I read a good deal of Marvel growing up but I was never into Thor. For whatever reason his trademark superhero angst© about getting exiled from Asgard didn’t grab me in the same way as Spider-Man’s, Luke Cage’s, Wolverine’s, etc . Like, Peter Parker was just a dude unlucky enough to get bit by a radioactive spider; Thor was a pretty-boy deity who didn’t know how awesome he had it before daddy gave him the boot.

Or that’s what I decided at twelve years old after reading, like, two Thor comics (including that one where he fights Fin Fang Foom, which was kind of awesome). I guess what I’m saying is I’ve spent my life disregarding Thor out of hand so I really have no good frame of reference to gauge whether the Thor trailer that premiered at Comic-Con this week looks like an unholy mess or ridiculously awesome. There’s Anthony Hopkins playing the king from Beowulf again minus the motion capture and plus clothes and an eyepatch. There’s a lot of screaming and stuff exploding and shots of Thor’s hammer (but no shots of stuff exploding while Thor hits it with a hammer and screams). There’s Rene Russo playing a character named Frigga. There’s an Iron Man joke. There’s Natalie Portman existing, still. See for yourselves:

I asked The Mercury‘s film editor and senior comic movie apologist Erik Henriksen for a counterpoint or a quote giving me a good argument why Thor was gonna be the next great Marvel movie franchise. He responded with “Don’t ask me for a counterpoint or a quote, jackass. Obviously, this looks totally badass.” Then he gripped the edge of his desk and became weirdly silent and serious for two minutes before excusing himself to the men’s room.

I’m putting it to you, Blogtown nerds: Was the twelve-year-old me right that Thor is totally lame and this looks like a clusterfuck or is the twelve-year-old Erik (read. the current Erik) right that Thor’s awesomeness cannot be denied by puny mortals like me?

THE NEW THOR MOVIE: CONDEMN OR ALLOW?

14 replies on “Condemn or Allow (Nerds Only Edition): <i>Thor</i> Trailer”

  2. I invoke the Fifth Amendment and will not comment on my love of Thor comics on the grounds that it may expose me for the nerd that I am.

  4. I’m right with you, that I never got into the comics. I mean,I could entertain the idea that Spider Man or Wolverine might lose a fight or ‘not get there in time,’ but Thor’s a god. Can’t he just, be godly?

    Trailer looks good, though. Won’t be as good as Spider Man, but it’ll be worth seein’. Just wish Mjolnir looked more like an older-than-the-hills sledgehammer than a big plastic cube, though.

  5. @Reymont
    Yeah, that was a big problem for me, too. It’s the same argument that gets thrown out against Superman (that I also agree with). I was never worried for Thor nor could I empathize with him. He’s a fucking God. It seems like any trouble he gets into is partly because he’s not very good at being a God, right?

    Mjolnir is way too fake. I did feel like my stance on the trailer would have changed, though, if I saw Hemsworth swinging it around like he meant it.

  6. You dopes, Thor isn’t running around thwarting muggings because Thor doesn’t give a shit about your shitty earth mugging. His father plucked his own eye out for wisdom. There’s a bunch of shit going on in space. All his family are also gods, and they are all giant dicks. His best friend is a horse that dresses like him.

    Thor has some REAL problems to deal with, thank you.

    I said good DAY, Dave.

  7. It could use more Midgard Serpent, but count me in. The closest we’ve gotten to seeing Thor in the theater before now was “Adventures in Babysitting”.

  8. @atomic

    Oh boo-hoo. Cry me a river, Thor (which he could probably do). Tell it to someone like Batman or Hawkeye who manage to be TWICE as cool with no super powers!

    And don’t give me the daddy issues. Odin is a dick, but he’s also a deity and he’s still alive! Batman’s folks both got gunned down and Hawkeye was raised by circus performers. THAT’S relatable!

  11. Perhaps we read comics differently when we were twelve, but I tended to rank “relatability” below “dude just broke a spaceship with a magic hammer.”

    It’s comics! Sometimes you just need to have a living god roll through and cry rivers or smash rivers or something. Sometimes the storytelling requires it!

  12. Um, technically Thor drank a sea, not cried a river. I mean, you know, if you want to bring mythology into this and all. Oh, shit. I done asked for it now.

  14. Thor always made for good satire in “What The…?”, so he has his place in the Marvel Universe. But I’m totally with Dave in that he never clicked with me as a favorite.
    The trailer was pulled so I have no opinion of the upcoming movie, however I would like to see Neil Gaiman’s Thor from Season of Mists made into something. Preferably funny.

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