Thread:Nausiated/@comment-3406131-20160120142043/@comment-61022-20160205145733

Yeah that whole story arc was incredibly weird. For whatever reasons Roy Thomas decided to plop a weird adaptation of Wagners opera in the middle of the Celestial saga. My guess was that because he was departing as writer for Thor at the time he wanted to do something as a swan song?

What has made the continuity of Thor -- and likewise the continuity of all Asgardians -- has been mired by four different things: comic book dynamics (particularly when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby adapted the character for comics), the Comic Book Authority Code (which very likely sanitized any attempts to re-present Norse mythology due to the content limitations), the writers ability to do proper research (which is probably a LOT easier now than it was in the 60s and 70s), and lastly interpretation of the mythology the characters are based on.

I don't profess to be an expert on Norse mythology, but from what little I've researched on the topic a lot of it is lost to antiquity. Also the stories that do exist have been hashed, re-written, and re-told so many times. Then there are other religions co-opting those stories and adapting them for their own religions and pantheons. The Norse were not above borrowing other stories and adapting them with their own religions in mind. Point in fact, you boil down a lot of the polytheistic religions that existed in the past, they are quite similar.

Anyway... I think that a lot of the back pedaling and retellings and the entire concept of the Ragnarok cycles has all been an attempt to put in as much Norse mythology into Thor's mythos as possible. Back when Stan and Jack decided to do a comic book about Thor, I'm quite sure that Stan was just looking at something dynamic to compete with Superman over at DC. Kirby was a little more well read when it came to mythology. Plus you have to look at what sort of resources they had back then. Other that (perhaps) exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History and print encyclopedia's, the amount of resources at their disposal probably wasn't that great. I also suppose that being a small comic book company during a period where comic books were not considered much more than distractions didn't help if you were trying to get access to the information kept at a college or university library.

It wasn't until about the 1980s that they really started digging deep into Norse mythology. Between Roy Thomas and Walt Simonson both they infused a lot of mythology back into the title. That's probably because access to information was a lot easier. Also Marvel had established a reputation, so getting access to more information about this rich mythology was easier.

But the digital age certainly has changed things, the internet being the treasure trove of information that it is. Not only is it easier to research information about these myths, you can easily reach out to people where that mythology is still thriving in some capacity (if not worshiped, maintained as part of a cultural heritage)

But all the research in the world about the mythology kidn of falls flat if they're not weaving it into Thor's established continuity. Which I think if there is anything that current writers of Thor neglect to do, it's that. Rather than go back and re-read EVERY Thor story ever published they likely came up with this "Ragnarok Cycle" to get around any contradictions and retellings. Which I suppose that makes sense when you've got over 700+ Thor related stories (not counting all the limited series, one-shots, and cross overs into other books and regular appearances in Avengers related titles) that's a lot of ground to cover.