The Mighty Thor Vol. 3 and The Unworthy Thor

The Mighty Thor Volume 3: Asgard/Shi'ar War
by Jason Aaron, Steve Epting, Russell Dauterman and more

This third volume collects issues 13-19 of the 2015 The Mighty Thor, continuing Jane Foster's adventures as Thor when the original Thor became unworthy of his hammer, Mjolnir. There are two main stories: #'s 13-14 is a heist-style story where the League of Realms saves the Queen of the White Elves, Aelsa Featherwine from the clutches of the King of the Dark Elves. The rest of the volume is about a pair of Shi'ar gods who challenge the new Thor to a contest of godliness.

Unlike the first volume, the resolution to the first story is earned, and they do save the queen, but at a cost. Standard superhero fare with the tone hardly changed by the change of artists. The second story gets a little more creative: the gods of the Shi'ar, K'ythri and Sharra challenge Thor to a contest, to see who is a more notorious God. It results in the Gods calling down the "Ultimate Judgment," which is something you'll have to read for yourself. But it seems like it's Jason Aaron's way of crossing over with X-Men lore, to which he isn't a stranger. The contest itself is amusing, as you get to peer into just what exactly it means to be a God, at least a God of the Shi'ar.

It gets a little weird when you see the reason that the Shi'ar gods have challenged Thor. There's a flashback scene with Loki that somewhat belittles the current story as a diversion in service of what has been hyped up now for over 4 volumes: The War of the Realms. I'm OK with that scene for what it does for the story, but I disagree with the way it was told.

On the last few pages of the volume, Thor Odinson meets Thor, and returns to Asgard to dote on his comatose mother. Where has he been this whole time?? What a great time to dive into his 5-issue miniseries...

The Unworthy Thor
by Jason Aaron and Olivier Coipel

This five-issue miniseries shows what happened in the time between the Odinson's re-appearance in The Mighty Thor above, and when he originally became unworthy in the crossover event Original Sin, when Nick Fury whispered to him words that we never got to hear. In short: he spends a whole lot of time being depressed, drinking and getting in fights. And then he learns about another Mjolnir. A hammer so full of energy it shuttled itself from a dying world to land in his.

This story explains a lot of hanging threads, including what happened to the "Old Asgard," which I guess was a mystery from a previous plotline, as well as the secret phrase that made Odinson unworthy. It adds a helhound companion to the Odinson, a welcome addition, and basically it's a cosmic kidnapping story akin to Planet Hulk, that includes the Collector, Beta Ray Bill and even Thanos.

A compact, gorgeous-looking adventure story with Jason Aaron's signature deadpan humor. It fleshes out some of the Thor-niverse from the Odinson's point of view.

SPOILER ALERT: Here's what Fury said to Thor:

More Thor? I say thee...yea!
The Mighty Thor: Asgard/Shi'Ar War and The Unworthy Thor

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