Immortal Thor #21: He Stood Alone at Gjallerbru

Freud believed humans are driven by two equal and opposite forces: a life drive urging us towards creation, procreation, and survival, and death drive urging us towards aggression, self-destruction, and death. And while Immortal Thor #21 may be about Norse gods, it’s nonetheless the tale of two men fighting over who gets the best death. Picking up just where the last issue left off, the story sees Thor confront Skurge at the gates of Utgard. Skurge has been waiting in the hopes of killing Thor to reclaim Thor’s nobler heroic death as his own, as he once did on Gjallerbru (Thor #362, 1985). Thor, meanwhile, vowed at the start of the last issue that “no other life will be given or taken to prolong [his] own.” And it’s a vow that’s been getting challenged every moment since. Skurge and Thor’s fight to the death–and for the best death–is watched over by a mysterious presence that has poetically taken the form of Thanos, a supervillain famously in love with Death. Throughout, writer Al Ewing maintains a delicate balance between dynamic action and character development, bringing depth to a figure who has often lacked it. 

Jan Bazaldua’s artwork is some of her best on the series thus far. The central fight has a strong sense of motion and momentum, though one panel’s action smears get quite lost under grunge and Matt Hollingsworth’s desaturated colors. There are some clever compositions throughout, including a triptych of panels where Utgard’s pointed gates frame a closeup of Thor’s face and seem to replace the wings of his helmet. There are also a couple of nicely done artistic homages including a full-page redraw of a panel from Thor #362, with Hollingsworth employing a red-orange palette similar to the one Christine Scheele used on Walt Simonson’s work. And while I won’t give anything away, the comic’s final pages are as always some of its best.