JMS to write THOR?

[frulad]

In a special edition of Marvel honcho Joe Quesada's column at Newsarama, he decided to announce some new news Jeporday style- sort of news without the specifics, with the answers to come later in the evening.

This particular entry caught my eye-

This three-initialed writer will be taking over Thor.

Hmmmm......

[Jan]

I'd say that it's certain. He's as much as said so at the last two conventions.

Now then...where do I get a quick course in whatever I need to know about Thor? I know he's reappeared and before that he was supposed to be in some underworld? Why? And is he a good guy or a bad guy?

Jan

[frulad]

Well the wikipedia article is a good start.

I never really read the book regularly, though in junior high I did read a batch of issues from the late 60s/early 70s that had Thor encountering the Celestials and some other of Marvel's more cosmic entities...

[Joe Nazzaro]

He's a good guy Jan, adapted for comics by the classic Marvel team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Although the character first appeared in Journey to Mystery #83 back in the early sixties, the book was eventually re-named The Mighty Thor. I would suggest buying one of the Marvel 'Essential' books, which for about 15 bucks reprint a bunch of old issues, albeit in black and white. Although a number of writers and artists subsequently worked on the book over the next several decades, one of the most critically acclaimed runs was done by writer/artist Walt Simonson starting with issue #337 I think, where Thor's hammer was involuntarily passed on to an alien named Beta Ray Bill, bestowing the godlike powers on to him for a while. I know it sounds a bit goofy, but it really was quite well done.

There you go, more information than you could possibly want.

[Jan]

Thanks guys! If I'd known that I'd be picking up a comic habit at my age I'd've kept up with it more.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

Jan, they were probably a lot cheaper back then too. When I started reading comics, they were just 12 cents each, which in financial terms made them the best investment I ever made in my life. Although if I knew then what I knew now, I would have bought ten copies of everything instead of one, and put nine of them aside.

[Jan]

Same price when I was reading them, Joe. Trouble was, there wasn't much selection at the 'dime store' that was the only place I could buy them. Anyway, my allowance was only a quarter per week so I had to really want it to buy more than one per week and not get any candy. So maybe it was fortunate that there wasn't much selection.

Jan

[SmileOfTheShadow]

That's almost as good as a confirmation. Rockin. JMS is takin' over marvel!

[frulad]

And it's official! (Scroll down a bit.

New Newsarama interview with JMS here!

[Upper_Krust]

Hey JMS! If you get the chance...

Hello JMS!

Just wanted to say congratulations on getting the Thor gig, I'm really looking forward to your run on the comic.

I know you must be horribly busy, but if you get a spare moment consider yourself invited to the Thor comicboards.

http://www.comicboards.com/thor/

I am sure people would be encouraged to hear from you, even if its just a hello at this stage (I know you can't and wouldn't want to reveal too much at this juncture).

Anyway, best wishes for Thor and everything else.

Yours sincerely, Craig Cochrane

[Radhil]

Sorry Krust, but Joe don't read these boards. Or at least if he does, doesn't make his presence known.

JMS's mainstay is the usenet news system that this site archives his posts from, and due to legal issues concerning story ideas and such, he hasn't really expressed any interest in straying abroad. But stranger things have happened, so you should probably find a way onto rec.arts.marvel (or whatever segments it's on) and post your invite there.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Sorry Krust, but Joe don't read these boards. Or at least if he does, doesn't make his presence known.

JMS's mainstay is the usenet news system that this site archives his posts from, and due to legal issues concerning story ideas and such, he hasn't really expressed any interest in straying abroad. But stranger things have happened, so you should probably find a way onto rec.arts.marvel (or whatever segments it's on) and post your invite there.

And on that note...and pertaining to the post above this one, the comicboards.com site is pretty good for those of you who are really into comics like myself. A lot of creators actually do post there, so it's good informative as well. Hard to find a comics site where people aren't ripped to shreds these days

Jon

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Radhil!

Sorry Krust, but Joe don't read these boards. Or at least if he does, doesn't make his presence known.

Ah well, thanks for that Radhil.

JMS's mainstay is the usenet news system that this site archives his posts from, and due to legal issues concerning story ideas and such, he hasn't really expressed any interest in straying abroad. But stranger things have happened, so you should probably find a way onto rec.arts.marvel (or whatever segments it's on) and post your invite there.

To echo SmileoftheShadow's comments, most of the Marvel writers and artists post on the comicboards, or at least they do after they get told about it.

Michael Avon Oeming, Andrea Di Vito and Walt Simonson are semi-regulars and more often than not will reply to posts with their names in the thread title.

Hopefully someone will get a word to JMS and he might show up eventually. No hurry at this stage. People would probably just going to be hounding him for snippets of info or wishing him well on the book. Whereas after his run starts, he can talk about what he has done rather than what he will do, if you get my meaning.

[Jan]

JMS just posted on the newsgroup re: Thor:

On the comics front, incidentally...it was just announced by Marvel
that I'm going to be taking over and re-launching the Thor monthly
title. Because this is a big mythological show, it's very much in my
wheelhouse, as it were, and it's really important to make this work.
So I'm giving some thought to pulling back on some of the other comics
work, notably FF, to make room to give this my full attention.

Jan

[SmileOfTheShadow]

That's not good news. I had JMS writing my two favorite books since childhood (spidey and FF) and now it sounds like he might drop FF for Thor. Though I agree that he's good with mythological characters, it's undeniable that his strongest suit is sci-fi, which the FF have more of an option to offer. If he ends up dropping FF I'll be disappointed.

Jon