Analyzing Fraction's run on Thor

[jphamlore]

This thread I will argue that Fraction's run on Thor is one of the most cleverly written ever. I'm not saying Fraction's Thor run is the best, because to be the best it's how everything is integrated from mythology to story to art to characterization, and to me nothing can ever top Walt Simonson.

As an example of this cleverness, I argue the prime mover of the story is a being that does not even explicitly appear the last issue and is barely mentioned the last arc. Yet everything can be understood as being in service of the interests of this being.

That being I believe to be the World Tree. The World Tree as one of the characters in a Norse myth and as something that transcends time and space must I speculate have knowledge of its future doom. The World Tree I argue must know in the future it is doomed to be cleaved in half with a sword, to lose possession of the seed also sought by Galactus, and to be burnt by the fire of Surtur. Unlike Odin who sought to defy the destiny of his son's death and unlike Thor who accepted his fate to die in battle with the Serpent, I argue the World Tree sought to bend its doom to its advantage.

It is the World Tree that provides the pathway for the World Eaters to threaten the Nine Realms, leading Thor to resurrect Odin and to cleave the World Tree in half with the Odinsword in desperation. It is the World Tree that in the distant past tells Odin what Odin's fate is and what he must do to contain his brother Cul. Not only does the World Tree influence Odin, but as shown in I believe Gillen's JiM, it is the World Tree that tells kid Loki what kid Loki must do during Fear Itself.

With Odin's return Asgard's fate is sealed, the Serpent must also be revived. That Serpent is a composite of all the evil serpents of myth including I speculate the serpent Nidhogg that in versions of the Norse myth is that that gnaws at the roots of the World Tree and will someday kill it. The Serpent is a mortal enemy of the World Tree. And so due to the World Tree's machinations, the Serpent must die, or at least be contained for eternity in the care of his brother Odin.

Thor is wounded and left with what turns out to be a rip in time/space that leads to Thor's being transported after death to the Demiurge. It is secret places around the World Tree that provide Karnilla cover for her to plot to cast the spell that causes everyone at Thor's funeral to forget he even existed. This is the loophole through which Thor can both die yet be brought back ... to be the being that kills Surtur, the other mortal threat to the World Tree, the creature that will burn the World Tree similar to how the World Tree is burned repeatedly in the Ultimates Universe.

But one can ask, how is it that in a book about Thor, the prime mover is not only not Thor but is a being who's role is somewhat obscured by the end of the story? To me that is the point of this phase of the story of Thor as Marvel would like to tell it. The version of Thor in the time period of Fraction's run is not the master of his own destiny. That version of Thor was not about being the initiator of events, that version of Thor was more about would he or would he not behave nobly in the face of events not of his making.

That it is not all about a character being his own prime mover is shown in Gillen's run on Journey Into Mystery. In Gillen's run on that book, Loki is revealed once again to be the one who plans and executes his own re-birth, but that such a victory comes at a tremendous cost.

[jackolover]

What do you identify the World Tree to be in respect of the All-Father? I could never understand what the World Tree had to do with the 9 worlds and why it held it all together. Did Odin make the World Tree for instance, and if he didn't, then who did? If the World Tree is independent of the All-Father, then there is another complacent to the whole science of the Asgardians.