THOR GOD OF THUNDER: GODBOMB PART FOUR (2 Hammers are better than 1!)
COVER ART: 5/5 Cover "artist" ESAD RIBIC and colorist IVE SVORCINA keep giving us top tier covers with each issue. The striations in the muscles of Thor as well in Gorr the God Butcher is beautiful. The way Esad was able to draw such a dynamic struggle and all this movement in a stationary image is real talent. The way Thor's leg is wrapped around Gorr's and how he has his arm torqued back with Gorr's weird leg hand struggling to push against Thor's leg makes me almost feel the tension and torque being applied in this move. The look on Gorr's face is of true anger and pain. The shine coming off of Thor's leg armor makes it look as if it is a picture of real steel. The light effect from Thor's hammer Mjolnir is amazing. I love everything about this cover.
STORY ARC: 5/5 JASON AARON is a masterful story teller. When you read this issue, or if you have already read it, you will notice you will fly through this issue in no time. This is truly an artists issue. I can just imagine what Jason must have done to prepare this issue, eliminating himself with excessive dialogue and allowing the picture to tell the majority of the story.
We pick this issue up from a failed attempt by the 3 Thor's to destroy Gorr the God Butcher in a 3 to 1 battle in the sky that shook the whole planet to the core. Gorr was victorious and Thor's hammers fell from the sky. The first page of this issue shows what is happening to the future King Thor. He is "nailed" to a comet with Gorr's black symbiotic power and the present Thor the Avenger is falling through a crevasse in the planet to the planets core. We see both present and future Thor's Mjolnirs caged in a dome of Gorr's black symbiotic power with Gods glued to it like flies glued to a fly trap. The young Thor, beat and spent is being dragged by Gorr by his hair like a doll toward the GODBOMB, which is about to go off any moment.
What we see next is very interesting. What we see is the turn of the tide. Everything Gorr despises, Gods, he has become. As Gorr is dragging the young Thor to the GODBOMB, his wife, the love of his life, approaches with worry in her voice. She was terrified of loosing Gorr in the battle with the 3 Thor's and now begins to praise Gorr and the end of his journey of butchering Gods. She cannot wait to be able to be a family again with Gorr and their son. She cries with happy tears and states that through all this time she believed only in Gorr, and believed he would make amends for what the Gods had done to him, and that he, Gorr, was her GOD! Well, she should not have said that. Gorr the God Butcher is not longer a man, he is the monster. He kills his own wife with her own head appendage by cramming it down her throat proclaiming "I am no one's God". Gorr's son looses his mother. He has lost his father to the monster within, the darkness.
Gorr's son is no fool though. He realizes there will nothing left of anything once that GODBOMB goes off when he sees his mothers dead hand reaching from under the surface of the ground. He knows his father must be stopped. And with his mother no longer "worshiping" Gorr like a God, Gorr's powers actually diminish. This is a critical part of this story, as Gorr does not believe he is a God, but nonetheless, the Gods receive their power from the people that worship them in part.
Gorr is about to activate the GODBOMB with the blood of the young Thor, but Gorr needs more God blood. As he is about to rip the heart out of young Thor's chest, young Thor reaches up and bites the eye right out of Gorr's head, and is subsequently tossed like a rocket out of the GODBOMB.
We see Present Thor the Avenger holding on to a rock for dear life when he is approached by Gorr's son. Gorr's son monologues Thor on why his father started this journey but the father he knew and loved is gone, and he knows now that he must be destroyed. Thor, barely listening, sees that there are weapons all along and inside the surface of the planet, probably from all the slain Gods. When Thor reaches a sword, Gorr's young son proclaims that his father must be stopped and he knows Thor must do it, so he choses to pray for the God of Thunders victory! This is crucial. With Gorr's prayers now lost and Thor's prayers enhanced, the enchantment of Gorr's symbiotic power lessens and both Mjolnirs fly from their prison to the hands of both their owners. Game on Gorr!
Young Thor retrieves Jarnbjorn, his mystical axe and does heavy damage with it. King Thor returns full of glory and Thunder to the surface with a large boom and present Thor the Avenger flies from beneath and through the surface like a spewing volcano. Present Thor and King Thor fly into the GODBOMB to battle Gorr. King Thor slams Gorr into the pool of God blood below and in an act of awesomeness, he relinquishes his own hammer to present Thor the Avenger while he is holding Gorr the God Butcher down in the blood. Thor the Avenger is now double hammered and does what he knows best, hammers the $h!t out of the GODBOMB until it, and everything inside of it (including both present and future Thor along with Gorr) just vanish as if they all imploded. Amazing.
STORY ART: 5/5 The art in this is absolutely breathtaking. This is truly an artists issue. Everyone is drawn with such care and power, with all the details and accuracy of a supreme talent. My hands off to the artistic team of this book. Artistically, this is one of my favorite Marvel Now and actually all of the 20 comics I pull weekly including all the DC comics as well. I find myself rereading these comics weekly just to reexperience the art.
FINAL VERDICT: 5/5 This story is amazing. The art is amazing. Buy this book and treasure it as well as the series.
