CBR: When Words Collide - May 9, 2011

[the_speedball]

Great interview. What issues comprise the Surtur Saga? Are they collected anywhere (preferably cheaper than the Simonson omnibus)?

[Sijo]

Let me start by making it clear that I love Simonson's Thor run, it was one of the best overall comic runs of the 80's; I don't want the give the impression I'm trolling here. Just wanted to point out a few things:

As much as I like his art, I don't think this was his best work ever; probably because I'd seen him inked by other people in other comics and then it looked more solid. Here it looked... I dunno, kinda rough, like he just went with his breakdowns. Still better than MANY other artists, I just don't feel it's his best.

Also, he tended to redesign some things without explanation. Uh, wasn't Asgard a GOLDEN city? Why is it all wooden-like now (I guess he just wanted to make it look more like the classic Viking imagery.) No real problem there, except that next to Kirby's near-futuristic Asgard, it looked rather bland.

Also, why did beings like Surtur and The Midgard Serpent look so different from their original, Kirby-designed versions? Of course, maybe they just can change shape, but you'd think at least someone would have noticed. You know, "Alas, my fellow Warriors Three, didn't The Serpent look more like a Cobra last time we saw it?"

But I wrote all that off as artistic license and kept reading.

Now, one thing that DID bother me was how Simonson apparently dismissed the new origin for the Norse gods -that had been just introduced during the Celestials Saga that culminated in Thor #300- as just a lie that Thor had been told. What? Several great Marvel creators went to extremes to explain why Marvel's version of Thor was not exactly like the original Myths, and this new guy handwaves it away so he could tell HIS stories? (Note, I never minded the differences, and in fact much prefer the Marvel versions and feel no explanations were needed; but they WERE given, and just saying "oh it was a lie" is a BIG cop out in my book.) But again, I didn't raise a fuss over it or quit the comic; I wanted to see if it was going to still be good.

And it was. Although sometimes it didn't feel like a Thor book (the whole Thor The Frog arc was completely silly, but Oh-So-Funny!) it was still pretty well planned and executed. And when it got epic, it DID feel like a Lee/Kirby Thor. I'm very grateful I stuck with it.

Btw did Walt's wife Louise (also a writer at Marvel at the Time) help with the writing, or was it all his?

[Frank]

WAlt needs to return to Marvel and monthly comics again! There's so many characters he hasn't done. Put him on a title and give him carte blanche.

[Walter Simonson]

Let me start by making it clear that I love Simonson's Thor run, it was one of the best overall comic runs of the 80's; I don't want the give the impression I'm trolling here. Just wanted to point out a few things:

As much as I like his art, I don't think this was his best work ever; probably because I'd seen him inked by other people in other comics and then it looked more solid. Here it looked... I dunno, kinda rough, like he just went with his breakdowns. Still better than MANY other artists, I just don't feel it's his best.

Also, he tended to redesign some things without explanation. Uh, wasn't Asgard a GOLDEN city? Why is it all wooden-like now (I guess he just wanted to make it look more like the classic Viking imagery.) No real problem there, except that next to Kirby's near-futuristic Asgard, it looked rather bland.

Also, why did beings like Surtur and The Midgard Serpent look so different from their original, Kirby-designed versions? Of course, maybe they just can change shape, but you'd think at least someone would have noticed. You know, "Alas, my fellow Warriors Three, didn't The Serpent look more like a Cobra last time we saw it?"

But I wrote all that off as artistic license and kept reading.

I am grateful you wrote off my artistic license.

A few notes:

I have no interest in changing your mind about the artwork. I just want to assure you that it wasn’t inked from breakdowns.

And I’m sorry about Asgard. I did redesign it more along Viking lines. I thought a wilder, rougher look for the abode of the Norse gods was appropriate. And you’re right; I didn’t bother putting in a balloon where somebody said, “Oh, wow! Look. The gods have totally rebuilt Asgard!” LOL. The idea kind of cracks me up, but really, what difference would that have made in the story? (If you check the recent Omnibus, you’ll find the city a bit more ‘golden’ in the coloring.)

Regarding Surtur, you just haven’t gone far enough back into your Kirby imagery. The first time Jack drew Surtur was, I believe, in the very first Tales of Asgard back in JIM 97. It is a single image of Surtur, sitting crosslegged in Muspelheim, with his hand on the hilt of his great sword. A beautiful, graphic drawing, and rather unlike Jack’s later versions of the character who became less designy and, IMHO, a little less interesting visually. Without trying to replicate it, my version of Surtur is based on that original drawing.

Jormangandr had actually looked a couple of different ways in a couple of previous appearances in THOR. Kirby did a version in the Tales of Asgard that was rather mechanistic. Cool looking, but I thought difficult to bring emotions to visually. Buscema did a version that was more snake-like with fangs, but again, without a face that (IMHO) could carry much of the emotional charge I wanted for him. And it didn’t seem very dragon-like. I did suggest in my own story that the serpent was a shape-shifter, if you’re a stickler for continuity. In the end, of course, the serpent’s new appearance was artistic license on my part, not done merely as a whim, but because I thought it would make the story better. I honestly think your suggestion for addition word balloons to cover brief (and contradictory) appearances from more than a 100 issues earlier would have been meaningless. As with the Asgard redesign mentioned above, it would have been a footnote that said—hey! I changed this! Readers who knew the earlier work from 10 or 15 years before would already have known that as you did; readers who don’t know the earlier work wouldn’t mind. And truly, I don’t intend this to be a mean or rebuking comment, more a statement of intentions about narrative drive and the audience for whom I was trying to write the comic book.

