Book Review: Thor - The Saga of Gorr the God Butcher - Jason Aaron
The new Thor movie “Thor: Love and Thunder” introduced the character of Gorr to the MCU. While this portrayal by Christian Bale was different from the Gorr in the comics, this didn’t come as much of a surprise since the MCU is a different timeline as compared to the comic variant. That being said when it was announced that Gorr would be the main antagonist in the movie, I tried to get my hands on the Thor comics related to him so that I had an idea about what this character brings to the table.
First off I should say that prior to this I hadn’t read any Thor comic nor was I ever interested to because, like Superman, Thor was just all too powerful and I never felt like he had enough going to get me to invest time in him. That is very likely my own ignorance and naiveté but nonetheless, Jason Aaron’s run on Thor looks incredible. From the first page, I was hooked. The art was amazing and the plot absolutely rivetting. After reading the saga of the God Butcher I can see how the movie deviates from the comic, and exactly what I would have loved to see in the movie.
The Saga of Gorr the God Butcher spans issues 1-11 of the Thor Jason Aaron run. The premise is that Thor encounters dead gods and while trying to figure out the cause of this encounters an entity only spoken of in whispers and in fear, Gorr the God Butcher. The entire story spans 3 different timelines which ultimately collide in the end for one epic battle. Each timeline has its own Thor who has faced the God Butcher. We see early-era Viking Thor who is still quite young and still hasn’t earned the right or been deemed worthy to lift Mjolnir. We have the Avengers era Thor, the one that we are most familiar with, and finally, we have All-father Thor who has ascended to become the all-father and the king of Asgard. We get a glimpse of each of their lives and how the encounter with Gorr has changed them. All the while we see a scheming Gorr on his quest to kill all Gods.
We also get a glimpse of how Gorr came to be the god butcher and the final plan of how he intends to eliminate all gods. Gorr intends to create a God bomb that can annihilate all gods in every timeline and would have succeeded if not for being stopped by not one or two but the three Thors from the timelines mentioned earlier.
This was an absolutely stunning comic and I look forward to continuing to read more of Jason Aaron’s Thor comics. I know that in some of the later issues we encounter the mighty Thor aka Jane Foster so I’m quite excited to read her story as well. Definitely recommended for anyone who maybe wants to know more about Gorr and what Love and Thunder could have been. Until next time!
Rating: 4/5
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