With his Immortal Thor run Al Ewing has been using some meta elements. It hasn’t been the fourth wall breaking of talking directly to the reader that we see with Deadpool or Gwenpool. Rather, Al Ewing has been using his own experience as a comic book creator to have Thor’s narrative manipulated by a force within the Marvel Universe. That force comes from the team-up of Enchantress and Minotaur. Now with this week’s Immortal Thor #9 the All-Father of Asgard and God of Thunder begins to learn about this.
ENCHANTRESS USES THE POWER OF MARVEL COMICS
How did we get to the point where Marvel Comics became part of its universe and a key part of Immortal Thor’s current narrative? First, we would have to go back to Immortal Thor #4 where it was revealed that Minotaur as the CEO of Roxxon Industries purchased the in-universe version of Marvel Comics. Marvel Comics as a publisher has existed since the 1950s on Earth-616. At some point Marvel Comics convinced the various heroes, including Thor, to get the publishing rights for their heroic adventures.
Thanks to that Minotaur used his wealth at some point before Immortal Thor #4 to purchase Marvel Comics. In the process, he gained a library containing all the comic books that told Thor’s history. With that library, Enchantress used “Skald-Magic” to change the Thor stories that were already written in comic book form. By using her magic in the Thor comic books Enchantress was also able to alter Thor’s history.
The ways Thor’s history was manipulated was shown through the inconsistencies that showed Loki, in their Teller of Tales form, recounted their past adventures. As Loki’s stories unfolded things in the moment appear to be altered in the moment. Which created more confusion around Thor and Loki’s history with the Elder Gods that Thor is trying to deal with. All of this is thanks to Enchantress utilizing the Thor comic books that Minotaur owns to manipulate parts of Thor’s backstory.
IMMORTAL THOR CORRUPTED BY COMIC BOOKS
That all brings us to Immortal Thor #9 where Thor shows he has had enough of an outside force manipulating him. Thor wastes no time going directly to the source of his problems by marching straight into Roxxon headquarters.
The confrontation led to Thor going places in a reality where he had to suffer walking through suburban life. The only thing that saved him from the suburbs was being attacked by the Executioner, Minotaur, and Enchantress. When Thor tried to attack the villains the trio used their mastery over the reality they created to break the God of Thunder.
Eventually, things got to the point that Thor could do nothing more than put down his hammer and listen to what Enchantress had to say. With that, Enchantress had Thor right where she needed him to turn the God of Thunder into a comic book fan.
While reading comic book versions of his own adventures Thor about the power of New Comic Book Day has on all of us on Wednesday. That hold is particularly strong for Thor as Enchantress continues to use her magic to manipulate the God of Thunder’s story. With Thor buying into the world of comic books Enchantress gave us our first look at the Roxxon Thor.
We don’t see the full presentation of Roxxon Thor but we do get a glimpse of him from the cover of the comic book Thor is reading. The question is how long the Roxxon Thor will be around. The Roxxon Thor comic book will be a one-shot. This is all part of Minotaur turning the Marvel Universe into his content.
Given how the teaser for the one-shot is built it appears that Roxxon Thor will play a key role in building towards the big Thor-led event. The new Thor mega-event is set to be called “Absolute Absolution.” A new Thor event is something that has been teased since Donny Cates started his run-on Thor and Ewing is continuing that build.
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