CSBG Archive
John Seavey’s Storytelling Engines: Thor
Here’s the latest Storytelling Engine from John Seavey. Click here to read John’s description of what a Storytelling Engine IS, anyways. Check out more of them at his blog, Fraggmented.
Storytelling Engines: Thor
(or “The Eternal Dance”)
There’s a phenomenon in comics that I’ve been itching to talk about for awhile now, because it’s…well, not exactly rare, but not necessarily all that common either. It’s why ‘Aquaman’ struggles to get readers, why ‘Thor’ keeps getting relaunched, and why Walt Simonson is one of the best writers to work in the industry. ‘Thor’ is the best example of it, and so let’s take a moment to break down Thor’s storytelling engine and see what I’m talking about.
Thor is a “Shazam”-like comic about a mild-mannered individual (usually Doctor Don Blake, but there have been others) who finds an ancient cane, and who can strike it on the ground to become imbued with the power and spirit of the Norse thunder god Thor. When he’s Thor, he’s a powerhouse superhero, capable of defeating virtually any foe, but he has an Achilles heel–he must strike the cane on the ground to gain his power, and if he lets go of the hammer that the cane is transformed into for too long, he loses it again. He’s a noble, good-hearted man who uses his powers to fight a variety of costumed criminals.
No, wait. That’s not right. Let’s try it again.
Thor is a fantasy comic set in the fabled realm of Asgard, the land of the Norse gods. Thor, son of Odin, must protect Asgard from a wide variety of threats, from the sinister trolls to his own brother, Loki, god of deceit and treachery. He has a wide variety of allies and enemies among the gods of Asgard, such as the beautiful Sif and the Warriors Three, and fights godly battles.
Notice the important point? ‘Thor’, the comic, is actually two storytelling engines, both featuring Thor, the character. The dual identity isn’t merely a gateway from his mundane life to his superhuman one, like it is for Superman or Batman, but an actual point of convergence between two separate storytelling engines, each of which tells an entirely different type of story.
On the surface, this would seem to be great. And in a lot of ways, it is. Two storytelling engines means twice as many opportunities for a writer to find ideas for the next issue. If you can’t think of a good super-villain, grab an ancient dragon. If you’re stuck on how to spring Loki from Odin’s latest punishment, have Thor fight the Absorbing Man for a few issues while you work it out. By bouncing back and forth between the two, you’re pretty much guaranteed never to run out of ideas.
Except that every storytelling engine caters to a different audience. There are people who like outlandish fantasy stories, and people who like modern-day superhero action, but by definition, there’s a smaller subset of people who like both. Every time you jump to Asgard, some of your fans grit their teeth and wade through the book until they get back to the cool stuff with the Avengers. Every time Thor fights Mr. Hyde, someone is really wishing they’d get back to the Warriors Three. The two storytelling engines swing around each other with Thor as a pivot, in a sort of dance.
The best Thor runs, of course, hide these jumps seamlessly. They mingle the two elements; Thor escapes from Ulik the troll by teleporting to Earth, only to find his foe has followed him. Loki empowers a petty criminal by accident, giving him the power of the Norn Queen and causing a rampage only Thor can stop. Walt Simonson, one of the true geniuses, blended the two so elegantly that his run is still talked about as one of the best in the history of the series. But the dance is always there, even if hidden well. Some people never get comfortable with it.
You can still see this today, in the current relaunch of ‘Thor’. The thunder god has returned, and he’s brought Asgard with him to Earth. That’s certainly one way of solving the problem of dual storytelling engines; only time will tell whether or not it works.
12 Comments
adambr
September 12, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I’m sure this is comic book heresy, but I actually think the Simonson run might be one of the most over-rated runs of any comic. Personally, I felt there was way too much Asgard stuff-the “cask of ancient winters” storyline seemed to drag on forever. Not to mention the fact that he got rid of Don Blake completely. Admittedly, Don had pretty much outlived his usefulness by that time, but I still kind of missed him. I think Conway and Wein did a much better job of switching between stories.
