"The End" Week: Immortal Thor #25!

I wasn't reading this regularly, and seemingly missed the Roxxon-sponsored issues as well; but I did get several of this series from the dollar bins. It was probably always headed here, but there was at least one thing I liked about this issue...that probably won't be touched anywhere else, even though it should've been. From 2025, Immortal Thor #25, "The Twilight Kingdom" Written by Al Ewing, art by Janeth Bazaldúa Nava, Justin Greenwood, and Pasqual Ferry. Cover by Alex Ross.

The last few issues had the cover banner "Even an Immortal can Die," and sure enough, Thor is dead as Hel from the get-go here. While he had seemingly won his trials against Utgard-Loki, regular young Loki had stabbed him in the back: betrayal and murder...or sacrifice? While Sif and the Warriors Three are enraged, Utgard-Loki is merely confused: Loki advised him, "Would you know more, old trickster? More will be told." before disappearing. Skurge had been left on the Black Bridge by Thor, and had been told to stop Utgard-Loki and his forces at all costs: Skurge shatters the Black Bridge with his Bloodaxe, and falls into nothingness with a seemingly wry smile. The Black Bridge had been the opposite of the Rainbow Bridge Bifrost, and the two had been tied: the Bifrost shatters as well, and Asgard is seemingly separated from Midgard...retroactively, as we see a game show contestant struggle with but finally name all of the original Avengers: Iron Man, the Hulk, the Wasp, Ant-Man, and...Beta Ray Bill! (Yeah, give Bill some love! He's so cool.)

Sif, with sight like her brother Heimdall's, sees "a wave of forgetting...of rewriting the stories," and wonders if Bill remembers her. Asgard was now again only myth, and Thor entered into his death.

Thor finds himself, not in Valhalla or Hel, but in Vidblainn, the land of lost souls; with no Mjolnir and no storms. He is then visited by Har, Jafnhar, and Thridi: you know them, even if this was the first time we hear those names. They were Those Who Sit Above in Shadow, from X-Men/Alpha Flight #1! I don't know if they have direct analogs in traditional Norse myth; I feel like they were created as a narrative device for Loki to have someone to get power from and subsequently judge him. Here, they have some cryptic advice and warnings for Thor, as he walks the path of sacrifice, as Odin had before him, but that Thor would take a path not yet taken. (There's also a bit of foreshadowing for Thor's son Magni; who I think the Enchantress had pulled out of an alternate future, and was probably headed for a bad end.)

Next, Thor is visited by Don Blake, his one-time mortal identity...who was no longer. His eyes burned out by snake venom, Thor realizes Blake had been put through Loki's torment: Blake describes himself as having everything Loki no longer wanted. Thor feels bad for what Blake had been through, but he was dead now, so maybe time to let that go? Blake advises, he "could be so much deader," and tries to beat it out of him with Hellnir, a dark version of Mjolnir. Blake blinds Thor, which ironically opens his eyes: Thor had before, possibly more than once, sacrificed an eye for wisdom. He sees a way to "sacrifice himself to himself," and pick up a human soul neither he nor Blake now possessed. This leaves "Blake" now a soulless serpent-man, and Thor...gone.

Back on earth, the elfin boy "Lukki"--"Lucky?"--wakes up a man in an alley, seemingly after a mugging. Lukki returns a wallet and apartment key, but advises there was no ID, he would have to remember who he was himself. "Sigurd Jarlson." This would of course set up the next series, the Mortal Thor: somewhat tellingly, it only has that title on the covers, it's just "Thor" in the indica. And the first issue was Legacy #787, so I'd be surprised if he wasn't at least moderately more godly by #800. But what I wish, is that Marvel took a moment to acknowledge the continuity change and maybe retell a big Avengers issue, with Beta Ray Bill redrawn in for Thor! Avengers #166 would've been perfect for that. 

Also, darn it: I recently picked up but haven't yet read the Thor: Epic Collection Hel on Earth: it's later Roy Thomas issues, and not a highwater point for the character, but features maybe the start of Don Blake's "I want to be a real boy" heel-turn, from around Thor #475 in 1994. Wait: Thor, and Blake, debuted in Journey Into Mystery #83 in 1962. Walt Simonson phased out Blake in 1984's Thor #340, as the ability to change to a civilian identity was given to Beta Ray Bill. (Bill wouldn't turn into Blake, but would apparently lose that ability later.) I mention this because it looks like Blake's heel-turn has lasted longer than he did as a secret identity!