The mission given to the youngsters in THOR, SON OF ASGARD sounds like just the ticket: it's the sort of heroic quest that sounds like it could have come straight out of the PROSE EDDA. Sadly, this plot element isn't introduced until the last few pages of the book, by which time we've already witnessed our young heroes nattering on about who will eventually hold the hammer Mjolnir - or, in Sif's case, pointing out the sexism of the language in the ancient prophesies about it - before they're all attacked by giant spiders. No need to guess where the spiders come from, of course. Apart from said GIANT SPIDER INVASION battle sequence, there's little that really happens in this issue. That, and a lot of talking, both expositionally and in dialogue. The "walk-through" of Asgard at the beginning, for example, takes a whole six pages - mainly images, true, but a fair amount of exposition as well - and it's only then that we meet the young Thor, Balder, and Sif. As a tone-setting device, it almost works, though hearing the bridge Bifrost referred to as "the Technicolor tresle" makes it sound more like an entrance to Disneyland than the realm of the Norse gods.
The dialogue between the godlings isn't much better - it swings back and forth between being tedious (we know that Thor will end up ruling Asgard even if they don't, so hearing them go on about whether it will happen or not for two pages is a bit tiresome) and being ridiculous (Sif's feminist stance concerning the hammer's enchantment, while very au courant, rings horribly false). They refer to Loki as "trying to sound so mature," but when we finally hear from the little imp, his vow of hatred against them sounds not much different. I suppose I'd have equal trouble if they were speaking in "doths" and "thines" - even Odin's idiom is fairly straightforward colloquial English - but at least it would feel more genuine than this does. Speaking of genuine, it's very hard to equate the adult God of Thunder we all know and love, with all his many moods and tempers, with the somewhat less than vivacious teenager we see here. One would expect a teenaged Thunder God to have more of a temper, not less, but Thor is more disappointed than outraged at his inability to lift Mjolnir, and his attitude towards Loki, both before and after the spider attack, is almost ridiculously calm. Balder comes off far worse - he's more a cipher than a character - and Sif is just the latest in a long line of feminist female warriors with sharp tongues, with nothing else to truly distinguish her. As a character study of what these folks were like as kids, this miniseries is disappointing.
Greg Tocchini's artwork is equally disappointing. Where it works (in character close-ups, sometimes, and in the sprawling venues of Asgard itself), it works well. Where it fails (in middle-distance to distant shots, when the characters' faces lose definition and any distinguishing characteristics), it fails in a way that's all too noticeable. It's a very hit-or-miss artistic style in which even the hits are not always "Top of the Pops" quality. I'm not writing off the entire miniseries, of course - just because the first issue is overly expository and features slightly lackluster art doesn't mean that the quest part of the miniseries won't be fully engaging or stunningly rendered. But we always tend to go with our first impressions, and the first impression of THOR, SON OF ASGARD is not one which bodes well for the future of the God of Thunder.
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