THOR #364, Marvel Comics, February 1986
In preparation for an Avengers Movie, Marvel has announced potential movies about the team's original members. One of these is Thor, the God of Thunder. Now, its makers could do worse than to take notes from Walt Simonson's seminal run, but somehow, I don't think they'll take anything from this issue.
It's the one where Thor is a frog.
Verily, Loki's best ploy ever.
And proof positive that Walt Simonson couldn't write and draw a Thor story that didn't kick 100 shades of ass.
Thor's first words in this story: "RIBBIT! RIBBIT!", which translates as "A frog! I've become a frog!" I especially love the note about translation: "*This and subsequent dialogue among the animals is translated from the vernacular into English for the benefit of those to whom the language of the beasts is a closed book."
Cuz what you don't know is that frogs not only speak amongst themselves, but they even have a culture, complete with a king, his bodyguards, and internal politics. Furthermore, they have enemies: New York's sewer rats who have a plan to spoil Central Park's reservoir by dumping all the rat poison they've collected into the water supply. That's a major pest control problem for the Big Apple!
But Thor doesn't fear rats.
"CHUGGA RUMPH!" That's the sound effect of an Asgardian bullfrog blowing its throat sack to intimidate a scurvy rat (add this to the list of "sentences no one's said before"). If there's one thing that can be said about Simonson's Thor comics, it's that the KRAKA-BOOM sound effects are almost a character. Every page has punch.
When the Thor frog meets the brave but tiny local frog Puddlegulp, he learns of the coming Frog-Rat war (which manages, by the way, to rock harder than the Kree-Skrull War or any of the Rann-Thanagar Wars) and chooses sides. He pledges his help to the fatally wounded frog-king (I don't know if he ever laid claim to the princess' hand). He fights a bunch of rats, and winds up hauling their corpses through the sewers, leaving them behind at choice intersections like a trail of breadcrumbs.
That's Thor for you. And to think he was routed earlier by the Avengers' butler Jarvis armed with a big broom.
I unfortunately don't have the next issue (I totally missed out on Simonson's run and have a small stack of issues cribbed from bargain bins - I'm now reading it through the Visionary trades), but the Thor frog fights the alligators in New York's sewers! Man, I gotta complete that trade collection...
In preparation for an Avengers Movie, Marvel has announced potential movies about the team's original members. One of these is Thor, the God of Thunder. Now, its makers could do worse than to take notes from Walt Simonson's seminal run, but somehow, I don't think they'll take anything from this issue.It's the one where Thor is a frog.
Verily, Loki's best ploy ever.
And proof positive that Walt Simonson couldn't write and draw a Thor story that didn't kick 100 shades of ass.
Thor's first words in this story: "RIBBIT! RIBBIT!", which translates as "A frog! I've become a frog!" I especially love the note about translation: "*This and subsequent dialogue among the animals is translated from the vernacular into English for the benefit of those to whom the language of the beasts is a closed book."
Cuz what you don't know is that frogs not only speak amongst themselves, but they even have a culture, complete with a king, his bodyguards, and internal politics. Furthermore, they have enemies: New York's sewer rats who have a plan to spoil Central Park's reservoir by dumping all the rat poison they've collected into the water supply. That's a major pest control problem for the Big Apple!
But Thor doesn't fear rats.
"CHUGGA RUMPH!" That's the sound effect of an Asgardian bullfrog blowing its throat sack to intimidate a scurvy rat (add this to the list of "sentences no one's said before"). If there's one thing that can be said about Simonson's Thor comics, it's that the KRAKA-BOOM sound effects are almost a character. Every page has punch.When the Thor frog meets the brave but tiny local frog Puddlegulp, he learns of the coming Frog-Rat war (which manages, by the way, to rock harder than the Kree-Skrull War or any of the Rann-Thanagar Wars) and chooses sides. He pledges his help to the fatally wounded frog-king (I don't know if he ever laid claim to the princess' hand). He fights a bunch of rats, and winds up hauling their corpses through the sewers, leaving them behind at choice intersections like a trail of breadcrumbs.
That's Thor for you. And to think he was routed earlier by the Avengers' butler Jarvis armed with a big broom.
I unfortunately don't have the next issue (I totally missed out on Simonson's run and have a small stack of issues cribbed from bargain bins - I'm now reading it through the Visionary trades), but the Thor frog fights the alligators in New York's sewers! Man, I gotta complete that trade collection...
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