Donny, you're out of your ... Oh, I guess you're not...

Strange times my friends, strange times indeed. The funny books are in a bit of a limbo but the community endures. Our culture is one built on a foundation that's an odd mix of selfish love and genuine camaraderie. While we navigate this bizarre limbo, I for one will continue to find my own escape between the staples and ink.

Recently I decided to begin re-collecting the comics of my youth. The books and runs that inspired me throughout the 90's and early 00's. As a teen I mainly focused on collecting Silver Age comics and wholly neglected my Wednesday pickups. Don't get me wrong, I was reading at least 15 titles at any given time, but I never really took physical care of them like I did my "real" collection. Fast forward a decade and I'm selling off most of comics to help pay for "life" as an adult... and then here I am, another decade later, reassembling the loves of my life.

First off, I'm proud to say that I have assembled full runs of Starman, Preacher, All Star Squadron, Infinity Inc., New X-Men, The Flash (vol. 2), and JSA... But what I hadn't planned on was loading my weekly pull box with 15+ titles again. What started off as 6 has swelled to 16! But what's even more surprising to me are the titles I've added... most notably Thor. So to kick things off, I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon and do some shameless promoting of a book I have historically been down on.

I've never read a Thor comic and felt compelled to chase down the rest of the run. Don't get me wrong, Thor is a great character, and he's had his moments, but overall his solo titles have been pretty lackluster to me. I thin he's a hard character to consistently write.

Enter Donny Cates. I wasn't super familiar with Donny Cates before this, having only seen his name around and I don't think I had read any of his other stuff (but I'm certainly going to!). About 3 weeks ago I saw a small little review of his new Thor run and the response was overwhelmingly positive, so I said "what the hell? Why not!"... And damn. Just damn...!

Ok, I'll calm down... but seriously! In just 4 short issues ole Donny (I can call him that, we're buddy's now) has truly woven quite the tale and dropped enough crumbs to make the follow up to this current arc even more intriguing. Thor has captivated me. That's not something I thought would happen in print, well not in his solo book anyway.

I know Thor has plenty of fans that'll defend him to the death, but the numbers don't lie. Historically (up to he 2000's) Thor hasn't been a top seller for Marvel and a chunk of his legacy was heavily invested in his role as an Avenger.

Issue #4 of Cates' run left us with Thor and Galactus ready to face off against the big bad Universe Eating mega baddy The Black Winter. I don't want to divulge too much, but Thor is getting acclimated to his new role in Asgard as the King when Galactus makes a rather dramatically grand entrance to seek Thor's help against this cosmic threat. After a visit from Silver Surfer, Thor eventually agrees and Galactus imbues Thor with the Power Cosmic essentially making Thor a new Herald... Let that sink in.

Cates really dives right into the guts of things with a wonderful flow that weaves the stories larger elements through the dynamics of the world around Thor and explores some of Thor's internal conflicts. The hints that are dropped are "in your face", but are subtly drug along to create that yearning desire to see exactly where it can go. Mystery is a drug I can't ignore and he gives me just enough to keep me euphorically hooked. I'm not the best at describing how writers construct their stories, but the man knows how to bring it all together.

As the story progresses there are some interesting interactions with Loki that feed into the aforementioned breed crumbs and an action packed appearance by the Stormbreaker swinging Korbinite badass himself Beta Ray Bill! I'll leave this summary of events there because I don't want to give away the juice... Every man deserves to cut into his own steak first and get that juice rolling down his chin, and trust me when I say the juice is savory!

I never thought that the book I'd anticipate the most throughout the Quarantine would be Thor... But here I am. Strange time my friends, strange times indeed.

Now, I also dig a very minor amount of digging, and discovered that I need to go back and read Jason Aaron's run. I took about a decade long break on new releases, so please forgive my obvious Thor ignorance. But I'm here now oh God of Thunder, forgive my doubt!

Batter late than never right?

Anyways... On to the second half of this little blog!

Let's get interactive! I don't care if you're reading this the day it's published or 5 years later, I invite you to openly share with me the answers to any of the following questions!

What's a title/character that surprised you years later? Who was an "unknown" writer that slapped you in the face with their talents and on what book? What's your favorite current on-going series? Why hasn't Billy Zane been properly recognized for the national treasure he is? How much is gas in your area? $1.46 here! - Oh Thank the Maker! Ooooo!

I love to hear stories about how people were hooked to a title or writer, so I encourage you all to be as vocal as you can. Advocate for those industry Creatives and damn the naysayers! We're in a time now where the community needs to speak up more so than ever. The future is uncertain for many small publishers and even some bigger ones, so tweet, comment and tag away!

I hope you enjoyed this little rambling mess. I used to write more, and I'm a bit out of practice. I tend to shoot from the hip. There's value in structuring the things you write, but musings should be natural. You'll find a few older blogs I left up from years ago. I took down about a dozen or so that weren't relevant to comics or nerdom in general. SO excuse the gap.

Next time I plan to write about the Starman Web Series reality contest that never happened. I was beyond stoked for it and was disappointed when it didn't happen. But there's more meat on that bone then just that. So I hope you check it out. I might write it tomorrow or next week, but it'll be soon!


Thanks again! :)