COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Thor 337 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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1000058004
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Owner:
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Thorseface
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Thor no. 337: "Doom"
Publication date: November 10, 1983
Signed by Walt Simonson on 10/10/09, by Stan Lee on 11/23/09.
Census: As of 6/13/23 the census lists three copies of 337 in 9.9 One of the 9.9 copies is signed, I think by Stan only. No change since last year.
There are now 1,610 copies of 337 in 9.8 (up from 1,513 this time last year). Of the 9.8s, 214 are signed (up from 208). I've seen one or two of these with three signatures (Jim Shooter with Walt and Stan, I think, maybe with a remarque). Mad respect. There are now 84 Canadian 9.8s (up from 76), with 3 signed (no change).
Writer, penciler, inker: Simonson
Letterer: Workman
Colorist: George Roussos (NB: I'll be giving only the names of the original colorists; some of the images I provide are screenshots from a digital version of the recolored Omnibus editions, in which case the work is that of Steve Oliff and Olyoptics 2.0. The recoloring was not without controversy: https://comicbook.com/news/comics-great-walter-simonson-defends-recolored-reprint-editions/)
Favorite line and some thoughts:
"I do not understand the demon's transformation...but it would be unwise to question a gift horse too closely."
-Beta Ray Bill, standing over the unconscious body of Blake
It's difficult to do justice to how dramatic a break this issue was from what preceded it...apart from the obvious--the famous cover in which Bill, decked out in Thor gear, destroys the title's traditional trade dress with Mjolnir--Walt summarily disposed of the Chicago storyline and signaled the development of a new psychological depth for characters like Sif and Balder. The visuals are, of course, amazing. The introduction of Loki’s mountaintop fortress, which resembles a Norwegian stave church, anticipates Walt’s transformation of Asgard into a place where one believes ancient Viking God’s might actually live (with all due respect to the traditional Nordic Dubai created by Kirby, which according to one bonus map even featured a shopping mall). All of this, and the rather on the nose Father and Son relationship signaled in the last panels (Odin has "forsaken" Thor, the outstretched arms of Don Blake yelling "Father") is in keeping with the more theological / mythological approach for which Simonson is famous. Indeed, Surtur, who was in many ways just another clowny villain prior to this issue, is presented as the ancient force of nature that he is in Norse mythology, one poised to play something much more like his traditional role in Ragnarok. And again, everything looks AMAZING. The dramatically foreshortened SHIELD helicarrier and Skutllebutt (the name, we will learn, of Bill's sentient ship) profit from Walt's earlier work on Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Walt’s linear graphic style, developed over the course of his early career, is here at full power.
For collectors, this is an interesting book where the "Newsstand" question is concerned. The bar code copies tend to command a higher price but, as is occasionally observed in online forums, they seem more numerous than the direct market copies. An ebay search for "Thor 337" (slabbed or unslabbed) on any given day will typically yield a larger number of bar code copies. All of this seems to confirm what Walt has always said about this book, i.e. that its popularity came as a surprise to the direct market retailers. Accustomed to poor Thor sales the comic shops hadn't placed big orders for 337 and were caught with their pants down. According to Walt (and others) the retailers raided all of the newsstand copies, which possibly represent a greater proportion of the overall print run. Fun fact: you can spot a copy on the wall in the comic book shop in 1987's The Lost Boys. Whether the copy shows a Spidey or a bar code is hard to tell. Maybe teen idol Corey Feldman knows.
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