quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: So something I couldn't pass up is Warriors Three for several reasons: they are three of my favorite supporting characters in the history of comics since I was a kid, they rarely get their own solo stories and Bill Willingham of Fables is writing it. And I wasn't let down.
Willingham lends his Fables-esque quirkiness, humor and love of mythology to the story in a way that makes it feel completely different from anything we've ever seen before. The Warriors Three can sometimes be a bit one note (re: Walt Simonson once said sure, Hogun was one note, but what a really good note), but Willingham makes this feel like a separate tone here than previous. I quite like it.
Penciler Neil Edwards does a great job showcasing fantasy, science and Oklahoma; his art is very Bryan Hitch-y. What puts it over the top is the inking by Scott Hanna which makes it feel much cleaner than Hitch's art.
I always like to think of the Warriors Three as the "deities of camaraderie and" that comes across here, as it should!
As I near the end of a huge pile I was getting through for Comic Book Review Month, I finally got around to reading Warriors Three #2, after enjoying the first issue (and being a long time fan of the characters). While it wasn’t bad, something that stuck out was the revised origins of the Warriors Three which didn’t work for me. Particularly Hogan, who previously has been known to be a warrior from another kingdom (basically like the Huns). This was annoying enough to take me out of the story.
The Neil Edwards artwork is a lot like Bryan Hitch, which also means it has a lot of the problems Hitch’s art has. He also doesn’t quite capture the dynamic widescreen feel Hitch goes for.
I really want to like this series, but it’s been pretty ‘okay’ so far and not great. I’m not sure if I’ll finish the mini.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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WARRIORS THREE #3: Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral are always good for a laugh and their dialogue here is written with that in mind. The premise of the story is that A.I.M. has recently captured the god-doggie, Fenris. Except, Fenris has escaped, destroying an A.I.M. installation while doing so. Fenris' time with A.I.M. wasn't strictly a period of imprisonment, though. There was a bit of a trade going on. A.I.M. taught Fenris how to access the power to shape-shift, apparently inherited from the wolf's sire, Loki. Funny, I always thought Loki's shape-changes were learned-magic in nature. Guess I shouldn't assume...!
In return, Fenris provided "blood and other biologics" for A.I.M.'s "project Valkyr", the goal of which was to create human/Asgardian hybrids.
Helen Gamble, sole survivor of Fenris' escape, is just such a hybrid. The last one, according to her. She aids the W3 as they pursue Fenris to Oklahoma, current home to Asgard. She seems like a capable, even likeable sort. Even helpful. She 'wants to clean up her own mess'. But the W3 shouldn't forget- SHE'S AN A.I.M. AGENT!
Actually, I kind of like that an Asgardian's sense of 'good and evil' isn't as cut and dried as our 'Midgardly' definitions. Hopefully, the W3 aren't *quite* as gullible as they come off here, even considering differences in moral evaluations.
I *do* think that crafting Asgardian/human hybrids should be much, much, MUCH more of a difficult thing that A.I.M. shouldn't come close to being able to accomplish with their science. Not even close to close.
From: Knoxville, TN | Registered: Jul 2003
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Set
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While I'd be annoyed if they were able to craft human/skrull or human/eternal hybrids willy-nilly, the Asgardians do have a long history of being able to interbreed with just about anything that moves.
Odin has knocked up a giantess, and, in the comics, a goddess of another pantheon entirely (Gaia), Loki has done the deed with humans, giants and farm animals (being the 'mother' of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, as well as the father of Fenris, Jormungandr and Hel), etc. Asgardian (and Olympian, etc.) 'genetics' might be particularly well-suited to blending with others.
Registered: Aug 2006
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I'm really finding Fraction's dialogue for Thor and Odin annoying. In fact, Fraction is starting to become a writer I avoid entirely (which there very few).
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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You know, I just couldn't get into Casanova for some reason. It had a lot of things I like about comics, uniqueness being one of those things, but I didn't really enjoy the first two issues. Still, I appreciated what they were trying to do.
But Fraction's Thor is quickly becoming like his Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men. Namely: bad.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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I had to drop the book a few months ago when Fraction brought Loki back. It just seems like all he is doing is setting the big reset button for the movie. Bring back Loki, bring bakc Odin, making Thor act like a haflwitted moron for rbing back Loki.
Just a really horrible book write now, and it looks so much worse since Gillen had such a great run before Fraction came in and stunk up the place.
From: Michigan | Registered: Sep 2003
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Set
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Is there a Thor movie thread? If not, this is the closest I saw with a Search.
Just saw it, and it was pretty awesome. Not quite Iron Man or Spider-Man levels of geekgasm, but a step above the Hulk stuff or, IMO, anything DC has yet brought to the screen.
Registered: Aug 2006
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Just got back from taking Sam and Carol to see it. Same was suitably impressed, while Carol was impressed by the shirtless scene and the one in the rain.
I thought it was exactly what it was supposed to be, a fun summer movie. Lots of action, lots of good performances, including Elba's as Heimdall. Russo was pretty much wasted in the movie, though.
Okay, this is gonna go against all current conventional opinion pretty much, I'm sure, but the woman playing Sif... much prettier and more interesting than the "Jane" character played by Natalie Portman in my opinion.
Hemsworth played Thor with a good swagger, but it came across as a little light to me at points.
Still, I'd give it a solid B+.
and I gotta say one last thing. Whoever did the CGI on the rainbow bridge...well, as Sam said about the movie... Freakin' Awesome. A fun special effects movie that worked. The Destroyer seemed suitably powerful. It all worked.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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If there was a weak point, it was all the gleepy smiling / not-quite-flirting between Thor and Jane Foster. So, so tedious.
And yeah, if liking Sif's character a zillion times more than Portman's version of Jane Foster is unconventional, then I join you in unconventional-land.
