A few years back I picked up a TPB called “the Annotated Mantooth” it was a slim enough volume and the cover had a tuxedo clad Gorilla adjusting his tie while a bunch of bloodied luchadores lay beaten in the background. I figured – hey, why not – I was familiar enough with the artist Andy Kuhn and enjoyed his art – but the writer was a dude named Matt Fraction whom I’d never heard of.
Well in those few years since grabbing The Annotated Mantooth, Fraction has quickly become one of my go-to writers. Casanova remains one of the most brilliant and fun series that I’ve ever read, and his Iron Man series actually made me care about Tony Stark, Maria Hill and Pepper Potts.
Well now Fraction is going to be tackling Thor….full time.
It’s not secret that Fraction loves The Odin’s son. He’s written him a few times now – in the absolutely epic Ages of Thunder cycle, and then in the Secret Invasion crossover. (One that was up there along side Black Panther as being better than the actual series itself – also, they drop ASGARD ON A SUPER SKRULL… tell me that’s not awesome.)
So while Kieron Gillen has the thankless job of following JMS’ critically acclaimed (though, somewhat slow) run, Fraction will come on with #610.
Marvel’s been dropping hints that we’re going to be getting a new golden age of Marvel heroes after the trials and tribulations that they’ve gone through these last few years, with Fraction behind the pen on Thor we’re going to see a pretty epic – almost heavy metal cover – version of Thor. Fraction tells Comic Book Resources: “I want to explore the Kirbyania science fiction side of Thor that we haven’t seen in some time. I want to write big, mind-blowing stuff like the best Thor runs are; ancient sagas reinvented as modern myths and superhero science fiction psychedelia,” Fraction remarked. “At the root of these colossal stories is a god with a man inside him and a man with a god inside of him and what the world means to them. What does it mean for man to look up to somebody like that? What does it mean for the Asgardians and their ilk to look down? And then imagine this picture – what would the Asgardians look up to? What is bigger than the Norse Gods? What is bigger than their myths? What if all these things collided all at once in a brain-battering blend of exciting elements?”
So far though, no word on the artist.
