[Comic Book Review] Thor: God of Thunder Volume 1: The God Butcher by Jason Aaron & Esad Ribić

Throughout the ages, gods have been vanishing, their mortal worshippers left in chaos. Now, Thor follows a trail of blood that threatens to consume his past, present and future. The only hope for these ravaged worlds is for Thor to unravel the gruesome mystery of the God Butcher!

In the distant past, Thor follows the bloody wake of murdered gods across the depths of space. In the present, the Thunder God discovers a forgotten cave that echoes with the cries of tortured gods...and is shocked to find himself among them! And thousands of years from now, the last god-king of a ruined Asgard makes his final stand against the God Butcher's beserker legions. As three Thors from three eras race to stop the God Butcher, the full extent of his vicious scheme takes terrifying shape!

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Thor is one of my top three marvel superheroes so I (well, my fiancé Matt, who reads superhero comics way more than I do) decided to finally start looking into his comics to figure out where to start, and this seemed like a good place. I know him mostly from the MCU films and I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the comics because I tend not to love superhero comics. But I am happy that I ended up really enjoying this! 

Like I said, ,Thor is one of my top three marvel superheroes. I have to admit that the MCU films are the biggest reason why, but I am relieved that I loved him in comic form as well. His initial cocky attitude mixed with arrogance reminded me a lot of the first movie, the way Thor is before he is put through tests by Odin. I really enjoy Thor's character development in this comic a lot, you see him grow so much as he goes through pretty intense experiences. He really steps into his role as the Son of Odin, soon to be king of Asgard and I loved it. 

I did find some of the storytelling regarding the timeline a bit hard to follow. Most of my questions (but not all, seeing this is only volume one) are explained as the story progresses, but in the moment of reading the story being so confused made it difficult to want to keep reading. I think being in the dark for so much of what is happening made me constantly feel like I was overlooking something or missing something entirely, which made the majority of my time reading a more negative experience. Granted, it wasn't confusing the whole  time, and I found some of it to be super comical and other parts action packed and exciting. There was just this underlying confusion throughout the majority that made me feel like I was missing something, which impacted my enjoyment. 

Despite that, I did enjoy the story for the most part when things started to click together and I got some of my questions answered. However, my biggest complaint with this volume is a personal one to me, and is absolutely objective. Which is, the art style. I really don't like the art style for the majority of this volume. It's actually something Matt and I discussed together when I was talking to him about not liking the art, and we came to the conclusion that I am not a big fan of realistic art. I prefer my comic art to lean towards the more animated or even cartoon-ish side. The eyes especially in this volume was something I really didn't like and freaked me out in moments where you're obviously not supposed to be freaked out. However, the design for The God Butcher was really cool and freaked me out in all the good ways it was supposed to, and there were moments I thought the art was cool, mostly when drawing Thor. 

Overall, besides the confusion with the timelines and the art style, in the end I didn't leave this volume unhappy. In fact, I thought the story was super interesting once everything started clicking together. The action scenes were both written and illustrated in a way that were easy to follow and I really loved Thor's personality. It cemented why I love him so much as a superhero. I do plan on continuing this series, and I am hoping once I read the books on my to-do list for the next month or two I can get volume two. 

Thanks for reading!