two issues.

In Asgard, everyone has fallen prey to a mysterious plague except for the dark elf Kurse, who's fought Thor a couple of times in this run, but is just sort of hanging around right now, and Mick and Kevin. They're two mortal kids Thor brought here after they were orphaned thanks to Justice Peace of the Time Variance Authority (in one of the weakest stories of Simonson's run), who were adopted by Volstaag. Kurse won't speak, but he helps the children reach "President Balder", who's also sick, but has a vial on him Odin's ravens give to the boys. Who have no idea what to do, because they don't speak bird. What are they teaching kids in Midgardian schools these days, when they no longer understand ravenspeak?

Grundroth uses one of his own as the worm on the line for the Midgard Serpent, but instead pull up an all-orange Fin Fang Foom. Neither party is impressed by the other, but after Grundroth declares Mjolnir, 'would make fishbait out of YOU!!', Foom decides to see if this Thor is an actual challenge. Thor's in a park after returning Iceman to X-Factor headquarters, considering how his only chance of getting the curse undone is to go confront Hela. Which he barely managed the last time at full strength, with a whole legion of Asgardian warriors at his back, and it still took Skurge's sacrifice to pull it off. The odds this doesn't end with him a shattered wreck, tormented by Hela and all the foes he's slain for an eternity are not great.

FFF nearly stomps him, then apologizes for a case of mistaken identity. He thought he recognized the cape, you see. This leads to an extended conversation where Thor pretends to be someone else, claiming to be 'familiar with most of the other wearers of such capes.' He eventually refers to himself as 'an extremely local version of a tactical nuclear weapon,' aka a super-hero. He shows he's strong enough to lift Foom's foot, something only managed one other time according to FFF, and the dragon agrees to fly them somewhere else for their battle. 

 

There's a page of debate about what aphorisms are, the value of symbols and what one believes in. It's kind of odd how casual the whole thing is. I'd suspect Thor recognizes his opponent's true identity,  but I guess the dragon is just cocky. They reach a secluded spot, and "Fin Fang Foom" reveals himself as the Midgard Serpent. He proclaims he exists in the deeps of time beyond the reach of clocks, and that's where they are now. On cue, time stops for everyone except the two of them, and the giants, who hurry to see the battle. The Serpent apologizes for having not asked the poor warrior's name, but assures him that once he's dead, Jormungand will assume another illusion and gather all his loved ones to hear their lamentations. What a nice dragon.

Thor's response is he has plenty of names, too, but the one that matters is 'THOR ODINSON the Thunderer, Jormungand's Fear!' The weigh-ins, ring promos, and entrance music complete, it's time for the championship bout. But that's saved for the next issue, which is the all-splash page throwdown, the final issue of the run Walt Simonson draws himself. I think he was drawing X-Factor concurrent with this, so Sal Buscema had been drawing more and more of the issues for a while.

[11th longbox, 126th comic. The Mighty Thor #379, by Walter Simonson (writer), Sal Buscema (artist), EVelyn Stein (colorist), John Workman (letterer)]