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Thor #441

Dec 1991
Tom DeFalco, Al Milgrom

Thor #441 cover

Story Name:

My Brother's Burden [The Thor War, Part 4 of 4]


Synopsis

Thor #441 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 4.5 stars

Zarrko the Tomorrow Man has produced Loki to face the combined power of Beta Ray Bill, Present Thor (Eric Masterson), and Future Thor (Dargo Ktor) and the God of Evil starts things by blasting them into the next room of the time cube. Zarrko orders Loki to finish them off and finds that a Norse God cannot be commanded like an ordinary minion. Zarrko pretends that he is helping Loki carry out a scheme against Thor Odinson. Servitor leaps ahead to battle Dargo and succeeds only in smashing through the floor so that they both plummet through all of the intervening levels until they reach the foundation. Loki goes to deal with the Thor Corps and electrocutes Bill and wields a fire sword against Eric who realizes he is in trouble….

Downstairs, Dargo fights Servitor, tricking him into being trapped in a small area then thunking him on the head with Mjolnir. He spies a viewscreen with Eric Thor’s picture showing and looks in on Eric’s future—and is shocked at what he sees….

Loki continues to strike at Eric with the fire sword while mocking his unworthiness to wield the power of Thor. In a bind, Eric manages to grasp Stormbreaker, Bill’s hammer, and strike back but Loki uses his sorcery to shock Eric into dropping both hammers. Loki gives Eric Thor a severe beating and after 60 seconds, he returns to his Eric Masterson form but is also healed. While Loki lays claim to Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, Eric distracts him by claiming to have seen Loki’s death in the near future (which he did in issue #432). Loki is unnerved and rushes off to demand that Zarrko find out exactly when this is supposed to happen. The three Thors reunite and recover from their injures and head after Loki to find him threatening Zarrko; the villain throws his victim against the control panel and a chain reaction begins, hurling Zarrko and Loki out into the time stream. Bill tries to pilot the ship and manages to send Dargo, then Eric, back to their respective periods. Eric Thor flies back to his apartment where he is reminded that the place was trashed in his battle with Stellaris in issue #438. Eric turns back to his mortal form just as the phone rings. It is Susan’s doctor with good news: he has found Dr. Don Blake who will take on Susan’s case….

“If Death Be My Destiny!”
Writer: Tom DeFalco. Pencils: Patrick Olliffe. Inks: Patrick Olliffe. Colors: Mike Rockwitz. Letters: Jon Babcock.

The Destroyer, animated by a bitter Lorelei, unleashes its disintegrator beam at Sif, who faints from her previous injuries and the beam misses her, striking the rock wall behind her. The cavern collapses on them….

Balder, wielding the Sword of Midhogg, discovers Hela sealed in a crystal prison and guarded by undead soldiers. He uses a Norn Stone to turn the guards into toads and hacks open the crystal block….

Sif crawls out from under a rock shelf which had protected her from the cave-in but the Destroyer immediately crashes out as well. She runs and uses a Norn Stone to fly over the chasm full of the spirits of tentacled monsters, then uses another to crumble the pit’s edge so that the Destroyer falls in. Hela arrives and seals the chasm shut. Sif asks about the missing Thor but Hela has no idea where he is….



 

Review / Commentaries


Thor #441 Review by (March 22, 2022)

Review: Yes, once upon a time (and for a very long time too) Loki was an outright villain, not a charming anti-hero deserving of his own Disney+ series. And here he is at his evilest, calmly batting around the Thor Corps and disdainful of their pretension to Thorhood. And he is most formidable too, not the weak, cowardly, and stupid Loki he often was in the early years of this title. Issues like this helped keep him in the public eye for a long career but he was rather one-dimensional, pure evil, not unlike the Red Skull. But when it came time for a change, I’m glad they did give us the charming rogue Loki while relegating Evil Loki a/k/a King Loki to an occasional guest status as he is a bit too much to deal with on a regular basis while the cute one is a lot of fun to follow in his various variations over the past decade.

The backup story has a gritty feel, the art resembling that of Mike Mignola or Klaus Jansen and the return of the Destroyer, in the land of the dead, makes for a pretty cool tale.

Comments: First story: Loki was killed by Thor in issue #432, though this Loki is from a previous/different timeline. The Thor Corps returns in THOR CORPS, a 1993 limited series. Ron Frenz and Tom DeFalco collaborated on the plot. Second story: Part five of five parts. The Destroyer returns in issues #476-477.




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Al Milgrom
Al Milgrom
Mike Rockwitz
Ron Frenz (Cover Penciler)
Al Milgrom (Cover Inker)
Unknown (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Layouts: Ron Frenz. Letterer: Mike Heisler.

Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Balder
Balder

(Balder the Brave)
Hela
Hela

(Goddess of Death)
Loki
Loki

(Loki Laufeyson)
Thor
Thor

(Dargo Ktor)
Thor
Thor

(Eric Masterson)
Plus: Servitor, Zarrko (Tomorrow Man).

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