Michael
September 12, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Your mob will arrive to burn you at the stake shortly, Adam.
Gil
September 12, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Adam’s actually proving John’s point.
That WAS a long storyline that involved a conspicuous absence from both the Avengers and Earth itself. If you were more interested in the superhero aspect of Thor, that story probably didn’t resonate particularly well with you. (Although, at least Walt threw in the Avengers and FF for the finale.)
As John stated, Simonson was one of the best at the balancing act, but it was never not a balancing act.
Bret
September 12, 2007 at 4:41 pm
You know, it sounds like Adam doesn’t like Volstagg as much as he should.
That’s just not right.
Also: I need to read more Simonson Thor.
Ian
September 12, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I still think Jurgens handled the balance really well for the first two years of his run.
Luis Dantas
September 12, 2007 at 7:17 pm
IIRC, for a while Simonson had Beta Ray Bill acting on Earth while Thor was in Asgard. At least one cover even made a point of clearly showing that Thor and Bill were having separate adventures at the same time, both on Earth and Asgard.
That’s another way of balancing things, I suppose. And it reminds me that one thing that is often missing to the earthly side of Thor is a good supporting cast. Doug Moench tried to establish one during the Chicago period in the early eighties, but it didn’t last too long. Jurgens was the next one to give any significant attention to the human supporting cast, and it took some ten to fifteen years to arrive at that point.
FunkyGreenJerusalem
September 12, 2007 at 8:23 pm
I think your over looking DeFalco’s run a bit there.
Graham Vingoe
September 13, 2007 at 12:53 am
I’ve been having a bit of a rethink about Thor in the last few months. I used to be a real fan of the title from reprints of the early Lee/Kirby run in Mighty World of Marvel and remained faithful to it all the way through to the Defalco run. Within 2 issues of Defalco/Frenz taking over I had quit the title.
To me, the big problem with the Defalco/Frenz run was the fact that they apparently decided the way to revive the titles fortunes was to mimic Lee/Kirby exactly. those issues read like a pastiche of the early Journey into Mystery issues, and, like it or not, they’d already been done.
Personally, I always read Thor more for the fantastic elements of the series – he is a god, so making him face any mortal villain should be a complete mismatch(something Jim Shooter played with during his 1st run on Avengers.)
Make Thor face Thanos and it becomes a bit more believable to me than if its Thor having trouble with the Grey Gargoyle for the umpteenth time.
JMS and Coipel seem to have a handle on how to handle the mix of supernatural and superheroics so I for one am intrigued to see how they handle things in future with the title.
Luis Dantas
September 13, 2007 at 3:13 am
Funky, you’re right. I tend to gloss over DeFalco’s Thor a lot, alas.
buttler
September 13, 2007 at 10:18 am
Wow, see, I mostly read Thor in the ’70s and ’80s, when storytelling engine #1 had been abandoned entirely and Dr. Don Blake was rarely if ever seen. I wasn’t aware that aspect of the Thor story had become particularly relevant again.
Graeme Burk
September 13, 2007 at 10:48 am
One of the things I liked about Simonson’s run was that he pretty much got rid of a key component of Storytelling Engine 1 in the second issue and did away with Don Blake altogether. It was one of those innovations I wish they had kept– I much preferred Sigurd Jarlson to Don Blake anyday.
There was still the balancing act of superheroics on earth and high adventure in Asgard, but taking the Shazam element of an ordinary guy transformed into a superbeing/god out of the equation went a long way to making it all work in my opinion
John Seavey
September 13, 2007 at 12:38 pm
They’d actually already started heading in that direction during the period covered by the Essentials. Once it was revealed that Don Blake wasn’t a person who found Thor’s hammer, but was instead an identity created by Odin to teach Thor humility, it was really only a matter of time before Blake went away.
I personally think that giving Thor a mortal identity (ie, one that has no super-powers and has to “become” Thor) works very well for the character, because it makes it easier for the writer to put him in jeopardy, but I’m not attached to Donald Blake specifically.