I'm gonna tell you this straight people - I love the Mighty Thor. Be it classic Jane Foster-loving, lame-doctor Thor, everyman Eric Masterson Thor, Bearded battle armour Thor, dirtbag-paramedic Jake Olson Thor or even magical Toad Thor, you name it, I love 'em all. Combine that with my unabashed love of Marvel's pantheon of cosmic characters and their penchant for wacky cosmic adventures and you've got yourself a recipe for victory.When it comes to Thor #388 we go from victory to total intergalactic domination. For you see gentle readers Thor #388 give us that thing of beauty that is...
Thor versus the Celestials.
For those of you out there not gasping in excitment and awe let me explain. There are two important things you need to know about the Celestials a.) They are thousand feet tall Space Gods who bop around the galaxy judging whether or not planet's dominant species deserve to live or get toasted b.) they're awesome!
Since artwork speaks louder that words let me put things in perspective for you:
That's Thor on the left looking spiffy all decked out in his Asgardian battle armour. The little guy on the right with the head shaped like a teacup is Arishem The Judge he's oh...about a thousand feet tall. The black and yellow dude above him is Exitar The Exterminator, he's just a smidge bigger than that.We can tell from Arishem's caeser-like thumbs down and the presence of his humungous pal who's name ends in 'The Exterminator' that the whole judging thing hasn't gone well for the planet of Pangoria. Luckily for them the Thunder God is on the case.
Of course in delivering us the most titanic cosmic battle since Space Phantom versus Venom in Beyond DeFalco & Frenz have presented themselves with an extremely tough question to answer.
How does one tiny Asgardian Thunder God fight a ten thousand foot tall, planet toasting Space God?
Never fear dear readers, the intrepid creators of everyone's favorite Everyman Avenger Thunderstrike have never let us down before and they're not about to start now. You want answers to the most mind-staggering of cosmic comic-book questions? Tom & Ron have got you covered with an answer, and let me tell you - it's one hell of an answer.
How does one lone Asgardian fight a thousand foot Space God? Why he punches a great freaking hole in the top of his head with his mystic Uru hammer and jumps inside of course! Bear witness:
Wow, the inside of a Celestial's head looks just like the inside of Steve Ditko's head
Once in the topsy turvy world that is the inside of a Celestial, Thor's battle-honed mind comes up with an ingenious strategy for defeating his gargantuan foe - 'I'll poke around in here until I find it's brain then I'll hit it really hard with my big freaking hammer'.
Like I said...ingenious!
It won't be easy though because even from the inside the Celestials are tough customers. The Thunder God has to fight off wave after wave of weird looking alien anti-bodies trying to flush him out of Exitar's system. There's weird, green bat-looking things, pink, squishy leech-looking things and huge orange humanoid dudes that look suspiciously like the Red Skull's Sleeper robot (remember that guy? Could it be that the Celestials are actually an ancient race of space nazis?).
Unfortunately for these intrepid anti-bodies Thor's Asgardian lust for head-cavings was not completely satisfied by punching a hole in the head of a mammoth space god. So as you'd imagine things don't end pretty for those anti-bodies with the misfortune of having heads:
Dude, what's that on the back of your head? Oh, wait, it's just your face.
With the way cleared it doesn't take Thor long to track down Exitar's now undefended brain. In a dissapointing turn of events, said brain turns out to look kind of like the Millenium dome!
Out dissapointment does not last long though as we learn how Thor intends to crack open the Celestial's brain dome. Y'see Thor has decided that hitting it with his enchanted Uru hammer is just not bitchin' enough. Instead he'll treat his fans to the sight of him 'channeling all of his godly life-force through his hammer to produce one great destructive blast'.
Which as you might suspect looks awesome:
De Falco and Frenz aren't quite done blowing our minds yet though people. They've got one last bombshell to drop on us. When Thor comes around after his 'life-force channeling' escapades he finds that he has succeeded in shattering the brain dome, but a newly grown batch of big orange anti-body dudes are come to put the kibosh on his brain-pounding plans.He's just getting up to re-commence the head caving fun when he discovers that tragedy has struck:
I can feel a 'NOOOOOOOO!' coming on.
This book is good beyond belief. Even for those who aren't entrenched Thor fans like me this issue and the conclusion in Thor #389 are totally worth a look. It's a textbook example of how to write a fantastic cosmic story You gotta make sure to cover all the bases required for cosmic comic-book greatness:
1.) Star-faring hero in snazzy threads? Check.
2.) Alien head-cavings? Check.
3.) Bizarre Ditko-esque landscapes? Check.
4.) Shattered enchanted Asgardian hammers? Check.
5.) Ego - The Loving Planet...Hmmm, okay so we're missing that one.
How about I show you a picture of the Pirate King of Pangoria to make up for it?
Yarr matey!
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