Reviews ComicBook / Thor Vikings

The Only Garth Ennis Superhero Story I Like

In the past I have been accused of hating Garth Ennis and not giving his stories fair assessments. While the first part of that is definitely true, I think I can disprove the latter with this comic.

In this story, a vicious band of vikings were long ago accidentally empowered by a vengeful village shaman incorrectly wielding amoral eldritch power. These vikings were then turned into revenants cursed with total invulnerability and after wandering the seas for a thousand years they have set their sights on a new land to conquerer: present day New York, and they will ruthlessly hack to bits anything that stands in their way.

Then enters the main complaint that readers have with this comic — Thor, the hero, who they claim is rendered completely impotent against his enemies. However, I'd argue that this is to give him a very important aspect for his character — sympathy. When the Big Bad manhandles him in the most humiliating of fashions for a Norse warrior, I interpreted it not as disrespectful, but more as, "Gotcha. Threat established. Protagonist sympathetic."

Besides, it's not like Ennis is exactly playing favorites here; the military and police (the "real heroes" as he'd call them) are slaughtered en masse with their desecrated corpses used for morbid decoration just to further illustrate how monstrous the antagonists are. Meanwhile, other superheroes like the Avengers are spared such indignity (and the Punisher is nowhere to be seen). And yes, the main thrust of the story involves Thor and a very John Constantine-esque Doctor Strange recruiting regular people from different times to help them fight, but if this is supposed to be a dig at superheroes being ineffectual, then it falls flat. The superheroes are instrumental in solving the crisis, and the time-displaced warriors wouldn't have helped at all without Strange's magic and Thor's leadership.

And, going back to my previous point, Thor is spared any Adaptational Jerkass and gets plenty of time to get some "big hero" moments, especially in his final clash with the main villain (which is genuinely terrifying at key moments, thus preserving the drama), where our hero gets in a very satisfying last word.

While Ennis can't help but sneak in a few snide commentaries at classic superhero conventions, I know from experience that he was holding back if anything. It even has a pretty happy ending, all things considered.

In the end, I can see why people would dislike this story and I am certainly not trying to dissuade anyone from hating one of Ennis' works, but I feel some credit is due because this is the one single superhero comic by Garth Ennis that I actually liked