Friday, September 2, 2011

Journey Into Mystery #626.1

Today begins with one of Marvel's .1 issues... Now normally I'm fine with these .1 issues, but the timing for this one is rather odd... Journey Into Mystery has been neck deep in Fear Itself for the past couple of issues, so doing a .1 issue now, one that isn't connected to Fear Itself, just seems all kinds of weird... Oh well, let's see what's going on in this one.

Journey Into Mystery #626.1:

Summary: The events of this issue actually take place between panels 4 & 5 in Journey #622 for those of you who need to know that sort of thing. As for me, I have NO idea what happened in that issue, so on to this issue! Loki summons an ancient spirit from the Eldritch Realm called a Teller, whose gimmick is... well, telling people secrets and stuff. You see, Loki realizes that the gods of Asgard are mistrustful and suspicious of him, and wants the Teller to show him what the gods really think of him when he's not around. To that end, the Teller shows Loki conversations between the Warriors Three, Sif and Brunnhilde, as well as Odin and Heimdall. The main gist of what everybody is saying is that they don't trust Loki and don't understand why Thor does. The Teller asks Loki if he wanted to know what Thor was saying about Loki, but Loki quickly refuses that offer. Having learned what he wanted, Loki tries to send the Teller back to the Eldritch Realm, but unfortunately for Loki, the Teller refuses to go without payment... That payment? Loki's future. Loki balks at that and tries to leave the room, but the Teller's magic wraps Loki up and begins to slowly drag Loki to the Teller, who revealed that he was going to eat Loki in order to get Loki's future. Loki screams for Thor, which the Teller finds amusing, since the Teller could see all of Loki's own conflicting thoughts on the God of Thunder. Right before the Teller eats Loki(and his future!), Thor arrives on the scene and strikes the Teller with lightning, demanding it returned from whence it came. The Teller goes, but warns Thor that down the road he may end up kicking himself for not allowing the Teller to end Loki then and there. With that, Thor reveals that a voice warned him to save Loki(the voice was Ikol's, Loki's pet bird/the knowledge of Loki's older self), so he responded. Thor goes on to ask Loki what this whole scene was all about, and Loki tells Thor the truth, that he wanted to know what the other Asgardians thought about him. Thor tells Loki not to worry about what they thought now, since with time the Asgardians would grow to accept Loki. With that, Thor tells Loki to be more careful with his magic, and the Teller, in his home realm, curiously watches that scene play out, wondering if Loki was truly changed from his last incarnation while promising he would eventually get the payment from Loki he felt he deserved.

Thoughts: This was an excellent .1 issue. It pretty much told you everything you'd need to know about this series and Loki by looking through the eyes of the other important characters in Thor's comics... Except for Thor, which I found to be the most interesting part of this comic. Did Loki not want to know Thor's inner thoughts because he already knew Thor's thoughts, or was Loki afraid that he'd discover that even his beloved brother had doubts about Loki and was only keeping him around in order to keep a close eye on him? So not only was this a great jumping on point for this series, it was also a great story. So kudos to Rob Rodi and Pasqual Ferry for this one.

Score: 9 out of 10.Loki running to Thor, and then hiding behind him was a really nice touch here.

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