This was a lot of fun. It felt like a myth, one of those "clever younger son" stories. I really do like the idea of Kid Loki, taking the character in a very new direction (which is actually, in some ways, a very old direction). And I think Gillen hit the right emotional notes here. I got why Thor resurrected Loki in the first place, and why he wants to protect him. I also get why Asgardians in general can't seem to trust him. Can you blame them? And Loki himself feels right. Different, sure, but...

The hype on blogs and tumblrs intrigued me. A "good" kid Loki exploring his personality and wrestling with his evil past seemed a good setup.Unfortunately, I'm again reminded why I stopped buying Marvel comics 14 years ago. Things haven't improved, and in some ways they've become absolutely reactionary.The basic premise, while promising and at times compelling, is still a dead end. The fourth wall gets crossed with cheesy and at times cynical humor, as if it's the audience's fault nothing ever h...

More than anything else, this reminds me of the great early days of John Ney Rieber's run on The Books of Magic. A clever and unpredictable and frequently vulnerable protagonist, a true sense of the numinous and the strange, old myths and old fairy tales mingled together, the sense of a great and varied cast, a large and extraordinary universe.I'm deducting a point because the plotline is sort of choppy -- clearly a lot is going on in other Fear Itself tie-ins--but this really is marvelous.Full

Currently reading the omnibus and I have covered this portion. So far so good.

I've struggled with starting Gillen's JIM run (and, in fact, many other Thor books) before. It is hard to follow for me because of the linguistic style and the choice of fonts for the asgardian dialogue. I can read this uncial-like font fine in small doses, but in Thor-themed books I always have a hard time with it because it's everywhere. That is annoying and exhausting and I wish Marvel would either optimise the font a bit for readability, or stop using it altogether. But anyway, I forced myse...

Gillen is British, and he writes as if he is getting paid by the word. Conclusion: Gillen thinks he is Charles Dickens. Heh heh heh.Being overly wordy, (and maybe lacking many ideas) this story plods forward sloooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyy.(Yawn.....)The art is also kinda over-wrought, and yet, like the writing, I almost liked it.

The rickety roller coaster ride that is the Fear Itself reading adventure continues.Finally, it’s a Marvel mega-crossover book that has a relatively coherent self-contained plotline. Excelsior!! This one doesn’t deal with the seven evil hammers that have fallen to Earth, it’s an Asgardian behind-the-scenes look at the machinations of tween Loki.I don’t know if this was by design (and I'm too lazy to look it up), but the Fear Itself series is a decent homage to the world building skills of Jack K...

An absolutely perfect arc.The largest problem with Thor and the Asgardians through the 90's was that the writers disregarded the mythology. That they abandoned the large, cosmic stories for cheap and easy stories. Its no wonder the book wound up being cancelled. It came back with a vengeance though, a few years before the Thor movie. And now, with Thor being such a ht at the box office, very special attention is being given to the book. Not that this is a Thor book. Its a Loki book. But it does

Full disclosure: I read issues 622-626 digitally on Marvel Unlimited. But according to the blurb, this volume also has Thor Spotlight & Fear Itself Spotlight included in it...which I couldn't find. But it would have been a real pain in the ass to review each issue separately, so just go along with it, ok? However, if you get the actual volume...other stuff is included. I'm so jealous!After reading Young Avengers I was fascinated with the new Loki, and I wanted to find out how he...well, got to b...

In the beginning, many of the answers ended up being 'LOKI'. Kieron Gillen took on the task to write a rather young version of the trickster Norse god Loki for this quaint long-time series, Journey Into Mystery. His run lasted from issues #622-645 starting with the first arc entitled Fear Itself. I'll try to contextualize where this continuity falls in the Marvelverse but only very briefly since I've only researched about it and not actually read it myself. From what I understand, Gillen's se

This was actually a pretty fun read!We have Loki going around causing mischief and the book ties in a lot with Fear Itself and its to be read with that so as its own it can get confusing but its still a fun read with Loki teaming with Volstagg to free Thor, getting a hel-wolf and then teaming with Tyr to prevent the rise of Fear Lord and well with him and Hela and Mephisto, he kinda saves hell maybe and prevents the war there and prevents Hela from being double-crossed by the Fear lord himself a...

