Comic Critique- Angela: Asgard's Assassin

Sent from Heven above, Angela has had a long journey to getting her own series at Marvel Comics.  She was created at an entirely different company by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane in the pages of Spawn.  Her character was used sporadically in various issues of Spawn throughout the 90s, but then began one of the most hotly contested legal battles in comic book history to decide who owned the rights to the angel Angela.  Eventually, Neil Gaiman won and promptly sold those rights to Marvel Comics. 

Cool cats never look back at the explosion

Angela made her first appearance at the end of the major event Age of Ultron (no relation to the plot of the movie except having the eponymous android as the main villain) in 2013 as the Marvel Universe began to show its first signs of collapsing. Time travel and universal abuse had fractured reality, changing people’s history, sending Galactus to the Ultimate Universe, and opening the gate to the new-found Tenth Realm of the World Tree, which allowed for Angela to enter the 616.  In the following year, during the Original Sin event, the eye of Uatu the Watcher revealed a secret to Thor Odinson: he had a sister.  This sister had been taken and thought to be murdered by the Angels of Heven who attacked Asgard because they felt Odin owed them a debt, and Angels do nothing for free.  In his rage, Odin and Freyja severed Heven from the World Tree and sealed them away, to forever be forgotten. 

Comic Critique: Thor, The Goddess of Thunder

Marvel Comics have done much to bring a more balanced view of the world in the last several years.  We have had Carol Danvers step up to the mantle of Captain Marvel, becoming the preeminent female superhero of the Marvel Universe. We have had newcomer fangirl Kamala Khan take up her idol’s mantle in kind by becoming the new Ms. Marvel.  Spider-Man spinoff characters Silk and Spider-Gwen have sprang to life, with the latter actually outselling Spider-Man himself multiple times.  Storm, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Black Widow, Squirrel Girl, and others have gotten their own ongoing series.  No longer relegated to limited series or team member status, women are finally getting a spotlight in the center of the Marvel Universe.

She may seem all fun and games, but don't tickle Thor.
Seriously. Don't tickle Thor.

Floating high in space (and sometimes grounded down in the middle of Oklahoma), the shining citadel of Asgard has always represented the pinnacle of power in Marvel.  The Mighty Thor was the hero who seemed to be simply entertained by joining with his friends and their mortal adventures. After all, he is a god and they are just men.  The world of Thor is one of the few in Marvel Comics that allows for a more “pure” fantasy experience.  Where the others are often in New York and occasionally travel to other parts of the world, with the rare few exploring new worlds across the cosmos, Thor with a swing of his hammer and a call out for the Bifrost can be in a lush green forest filled with elves, or an icy mountainous landscape where he must face the Frost Giants, or a dark murky bog with all sorts of mythical beasts.  Thor’s writers are never as constrained by any of the rules that hold back other heroes.  In fact, to me, Thor’s best stories are when he’s just doing his thing in any of the Nine Realms EXCEPT Midgard (Earth to us Muggles… wait, I mean humans). With Mjolnir at his side, he was the only hero who was worthy of this power.