Phase 1 Revisited: Thor

In which I revisit a previously explored topic with fresh eyes and an open mind.

Continuing in our revisitation of Marvel's Phase 1, we arrive at what is easily the MCU's strangest addition: Thor.  Abandoning the next gen science that had become the mega-franchise's mainstay, it exploded its world building outward to include pagan gods, monsters, magic and extra-dimensional kingdoms.  Yet despite Thor's fantastical dressings, it introduced Marvel's most conventionally endowed hero to date.

Millennia before the events of either Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk, mankind accepted that they were not alone in the universe: that the gods of their fathers walked the cosmos and protected them from harm.  Following the last great war between the warriors of Asgard and the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, the Asgardians secured a great and lasting peace for all creation.

But when Asgard's brash young prince threatens that hard-earned peace, even Odin cannot spare him from his justice.  He is stripped of his powers, banished to Earth and his most prized possession - the mighty hammer Mjolnir - is made available to anybody worthy it.  But the House of Odin is riddled with treasons and secrets that open all nine realms up to devastation.

I really can't stress what a massive risk Thor was to the fledgling MCU.  For as little mainstream appeal as Iron Man had prior to his cinematic debut, Thor was infinitely less well known.  What's worse, he was hopelessly confusing.  It wasn't just that the character of Thor was the son of Odin, but that Mjolnir would transform any person deemed worthy of the honor and wielding the hammer into Thor: infecting people with his powers and consciousness like some kind of mystical virus.

But for as uncertain a prospect as the franchise was for Marvel, it was an inherently necessary one.  The company's problem has always been its lack of the iconic and mostly horrific villains that have always been DC's mainstay.  Those few that the comics did have access to were either hopelessly cosmic (ie, Thanos) or belonged to properties that Marvel didn't have the film rights to (pretty much any of Spider-Man's or the X-Men's antagonists).

Thor, however, had Loki: the sorcerous Norse god of mischief.  He's the kind of charismatic, ambitious and far-thinking character that opens the entire MCU up to all sorts of antagonistic possibilities.  What's more, his relationship to Thor as his brother provided a deeply emotional core to a story that could have otherwise been lost amidst a superheroic game of thrones.

After all, there's a reason why Loki returned to face off against the Avengers in 2012 and why he stole the spotlight  from the actual  villain of Thor: The Dark World.  He's an inherently interesting, invariably treacherous and deeply sympathetic character that absolutely steals every scene he finds himself in.

Kenneth Branagh is undoubtedly the foremost reason for Thor's success.  The director - best known for his superb Shakespeare adaptations - lent a measure of Elizabethan flair to production that nobody else working today could have managed.  Loki isn't just a villain, but a tragic child of two worlds: failing to find a place in either one.  As an Asgardian prince, the Jotuns owe him only hatred, but as a Jotun himself, he finds himself - imagined or not - outside of his father's favor.  Furthermore, his and Thor's relationship owes more than just a little inspiration to Edgar and Edmund's in King Lear.

If the director's name sounds familiar, that's because he's also the man who transformed Cinderella into a blockbuster success that's still showing in theaters as I write this.  He's finally found his mainstream cinematic niche: lending an air of Shakespearian historicism to contemporary fantasies.  His failure to return for the sequel was the biggest disappointment in Marvel's Phase 2, as I am sure that there were greater emotional depths to plumb in that film.

But for as awesome as the movie was - helped along by its exceptional director, inspired casting and emotionally resonant screenplay - it's the Phase 1 movie that I'm most conflicted with (although I still take less issue with it than I do with Iron Man 2).  I dislike the film's use of en medias res, especially when what followed that first scene would have made for an exceptional beginning in its own right.  While I liked all of the events of Thor's Earth-based story, they felt unrealistically condensed into just a few days.

Hawkeye's introduction is wasted in this film.  It lingered on and returned to the character long enough and often enough for me to realize that he was important, but gave absolutely no indication as to who he was and why we were supposed to care about him.

And for as much as he fits into the Avengers' dynamic, against his own supporting cast, Thor suffers from "Goku Syndrome."  This is what happens when the protagonist is so absurdly more powerful than all of his supposedly capable allies, that he essentially reduces them to cheerleaders.  Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg and Sif are supposed to be the best warriors that Asgard has to offer, and yet their only real contribution to the movie is to make Thor look more badass by comparison.

Despite its faults, however, Thor is the most cathartically pleasing movie that Phase 1 has to offer.  It introduced the Marvel Cinematic Universe to its cosmic possibilities three years before Guardians of the Galaxy, succeeded at reigning in the weirdest aspects of its protagonist and somehow made the magic of Mjolnir make sense alongside the mechinations of Iron Man.

Rating:  8/10

Buy on BluRay:  Yes

So how much (or little) did you enjoy the first Thor?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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