Thor #38 (2023 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

The Destroyer roams the Earth once again!

Loki, along with Karnilla, have decided to have a little bit of fun. They've removed the soul of the Asgardian ally Tarene and placed her essence into the armor of the Destroyer. Try as she might, Tarene is unable to control the destructive rage of the Destroyer. 

Sensing something is wrong, Thor approaches the Manhattan mayhem with caution. This results in the thunder god losing control of his trusty hammer Mjolnir to the Destroyer, making the creation of Odin even more indestructible! As 60 seconds count down, Thor reverts back into his moral form of EMT Jake Olson?!

When Thor first appeared in the pages of 1962's Journey Into Mystery #86, Thor's mortal secret identity was that of crippled doctor Donald Blake. Odin had placed Thor into the broken shell of a healer in order to teach his arrogant son a little humility. Years later, Thor Odinson becomes fused with the mortal body of architect Eric Masterson. After a brief time in exile, Thor seeks to take a leave of absence from his heroic responsibilities and entrusts Masterson to wield his hammer in the thunder god's stead.

When it comes to EMT Jake Olson, things mirror the complex relationship of Batman and gangster Matches Malone. With Matches Malone, only Batman knows that the criminal is really dead. So the Dark Knight masquerades as Malone when he needs to infiltrate the criminal element for information and clues. In the pages of Thor, Jake Olson is killed in an explosion in which only a couple of close friends know. Needing a new identity to hide from the Dark Gods, Thor takes on the fallen man's identity with help of Marnot, one of Odin's trusty ravens. 

Dan Jurgens pens this 2001 issue. Underneath the battle of Thor and the Destroyer, Odin is faced with a difficult choice. If the ruler of Asgard allows the Destroyer to kill Thor, a prophesied golden age of peace for the entire universe will be ushered in by the Designate Tarene. If Odin interferes and gives Thor the victory, a future in which the Odinson becomes a despotic ruler will become Thor's destiny. 

Stuart Immonen was the penciler and inks were done by Scott Koblish. 

The cover was by Barry Windsor Smith. It's a stunning image of Thor's hammer creating a diamond-patterned rainbow. It looks like the colors are wrong. But if you start with the center image of power, radiating an intense yellow hue and then work your way out, the viewer will notice that the colors follow ROY G. BIV correctly recycling back when the palette goes from indigo to red again. An absolutely keen eye to detail here!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #30 (A Thor Story) of the 2023 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Plunge

I am a huge fan of Joe Hill. I love his comics books and his prose works. But, man, does his stuff creep me out. Joe's father, Stephen King, can cause my wife fitful nights without sleep. It's Joe Hill who keeps me awake at night. 

Plunge is a 6-issue miniseries from the author's Hill House Comics imprint at DC Comics. I was immediately taken by the ocean setting in the Arctic Circle when this book was first announced. I could have requested this book new as floppies with my favorite LCS. But having just finished Hill's latest volume of Locke & Key and the extremely unsettling NOS4A2, I needed a break from Joe Hill's work to build up my nerve again. And then 3 years passed. 

The story sets with a massive tidal wave that has the sent aquatic animals into a fervor. The underwater eruption has caused a missing ship from 1983 to resurface in the Arctic Circle, in waters between Alaska and Russia. And the ghost ship has begun emitting a distress code!

The company that owns the ship, Rococo International, is desperate to recover what remains. The official word from the corporation is that the owner's son was on the ship and wishes to recover his body, along with the rest of the crew. But if there's other items of value to be retrieved on the ship, so be it! With Russia within its rights to claim ownership of the wreckage, time is of the essence to begin the salvage operation. 

Enter the Carpenter Brothers. Their salvage crew doesn't give a crap about the Russians.Taking the job, the crew is joined by Dr. Moriah Lamb, an oceanographer with expertise in the atolls of the Aleutian Islands. Together, the brothers, Dr. Lamb and Rococo VP David Lacome seek to find out why this ship sunk and subsequently returned 30 years later. What they uncover is a crew, not quite dead, but definitely not alive; with the promise of answers to many of earth's greatest mysteries. But these rewards come with a deadly price. 

Stuart Immonen (Superman: Secret Identity) was the penciller of this work. But if you told me that it was Joe Hill's artistic partner on Locke & Key, Gabriel Rodriguez, I would have bet money... and lost! Immonen's artwork was just as creepy as Hill's writings. But I think if DC's publishing and marketing team hadn't spoiled some of the mystery behind this book, it would have been much more terrifying. 

For one thing, the back cover spoils just who really is behind the resurrection of the mystery ship's crew. The image on the back is from the cover of issue #4. At that point in the story, the culprits had already been identified and thus nothing was really ruined in terms of the plot. But if this was your first real encounter with Plunge and you want to read a synopsis of what this graphic novel is all about, prepare to have a major chunk of this story ruined for you!

As much as I loved the artwork, I was disappointed at its unevenness. I've read a number of comics in which the artist stylizes the characters to look like celebrities. Generally when this is done, most of the characters have human counterparts. In Plunge, only the character of David Lacome looks like a famous person. In both representation and in tone, Lacome is portrayed by Amazing Spider-Man 2's Paul Giamatti. So if this book becomes a movie or TV series, I expect whomever produces a live-action Plunge to cast the acclaimed actor. But can someone tell me why only Lacome's character resembles a celeb?

I wish I could dive deeper into this book. But to do so could ruin so many more elements that this book's cover has already taken away from the reader. This book gave me chills. Look at the character of Lacome to be the one who brings the biggest jump scare. I may have said too much. But it's definitely a scene that will stick with me for quite some time.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.