Last week I read Greysuit: Project Monarch, which was a James Bond-style spy novel in comic book form. Lately I’ve been reading so many crime, war and other types of stories that I needed a superhero fix. And, with the hype surrounding the latest Marvel superhero movie, it seems a perfect time to re-read some classic Thor. So I read THOR VS. SETH THE SERPENT GOD, written by Tom DeFalco, drawn by Ron Frenz, published by Marvel Comics.

Published in 1988, Thor vs. Seth the Serpent God collects Thor #395-400, in which Seth, the Egyptian God of Death, wants to conquer Asgard. It starts when Fandral, a member of the Warriors Three, goes to Earth in order to convince Thor to return to the golden spires of Asgard to defend the realm! But Odin has disappeared and the Rainbow Bridge is broken! Wait, there is another way, if Thor can slip into Seth’s kingdom and then follow his armies into Asgard… then there might be a chance. And so, Thor must fight through the legions of Seth in order to save Asgard… but will he be in time??

If you’ve never read Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Thor and always wondered what the appeal was, look no further. Tom DeFalco wrote a story that perfectly captured the pure insanity of Kirby’s ideas and Lee’s dialogue. Just like the original Silver Age stories, DeFalco uses dialogue boxes and thought balloons. He scripts huge fight scenes that extend for pages on end, has heroes and villains making decisions that only make sense to comic book characters, and even has our heroes randomly getting angsty over trivial things. The dialogue is full of cornball moments with things like Thor shouting how he’ll never stop fighting or having long soliloquies about how overwhelming the odds are and how hard the fight will be. And it’s all done with a straight face that you can’t help but get caught up in it.

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