Now, one thing that DID bother me was how Simonson apparently dismissed the new origin for the Norse gods -that had been just introduced during the Celestials Saga that culminated in Thor #300- as just a lie that Thor had been told. What? Several great Marvel creators went to extremes to explain why Marvel's version of Thor was not exactly like the original Myths, and this new guy handwaves it away so he could tell HIS stories? (Note, I never minded the differences, and in fact much prefer the Marvel versions and feel no explanations were needed; but they WERE given, and just saying "oh it was a lie" is a BIG cop out in my book.) But again, I didn't raise a fuss over it or quit the comic; I wanted to see if it was going to still be good.

And it was. Although sometimes it didn't feel like a Thor book (the whole Thor The Frog arc was completely silly, but Oh-So-Funny!) it was still pretty well planned and executed. And when it got epic, it DID feel like a Lee/Kirby Thor. I'm very grateful I stuck with it.

Btw did Walt's wife Louise (also a writer at Marvel at the Time) help with the writing, or was it all his?

A couple of thoughts about the Celestial Saga and the origin of the gods a la Roy:

I did not say anywhere that the earlier stories were a lie. I never toss out old continuity in that way. Generally, I just prefer not to mention it. But I was telling a version of Thor that was not Roy’s version of the character. Continuity notwithstanding, every creator who works on a collective creative endeavor such as a comic that has run for 20 years (as was the case with Thor when I was doing it) brings something of his personal vision to the table, whether it’s Stan and Jack, John Buscema, Len Wein, Roy Thomas, Dan Jurgens, me, or anyone else.

I tried to bring more of a sense of the Norse mythology into the comic during my run on it. I felt that that was one of the main things that made the Thor title different from other titles at Marvel or elsewhere.

If you go back and read what Tiwaz told Thor, he never said that the Eyeball’s version of the gods’ origins was flat out wrong. He says that of the competing versions of the origins of the gods, he knows which one he would believe. So what? As a reader. you’re not obliged to believe Tiwaz. And how does Roy’s version square with Stan and Jack’s earliest Tales of Asgard, in which they gave a straightforward adaptation of the actual Norse myths? Roy’s version seems to set that aside; I went back to it. We’re just writers with different ideas about how to make the comic book interesting.

Mythologies, generally, are about an approach to understanding reality. As such, they wrestle with the core questions of existence, not matters of continuity or a precise timeline. Where did Surtur really come from in the actual myths? And how did the great cow come into being anyway? Or Thor’s great grandfather? These aren’t really questions with meaning in a modern continuity sense of the word. They are mysteries of a mythic time unbounded by our ordinary conceptions of the daily clock. And as such, they have great power. The mystery itself is the source of that power. By trying to suggest that there might be some truth to those old mysteries, I wanted to reintroduce the notion into the comic that some of the power of those characters is derived as much about what we don’t know about them as from what we do.

Roy’s story introduced its own mysteries of course, such as when did the god cycle begin. But that seemed to me to simply be putting off the question of origins without really addressing it.

I’m sorry you saw the story as a cop out. Tiwaz stacks the deck in his own favor, but of course he would. We all do. But I felt my own stories in Thor would have greater resonance, for me at least, if they harkened back more directly to the actual myths, not merely to old continuity.

And finally, Weezie looked over my shoulder the entire time I was working on Thor but did not actually join in the writing of the book. She was working on her own books for most of the time I was working on Thor.

Best/Walter

[donutfactory]

As someone who just plonked down the cash for the omnibus I can readily say that your creative license was well worth it, Mr. Simonson.

Also, thank you for having Thor deliver Ruby's orphans to Asgard. It made a huge impression on a young reader many years ago.

Smitty

[Walter Simonson]

As someone who just plonked down the cash for the omnibus I can readily say that your creative license was well worth it, Mr. Simonson.

Also, thank you for having Thor deliver Ruby's orphans to Asgard. It made a huge impression on a young reader many years ago.

Smitty

My pleasure, Smitty. Glad you liked it.

[Barry Pearl]

First, am a huge fan of the Marvel Age of Comics, I read all the stories from 1961-1977 and even wrote a book on it. See (http://comicbookcollectorsclub.com/e...rence-project/) for a description.

I am just trying to quickly establish a bit of my credentials, although to me it does sounds like a plug.

I withdrew from comics after that era. I am just now reading Mr. Simonson’s Thor Omnibus. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

If you have a long running feature, I think you need to keep its essence and then make it your own, I think Simonson did that. You can’t be married to every detail Kirby put in. You need to tell new stories or the strip becomes repetitive and stale.

Holding everyone to the exact template of Thor created by Lee and Kirby, would be as silly as holding Lee and Kirby to the mythological template set by the Norse several hundred years ago when this mythology was first created. The Lee/Kirby Thor is not that Thor, nor does the Simonson Thor have to be the one of the generation before.

For example, I liked, very much, that no one tried to capture Stan Lee’s wonderful Shakespearean English. It worked for Stan in the 1960s, but seemed to be a burden for others. I like so much the bringing in of established ideas and then doing new things with them. For example, exploring the enchantment in Thor’s hammer. If comics were this good in 1978, I never would have left.