Loki, Heimdall and Sif were some of my favorite characters. And to heck with those complaining about Heimdall's skin color, the *real* scandal is that Volstagg wasn't nearly fat enough!
I cannot believe they made Loki's crazy taste in horny helmets work so effectively. Amazing.
There was *huge* potential for the various Asgardians (particularly the Warriors Three) to look dorktacular, and take the viewer right out of the scene, but the costume department deserves some sort of medal for making the suits work. Major kudos for using Coipel's design, which translated a hell of a lot better to the screen than tights would have.
Looking forward to Captain America a lot, too.
X-Men: First Class, with trepidation. I don't care if it's consistent with anything, I just want it to not suck. About the only thing that makes me want to love it is that Wolverine isn't going to dominate it the way he has the last four 'X-Men' movies.
Green Lantern, I'll go see, 'cause it's a superhero movie, but, yeah. Whatever.
Registered: Aug 2006
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I´m not a Thor fan at all, and I liked the movie. Still, I´m somewhat confused about the secondary characters. Volstagg eats, Sif is the lady warrior, and I think Heimdall is the guy who 'sees' (right?). But who were the other two guys with Sif and Volstagg? The asian-looking guy and the one with the pointy beard? And does Thor´s mom have a name?
This Avenger business is turning out to be quite interesting, I think. So Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America, each one with his own movie. And we saw Hawkseye in the Thor movie. Anybody else waiting in the wings? Spider-Man is not an Avenger, right? Or Wolverine? As you can see I´m not at all a Marvel person...
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Jul 2003
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Set
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quote:Originally posted by Doctor One: [QB] I´m not a Thor fan at all, and I liked the movie. Still, I´m somewhat confused about the secondary characters. Volstagg eats, Sif is the lady warrior, and I think Heimdall is the guy who 'sees' (right?). But who were the other two guys with Sif and Volstagg? The asian-looking guy and the one with the pointy beard? And does Thor´s mom have a name?
Thor's mom (or, more properly, Odin's wife, since she's not really Thor's mom...) is Frigga, who got absolutely short shrift in Norse mythology, being pretty much 'that chick who stands next to Odin,' and getting little more development than that in the comic books either. I think she got more speaking lines in this movie than in either the last thirty years of Thor comics or the last 2500 years of Norse mythology.
Heimdall is indeed the 'one who sees,' having senses sharp enough that he's supposed to hear the sound of wool growing on a sheep's back, down on Midgard, which is *another dimension,* from way up on Asgard. Crazy awesome senses.
The 'Warriors Three' were a comic-book invention, with 'Fandral the Dashing' being an Errol Flynn swashbucklery clone, 'Hogun the Grim' being a surly Mongol-looking dude (here played by an asian), and 'Volstagg the Voluminous' being a colossally fat and jolly Falstaffian buffoon, who is heavy enough that the average Asgardian god (able to lift 20 to 40 *tons*) can't budge him.
They didn't really get described very effectively in the movie, I fear, but in their movie role as 'Thor's drinking and fighting buddies,' they pretty much got the job done.
Sif, in the mythology, was a golden-haired (actual dwarf-spun magical gold for hair, after a prank by Loki led to the loss of her original black locks) 'wife of Thor' sort of figure, but in the comics, she's a black-haired warrior-goddess of swordsmanship who is on-again, off-again associated romantically with Thor, when he's not off on Earth, chatting up mortals...
Another common 'buddy' of Thor is Baldar, but it's probably for the best that they left him out of the movie, as it was already kind of packed with characters that didn't really have room for much in the way of introduction.
I do kind of like the shout-out to Norse myth with the drinking contest. During a prank on Thor, he was told to drain the ale from from a drinking-horn given him by a giant chieftan, who, unbeknownst to him, had magically linked it to the ocean itself. Thor drank and drank and drank, attempting to meet the challenge, but finally failed. He drank so much 'though, that the ocean had pulled back, and rushed back to fill the gap, and that's the Norse mythological explanation for the tides.
The ocean has tides because Thor lost a drinking contest!
And you can Google where Odin got his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, from, 'cause I'm not sure it's appropriate for a family friendly forum.
quote: This Avenger business is turning out to be quite interesting, I think. So Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America, each one with his own movie. And we saw Hawkseye in the Thor movie. Anybody else waiting in the wings? Spider-Man is not an Avenger, right? Or Wolverine? As you can see I´m not at all a Marvel person...
The original Avengers were the Hulk, Ant-Man/Giant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man and Thor. Captain America joined, like, five minutes later, so doesn't technically count as a founding member, but might as well be.
The Ant-Man movie never happened, so he's out, and with him the Wasp.
So far, it looks like the Avengers movie is going to have Thor (Hemsworth), Captain America (Evans), Iron Man (Downey, Jr.), the Black Widow (Johanssen), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, the dude we saw with a bow briefly in this movie) and the Hulk (yet another new Hulk actor, Mark Ruffalo).
I kinda would have liked to see Ant-Man/Giant-Man and the Wasp, instead of Black Widow and Hawkeye, but, without the lead-in that we've seen of Black Widow in Iron Man 2, and the forced cameo of Hawkeye here in Thor, they probably didn't want to deal with introducing them during a movie that's already going to be a nightmare to produce, with so many active figures needing their own dramatic scenes and stuff.
Plus the Wasp is dead at the moment, and comic book companies prefer to use characters on-screen that have comics that the viewers can go check out. It might look a little dubious if the one girl Avenger was the only character in the movie that was Miss-Not-Appearing-In-These-Comics on account of extreme deadness...
Registered: Aug 2006
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Wow, thanks, Set, for the detailed explanation. Now I think I´m going to go find out about Sleipnir...
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Jul 2003
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