Last time, we continued our journey through Jack Kirby’s historic bibliography with Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #1. This time, we’re treading grounds that are a bit more familiar to me with Thor #150, as Kirby is joined by the man himself: Stan Lee. The issue, titled Even in Death… picks up in the […]
Tag Archives | Thor
Hammering Out the Details
Let’s spend this last remaining week of Thor Month at BLASTOFF looking back at a couple of THOR pieces from our sister site COMICS 101. First, the review of the original film, as originally published May 11, 2011: Somewhere in Hollywood, director Joe Johnston has got to be feeling the pressure. With his CAPTAIN AMERICA: […]
Beta Ray Bill – I’m a Fan
When I told friends I needed to read Thor stories this month for research purposes, they started throwing names of issues and creators at me with enthusiasm. Thor’s a popular guy/god/hero. In the flurry, one story was almost universally recommended: Beta Ray Bill’s first appearance. I’m not one to write off popular opinion but there’s […]
Asgard, Oklahoma
…Asgard, Oklahoma. (Just giving folks unfamiliar with J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor run a moment to process that. We good? We’re good.) It’s one of those ideas where you have to wonder what the writer was thinking. It’s one of those ideas that shouldn’t work – the kind that can’t work, that fans will detest, […]
Thor and the Mighty Thor
In Melbourne there was a nursing home which was the premier residence for holocaust survivors. The home understood their issues, these people who feared their nightmares: not the ones they had but the ones they had lived through. They feared the sound of train whistles and as dementia took some of them, they feared the […]
Hammer Time
With Thor on everyone’s lips at the moment, I can’t help but think of a few favorite Thor characters that we undoubtedly won’t be seeing on the big screen anytime soon. BETA RAY BILL Beta Ray Bill is awesome. One of the first innovations of Walt Simonson’s run, Bill was an alien who happened to […]
Meet Loki
Loki, the wicked black sheep of Asgard, is the adopted brother and archenemy of the Norse god, Thor. He’s known as the “God of Lies and Mischief,” and he revels in spreading chaos and upsetting the plans of his fellow noble immortals—as well as finding schemes and ploys to tout his intelligence and wit in […]
Thor: The Dark World – A Spoiler-Free Review
Thor: The Dark World tore up the box office last weekend and with good reason. It was a fantastic follow up to Thor with just a few weak points. I can’t speak to how true it was to the comics and whether it was a solid superhero movie in that regard, but I can say […]
The Blastoff Art Gallery – Thor
This month’s all-new banner once again comes courtesy of our Artist-in-Residence Elena Casagrande, who brings us a comics-style tribute to THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Click to see it at full size!
Journey into Mystery, Part II
As THOR first appeared in Marvel Comics in the 1960s, it didn’t take long for creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to settle in on Thor’s evil half-brother Loki, the God of Mischief, as the series’ main antagonist. The central conflict of the series involved Thor and his half-brother Loki, the God of Mischief. Loki, […]
A Worthy Successor
It still kind of amazes me what Marvel Studios has accomplished, and a little moreso with each new Marvel film that arrives at the cineplex. Never the most approachable or relatable comic-book superhero, and certainly not the most popular, Thor has kind of hovered near the A-list of Marvel’s roster of superheroes, usually either at […]
The Women of Thor: The Dark World
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following piece contains a couple of references to events in THOR: THE DARK WORLD that you owe it to yourself to experience without knowledge aforethought, so if you haven’t seen the film yet but you intend to, just bookmark this piece and come back after you’ve watched it. Here endeth the lesson. […]
Journey into Mystery
The year was 1962, and Marvel editor Stan Lee was feeling the pressure. Stan had come out of the gate three for three: his first three new “Marvel Comics” had been met with unexpected success at the newsstands. THE FANTASTIC FOUR, the INCREDIBLE HULK and the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN were not only selling like hotcakes, but […]