THOR #24

DONNY CATES, J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI, WALTER SIMONSON, DAN JURGENS & MORE! (W) NIC KLEIN & MORE! (A) • COVER BY NIC KLEIN

SPIDER-MAN VARIANT COVER BY DECLAN SHALVEY

VARIANT COVER BY TAURIN CLARKE • VARIANT COVER BY JUNI BA

VARIANT COVER BY ALEX MALEEV • VARIANT COVER BY DAN JURGENS

VARIANT COVER BY PASQUAL FERRY • VARIANT COVER BY STEPHANIE HANS

VARIANT COVER BY DANIEL WARREN JOHNSON • VARIANT COVER BY MAHMUD ASRAR

STAR-STUDDED CELEBRATION OF 750 ISSUES!

After a scorched-earth victory against the God of Hammers, Thor and all of Asgard reel from a brutal loss. But some people are never truly gone…And in honor of 750 issues of THOR, fan-favorite creators like J. Michael Straczynski and Walter Simonson return in this oversized issue! Celebrate the long and storied history of the God of Thunder with the writers and artists who helped build his legacy!



HULK VS. THOR: BANNER OF WAR ALPHA #1

DONNY CATES (W) • MARTIN COCCOLO (A) • Cover by GARY FRANK

Variant Cover by MARTIN COCCOLO

Variant Cover by RON LIM

Hulk Smash variant by Trevor Von Eeden

Mjolnir Crash variant by Trevor Von Eeden

Variant Cover by RYAN STEGMAN

Wraparound Connecting Variant Cover by GEOFF SHAW

Hulk and Thor have both undergone massive changes recently, but one thing remains constant — their heated rivalry! When mysterious circumstances bring them into conflict once more, will the God of Thunder be able to triumph against a Bruce Banner who can now control his rage?

Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of both characters, this epic five-part crossover between the THOR and HULK series starts here in this oversized Alpha issue, brought to you by creators Donny Cates and Martin Coccolo! Key mysteries from both series will be revealed, as well as shocking consequences for the future of both characters! (Continued in May’s THOR #25 and HULK #7!)

I do not look forward to the Hulk vs. stuff. Kind of surprised at the spoiler of the G.O.H. storyline. I guess it does still leave plenty of room for the details involved. The 750 issue is the first one I have ordered multiple copies of since the JMS run.

I'll be getting issue #750, maybe I'll be able to get one of the better (IMO) covers.

Saw a video recently suggesting the shady practices (dealer incentives) surrounding variant covers are responsible for about 25% of gross sales.

The fact that virtually every issue seems to have a handful of variants or more now is telling. Its never been as ridiculous as it is now.

I'm not against variant covers per say, but it clearly dilutes the gravitas of comic covers and takes away the potential iconic status a great cover has.

You address Omnipotence...tread carefully.

Yeah, the comic industry is very broken and variant based incentives are a big reason for that. For those who don’t know, a comic book store often needs to order a certain amount of an issue in order to receive the variant for the issue. The problem is the store may not be able to sell all those issue so they have to risk taking a loss if they want to provide customers with variants. It’s just all kinds of messed up. Marvel could keep pumping out bad issues that no one wants to read, but the comic book stores will be the ones that suffer financially. Meanwhile Marvel keeps steady regardless of what they put out as they slowly squeeze the life out of the one place where people can consistently buy their physical comics. The consumer suffers because publishers has no reason to improve their product and the stores suffer because they are losing money.

I think it would be best to keep variants in a more limited capacity. Like this upcoming #750 issue seems worthy of some variants (I’ll probably get one since the cover feels more like the 24th issue than the 750th issue). Ideally this would even out the incentives thing as well since more important issues will be easier for stores to sell (though obviously I’d prefer that they’d be done away with entirely).

FOR ASGARD!!!

So based on the cover let's get the speculation rolling as to who the casualty is:


1. Don Blake, doubt it but why not? time to get rid of him

2. Beta Ray Bill, don't see him on the cover unless he is the one burning

3. Frigga

4. THOR's sister?

I’d put money on it being Bill. The corpse looks a bit like him and a former wielder of Mjölnir has a decent chance of being the character to die in this particular story.

I’m not actually sure if Bill has died before, so that adds to it as well

FOR ASGARD!!!

I think that may be the likely choice. Going back several issues Thor destroyed Stormbringer. Thor said Asgard would need a champion not bound to Asgard or something to that effect. Bill promptly went out and took the Twi-Light sword from Surtur. Now that is a weapon that even a G.O.H. should fear. Does kind of look like Bill will pay the price. I still do not see where the " something is wrong with Asgards magic" fits in but it will become evident unless it has something to do with the next arc.

The problem is they have already started down this path which means if they stop the dealer incentives they will suffer massively in the short term. Marvel probably only makes about 25% on the cover price as it is. So cutting sales by 25% (through eliminating dealer incentives) could potentially see them operating at a loss.

At this point they seem happy to bleed the comic shops dry if it means stalling the inevitable collapse of mainstream comics. However, that will probably just make the eventual implosion worse.

You address Omnipotence...tread carefully.