THOR: TALES OF ASGARD (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

A few years after Marvel's THOR comic became a good seller for the company, creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby instituted a backup feature, "Tales of Asgard," which also lasted a year or two before the THOR feature took over the whole book. The backup gave artist Jack Kirby the chance to focus only upon Thor's hometown of Asgard, doing his best to convey Fosterian magic and grandeur within the space of seven pages an issue.

The MCU's live-action THOR series, which began the same year this DTV was issued, barely attempted pageantry in its depictions of the Norse wonder-world. TALES doesn't manage to come close to Kirby's passionate depiction of a universe governed by magic and martial prowess. However, TALES makes a sincere effort, and on the whole looks pretty good in terms of visuals.

Now, the 2011 live-action THOR largely rejects the Norse "don't die in your bed" ethos, TALES follows that same course in large part, pushing a pacifist message. However, because this DTV is depicting Thor as a young male god seeking to prove himself within a male culture, the script doesn't quite reject all aspects of masculinity. However, there remains an orientation toward a judgmental feminism, incarnated in this video's concept of the warrior-woman Sif-- though nothing as toxic as the MCU would later embrace.

Thor's support-cast members-- adoptive brother Loki, and the Scandinavian Three Musketeers known as Fandral, Hogun, and Volstaag-- are also younger and greener, and Loki at this point is a novice schemer, still on good terms with his boisterous brother. But none of them burn to prove themselves as Thor does. However, Daddy Odin's noble brow is perpetually bent with the weight of keeping Asgard's peace with their long-time enemies the Frost Giants, so he can't be bothered figuring out a rite of passage for the young Thunder God. But there is a sort of "impossible quest" that Asgardian males are allowed to undertake, in order to satisfy their desire for adventure. Odin's troubles start when his son takes on the quest and comes back with a dangerous prize.

There's a hard-to-follow backstory about how the Frost Giants almost wiped out the Dark Elves. Apparently the Elves were allied to Asgard, but Odin's warriors didn't come to the Elves' defense for whatever reasons. So the latter made a pact with the fire-demon Surtur, which risked the survival of all the Nine Worlds. The Frost Giants annihilated most of the Dark Elves anyway, and one of the survivors, Algrim, took a position as a court advisor to Odin. However, Algrim's position in Asgard is not unlike an emigre from South Vietnam taking shelter in the US: deep down, there's a sense of betrayal by an ally who didn't live up to his part of the bargain. Thor seeks to discover the lost Sword of Surtur, but his masculine bull-headedness imperils Asgard from both the covert menace of Algrim and the overt one of the war-happy Frost Giants. In the end, Thor learns humility, at least until it comes time for him to relearn a parallel lesson in the 2011 live-action flick.

While in the regular MCU movies Sif is just One of the Boys, here she has some sort of vague grudge against the males of Asgard, and she has an affiliation with a tribe of female warriors who live apart from Asgard proper. At least some of her testiness stems from having the hots for Young Thor and thus expecting him to be more than an entitled heir. This isn't much of a conflict, even for a B-plot. Still, there's nothing actively bad about TALES-- while all of the "live" THOR films suffer from major narrative problems.