The Mighty Thor #445

Occurring simultaneously with Iron Man 278, Thor 445 shows us the other away team to the Shi’ar Imperium: Thor (Eric Masterson), Wonder Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel (the female Monica Rambeau), Starfox, and the Living Lightning, young recent recruit of AWC – certainly an odd group for such an important mission; but as all recent issues have shown, the Avengers are currently experiencing as much stress and instability as the sun is. After a brief comical moment of the Scarlet Witch landing on Thor’s arm, the issue gets serious. The Avengers stumble on a Shi’ar world under attack by a Kree starfighter. Before its destruction, the world sends a distress signal to the homeworld, intercepted by Gladiator, the nearly invulnerable leader of the Imperial Guard. As you can imagine, he assumes the Avengers have destroyed the Shi’ar world and starts to attack them. Before he arrives, Captain Marvel and Living Lightning investigate the remains of the Kree starfighter, only to find a Skrull onboard! The mysteries increase. The pair of flyers evacuates the ship just before the Skrull destructs it.

In contrast to the big splashes of previous installments, this issue does some of its finest work in small 3”x3” panels. One of the best is the simple turning to face Thor panel on page 6, as Starfox and Scarlet Witch simply turn to Thor in response to his query “Who’d be dumb enough to try such a crazy stunt [like intercept Gladiator]?” The minimalist approach works brilliantly.

Wonder Man, in fact, volunteers for the job, brusquely dismissing the young replacement Thor who is “obviously out of his depth,” though he does soon regret being so harsh to the guy. Despite his attempts at diplomacy, Wonder Man has already done his duel in the series, and Gladiator quickly disposes of him while Thor broods over his own cowardice and insufficiencies. In another series of minimal yet full panels, Thor stops Vision from taking his place a second time. Letterer Michael Heisler does a tremendous job sizing Tom DeFalco’s great writing, matching the intensity of Thor’s resolve with the quietness of his utterance. With a powerful kamikaze dive and ¾-page splash into Gladiator’s back, Thor joins the fray and regains the central narrative focus of his own issue.

The third quarter of the issue is dominated by the duel between Thor and Gladiator. In contrast to the short-lived outer space battle between Shatterax and Iron Man which approached Iron Man’s deficiencies in an almost ascetic, computerized manner, this present duel is a philosophical treatise on the morality of war and the role of the warrior (hence the title of the issue). Thor is powerful yet inexperienced; Gladiator is powerful and thoroughly experienced. Thor jokes and attempts to distract with sarcasms; Gladiator waxes on the horrors of war and the duty of warriors (in contrast to the poets who glorify war without having experienced it). Both are defending their homeworlds; neither is motivated to care for the other’s. Thor is driven by a need to prove himself; Gladiator is driven by his responsibility to his people and his duty to his Empress. It’s an impressive conflict, again forcing the reader to think through the ideas being contested, as we start to realize Gladiator is right, but his unwillingness to care for Earth as well as his own people taints his moral superiority. The inexperienced Thor has no chance against Gladiator, until he sees Living Lightning escaping from the Kree starship. Using the Asgardian power of Mjolnir, Thor summons Living Lightning to crash into Gladiator, stunning them both. With one mighty full-page splash, Thor drives his Uru hammer into Gladiator, knocking him out.

Unfortunately for young Eric Masterson, in order to beat “the monster,” he starts to become like “the monster.” Borrowing Gladiator’s own language, he starts railing on about his own duty to his own people, including his own loved ones, and how they are more important than Gladiator’s Shi’ar people, and how he will come after every single terrorizing bully who claims to be superior or endanger others with war – all the while pummeling the unconscious Gladiator with his hammer.

Fortunately for young Eric Masterson, Wonder Man recovers and prevents him, with Vision’s help, from killing Gladiator. While Captain Marvel learns how to reach the Shi’ar homeworld, Living Lightning forces Thor to ponder the morality of using his teammate without respect, even for what appears to be “a good reason.” If they have to resort to the tactics and moral stance of their enemy, are they truly any better? Thor isn’t quite ready to listen, though, and impulsively sends Gladiator through the Shi’ar stargate, using Mjolnir to seal it closed forever, imploding their only path home, yet enabling them to perhaps complete their mission. While using the information Captain Marvel gathered to get to the Shi’ar homeworld, the Avengers debate briefly the morality of choices made in “total war,” and whether “no sacrifice is too great.” Captain Marvel is not for it, holding to the stance the Avengers are “supposed to be the good guys,” and thus should be above the “all’s fair in love and war” mentality. Living Lightning, one of the new recruits in the new generation, is starting to come around to Thor’s side, though. The chasm between Avengers is ever widening. The debate is curtailed suddenly, though, as the Avengers’ starship is suddenly surrounded by an entire Shi’ar fleet. Things are just not going well for them in any galaxy. It’s a thought-provoking issue, despite the assumptions the reader immediately makes about it being a simple “muscle-bound blockheads engaging in senseless battle” story from the cover. Serving to get progress the story along and move the characters where they need to be, the issue asks more questions than it answers, while forcing us to examine the Avengers and their motivations and morality not just for this mission but for their very existence.