Second reading, in anticipation of Loki’s series coming to Disney+:What the Hel was Past Mike thinking, giving this 5 stars and such an effusive review? This time around, coming in cold and not giving a damn about Gillen’s reputation, I found myself dreading every turgid page turn. Not clear if the art contributes to the molasses pace, but this reads bombastic, leaden, sucking all the fun and excitement out of what should be a joyous escapade with a new trickster among us. DNF, and no way in Hel...

"The humans of the Internet are uncouth! When I said I was an Asgardian god, they called me a troll!"Yet another series that has undergone major events since the last time I was paying attention to the Marvel Universe. So apparently Loki died, and got "reincarnated" as a younger version of himself who is Thor's adoring little bro again. Except everyone remembers him as the evil god of chaos who almost destroyed Asgard (regularly). Loki wants to prove he's a good guy... except he's still Loki.Whi...

Loki had never been a particularly interesting character to me, and when he died trying to save Asgard in Siege, I kind of shrugged and kept reading along. Gillen's run on Journey Into Mystery with Kid Loki has gotten rave reviews, and with Kid Loki joining the Young Avengers (with Gillen writing) in January, I thought it was high time to read up on him.Gillen breathes life into Loki, and his challenge makes him immediately interesting: he is Loki reborn, and while he is the same soul and has so...

Really great lead-in for Gillen's Journey into Mystery run, and it's even a damn crossover story! Fear Itself was a terrible event for Marvel, but it's nice to see at least one great thing emerged from its ashes.When Gillen took over for JMS's Thor run (wherein he introduced the idea of this Kid Loki character), I was pretty underwhelmed. It seems I should've given him a lot more of the benefit of the doubt, because he's really nailed a completely new but still very familiar character with his v...

This is well worth investigating, even if you, like me, had no interest in the big Fear Itself crossover event--though it has superhero characters, it feels a lot more like a fantasy comic. The obvious point of comparison for me is Sandman. Loki here is reborn as a teen, and that's a great twist: the way he is loved but not trusted and is confined and ordered about by certain characters is very true to the teen experience (even for teens who haven't, you know, been a supervillain in a past life)...

Yep, even though I've been spoiled and know where the story's going, I "ship" Loki and Leah. Sigh.So...previously in Marvel-Thor-verse, Loki made friends with the nicest people (Doom, Norman Osborn, etc.) and merrily wrecked havoc on Asgard and beyond, until, when things were at their direst, the world was a nose hair from becoming a rubble-filled parking lot, he seemingly had a change of heart and sacrificed himself, saving the day.Loki, of course, is harder to eradicate than a case of clap in

I've always been a fan of superhero movies and TV shows, but beyond a few graphic novels adapted from traditional novels, I haven't really read comics before now. After seeing the blockbuster film "The Avengers", I wanted more of those characters. However, I was uncertain where to begin since Marvel has 60+ years of existing history and continuity. So, I decided to start with Thor since I at least had familiarity with the Norse myths he is derived from (and yeah, I LOVE Loki). And, I went to Wik...

I have missed reading a Thor comic for a year or so and I remember hearing people say that Journey Into Mystery was good a few years ago so I thought I would give it a try. I liked this first story arc, but didn't love it. The focus is on Kid Loki who is a humorous and entertaining character was a little surprising, but not not in a bad way. This also felt like a fable or mythology with all the different gods and a character traveling around to curry favor with them. However, there wasn't a lot

It's always amusing to me how similar Thor and Loki are to Odin. From Odin, Thor takes his strength. His title as the Crown Prince of Asgard. His body is that of an Asgardian god, and he looks like Odin did when he was younger. He is foolish and headstrong. He even takes Mjolnir from him! Mjolnir being an Asgardian treasure given to him by and for his father, is important. What makes someone "worthy" isn't just being selfless and brave and kind (for all superheroes would be worthy), but the will...