COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Thor 366 Signature
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Grade:
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9.8
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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2727701015
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Owner:
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Thorseface
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Thor no. 366: “Sir!”
Publication date: April 10, 1986
Signed by Walt Simonson on 6/26/22.
Census: As of 6/20/23, 75 copies in 9.8 (up by 7), of which 5 are signed (up by 2). There are no Canadian 9.8s.
Favorite line and some thoughts:
"CHUGGA-RRUMPH!!"
-Thor, Frog of Thunder
The preview of this book with which the last issue left off posed a question, repeated here on this cover for convenience: "What do you call a 6' 6" fighting-mad bull frog?" We open the book and find that the answer is "Sir!" Given that our last issue was titled (in part) "Guess whose coming to dinner?" one might be forgiven for taking Walt for a Sidney Poitier fan. But then again, who among us with any taste isn't?
This cover is the pendant to Thor 365, which similarly features Thor in the foreground and an astonished Loki looking on in the background. It strikes me that Loki's amazement on the cover of 365 is due to the surprise appearance of "Thor" at the Althing, while we know that the real Thor is in New York aiding the frogs (as signified by the cover's lovely b&w background treatment of the gators and the frogs). Loki is again astonished on the cover of 366, but this time because his actual stepbrother has appeared in full-on Frog of Thunder mode. Notice that Walt chose not to give Thor his traditional blue tights so as to emphasize his...frog's legs. It is a truly bizarre image, all the more so as frog Thor urges his goats through the cosmic storm to reach Asgard (the rainbow bridge is still out of commission after the Surtwar).
Thor, returned to his natural state, chooses Balder to serve as Asgard's ruler and convinces the people to that end. This book more or less coincides with the conclusion of the Balder the Brave miniseries that Walt was writing simultaneously with Sal Buscema on visuals; Sal gamely did his best to emulate Walt's visual style. As we will see, after one more issue Sal would soon take over for Walt as penciller on Thor for most of the remainder of this storied run.
I think it worth mentioning Thor's rationale for not assuming the throne: as he tells the Asgardians, he is pledged to protect both his paternal legacy (Asgard) and that of his mother (Midgard), referred to here as "Jord." The latter duty requires too much of his time to rule. We learned in Mark Gruenwald's Thor 300 that Thor's mother was Gaea (in Greek mythology, the Earth Goddess and consort of Uranus). Gruenwald must have known that in Norse mythology Thor's mother is Jord (also an Earth Goddess), but since "Gaea" had already been introduced into the Marvel Universe at an earlier date he seems to have gone with the Greek personification so as to prevent confusion. It was Gruenwald, of course, who had given Walt carte blanche to do as he wished with Thor; little details like the name change show how much more seriously Walt was committed to the Norse source material and set his work apart from what came before.
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