User blog:Nausiated/Project 11/61: Thorgasm

Continuing Project 11/61, I am currently working on an expanded history page for Thor covering every event chronologically from his birth to his appearances in December 1969. Like my expanded history of Nick Fury this has been a lengthier process that I thought because there have been MASSIVE amounts of flashback stories going back thousands of years. As usual here are some notes about my entry.


 * Instead of reading up on all sorts of Norse mythology and vomiting them up on here, I've opted for a brief synopsis of Thor's mythology of is known of said mythology. I find a lot of people on the Wiki have basically taken the mythology and assumed that it all fit with Marvel continuity for the character and copied and pasted it. Not only where they plagiarizing from other Wikia communities and Wikipedia proper, it was hugely lazy research. Frankly if you are not willing to track down the comics and read everything in chronological order don't both !@#$ing editing anything on this Wikia. You're not making any valid contributions so just even bother. Anyhow, with Thor in particular if you take recorded Norse mythology it does not all fit with the Marvel Universe version of Thor, at all. Some of it is adapted into his Marvel continuity, but it was merely a blue print because....


 * As per, They Who Sit Above in Shadow have been causing countless Ragnarök cycles for thousands of years. Thus Thor has been reborn numerous times. This is outlined in the [|Past Cycles] section as well as in Roy Thomas' adaptation of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen saga which was covered from through . The current cycle of Thor that is active in the Marvel Universe today for came into existence on the day Jesus Christ was born. Per the most recent runs of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Official Index to the Marvel Universe, these past cycles are considered part of Thor's continuity. Although he has died and become reborn with no memories of his past incarnations, it is still the same Thor.


 * Thor's past history with Sif is a continuity nightmare. With different interpretations., shows Thor and Sif knowing each other as children, and it was at this time that Loki cut her golden hair and replaced it with the black hair she is more commonly seen with. Whereas  states that Thor first met Sif while hunting for the Wolves of Ravenswood. While it contradicts Thor knowing Sif earlier than that point, it depicts her with black hair. Likewise the adolescent tales of Thor and Sif depicted in the Thor Son of Asgard series depicts Thor and Sif having known each other for years, conforming to the relationship in Avengers Origins: Thor #1. Here Sif is also depicted with black hair, and the tale of how Sif obtained the black hair in these stories also fits in the period of time outlined in the Avengers Origins tales. There are two more contradictions, including  which depicts a blond haired Sif who is still a child compared to Thor, as well  which states that Loki did not cut off Sif's hair until she and Thor were roughly in their 20s.  also depicts an adult Sif with blond hair.


 * The stories of an adolescent Thor wielding Jarnbjorn that was depicted in the Thor: God of Thunder series has not been indexed by Marvel itself or the semi-official [Marvel Chronology Project]. However by my own research, I place those events as occurring between and  (these two  points are identified has happening chronologically after each other in both the most recent Avengers, Thor & Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe series and the Chronology Project) I chose this spot because Thor still was not yet worthy enough to lift Mjolnir. This creates a bit of a continuity glitch as a much older Thor is shown carrying Jarnbjorn in . THe events of Thor: God of Thunder occurred in 893 AD, while the events of Uncanny Avengers occurred in 1013 AD. The Thor in 1013 AD was depicted as an adult while the Thor who first lifted Mjolnir was a teenager. Thor is also shown weilding Mjolnir as early as 900 AD per . Although Thor's powers were not necessarily tied to Mjolnir at this point, so perhaps he alternated between the two weapons during this period.


 * Less messy is the Thor stories that occur in more recent, but still historical times. Such as the American Frontier, World War II, and the 50s and 60s. Although it should be interesting to point out that the Thor who appears in and  looks much different than the Thor we're used to seeing. Per the most recent Marvel Handbooks, this is also the current Thor, and Thor's first appearance has been retconned to Venus #12. His difference in appearance is obviously the fact that Thor's popularized appearance that has been the standard since  had not been conceived at that point. A possible explanation: Like a lot of wartime heroes Marvel has since stated that the Timely Comics and Atlas Comics era stories were also published as comic books in the actual Marvel Universe and were "fictional adaptations" of "actual events" which give them creative liberty to utilize these stories and retell them, or overshadow some of the more racist or now-socially unacceptable elements that some of the stories from the 40s and 50s had.


 * Marvel has also spent a lot of time expanding Thor's early days, thanks in part to his early interactions with both the Avengers and Captain America. If you check out Thor: First Thunder this series expands and retells certain aspects of Thor's early adventures between through  This story modernized some of the events considering a lot of these early Thor stories were heavily dated to the point that even the Sliding Timescale concept didn't do much to help them. Also Thor's joining the Avengers in  was expanded in the Avengers: The Origin series. While that series modernized and added some new elements, it did not really change much of Thor's involvement in those events. Likewise Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Volume 1 and Captain America: Man Out of Time expended on Thor's early adventures with the Avengers. It really worked on expanding Thor's relationship with his teammates, between their difficulty believing that Thor was really the Asgardian god of thunder, to Thor trying to help Captain America get over the loss of his partner Bucky.

I am just about done my run on Thor's continuity, I probably have 20 or so issues left. Then I will be moving on to Iron Man. Before people ask, yes, I will be researching all flashback stories up until current publications, including the Secret Origin of Tony Stark storyline.

Where to next? Well for those who have been following along, I've been going thorough each issue of Fantastic Four from issue #1 and picking the characters that appear in them. Once I finish up Iron Man (who appeared in FF #25 & 26) I will be moving on to Dr. Strange (who appears in FF #27) then onto the original X-Men (Who appear in FF #28) Expect the X-Men expanded history pages to be a long process. I will be researching how the First Class series fit into the original X-Men continuity... Which based on the Handbook and Indexes is part of Earth-616 continuity, although neither the Index, Handbooks, Chronology Project or the Unofficial Appendix have really done much to piece where all these stories take place. With the X-Men in particular, I will be covering everything up to the X-Men Vol 1 all the way up to which is beyond my 1969 cut off, but it also is the point where X-Men went into reprints for five years, might as well cut it off there and get the entire X-Men run out of the way.