The Greatest Thor Ever Made

The holy Walt Simonson started on the Thor book on issue #337, and continued all the way through to issue #382, spanning many years.

This run of comics has garnered many fans of which I proudly declare myself one - OK, it's not akin to discovering radium but hey, its close.

Walt Simonson took an arrogant Nordic prince with questionable fashion sense and, at times, horrifically hackneyed dialogue and made him, well, if not alive then someone you could believe in.

And then he wrote, pencilled and inked Issue 380 - the re-enactment of a mythological tale, where Thor is destined to die in battle with Loki's son, the great worm Jormungand - the World Serpent.

Go on, have a read...

Its a dragon the length of the world with an sparkling wit and bottomless ego versus our hero, sporting a distinctive disco coloured armour.

Every page is a blockbuster - 1 frame, 2 figures and flesh-singing tension - how about this for "cause and effect":

There are 24 pages in this book, and every single one positively hums "classic" at you. Mr Simonson also wrote a simple poem in the style of a ballad to the Asgardian gods as the commentary.

It wasn't supposed to be Milton, just believable. And it was. I truly believed that Walt Simonson had found the original Norse verse and was just printing it word for word. My disbelief had been well and truly suspended, which is just as it should be.

And so, inexorably, the battle reached its climax. The titans destroy each other and fall to the ground to die.

and the final words were these:

I put the comic down and simply gulped my disbelief. Comics would never be this good again.