Chris Samnee

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

After reading and enjoying the Walter Simonson Mighty Thor, I picked up some more interesting-sounding Thor comics, the first of which was this set of nine single-issue stories by Roger Langridge (of Smithson and Doctor Who Magazine fame) and Chris Samnee (who would later illustrate a highly acclaimed run on Daredevil). This is pure comics, everything I want a superhero story to be. Fun but with a serious substrate, show more character driven, fast. In these stories, Thor comes to Earth for the first time, meeting Jane Foster, who is these stories is a museum curator. He's been exiled by his father-- but he doesn't know why, making it hard to redeem itself.

As he settles into life on Earth, he defends women against creeps, goes out drinking with the Warriors Three and meets Captain Britain, tries to confront Heimdall, battles dinosaurs with Captain America, meets other Avengers like Ant-Man and Iron Man, and falls in love with a human. Each story is entertaining on its own, but clearly also building up to a bigger thing. Part of a continuity all its own, it avoids much of the gloom and mediocrity that pervade contemporary superhero comics. The art is gorgeous, and makes you love Thor all over again. I have never been as interested in or charmed by Jane as I was here.

The crime, of course, is that continuity-free superhero comics don't sell. This is a distillation of the best of Thor and Marvel, but that's not what the market wants, and thus this was cancelled after eight issues plus a Free Comic Book Day tale. The eighth issue wraps up some of the strands, but there was clearly more story to be told-- that never will be. This is disappointing but not so disappointing that I would recommend against the book. If you want fun, funny, epic, charming Thor comics, pick this up. show less

This tells the story of Thor, who has been banished to Earth by his father Odin until he learns some humility. While various versions of this story have been told in comics ever since Thor was introduced to Marvel Comics (and yet another version makes up the story of the film Thor), this book manages to feel fresh and new. Thor is honorable, yet still a little immature. He is hyperfocused on getting back to Asgard, and trying to figure out why he was banished in the first place (he’s show more experiencing some amnesia). In the meantime, he meets Jane Foster, a curator at an Oklahoma museum, gets a few visits from home, brawls with Captain Britain at a pub, tangles with Namor the Sub-Mariner (whom I always have trouble taking seriously because of those silly wings on his ankles), and learns the true identity of Iron Man.
The colors are bright and the artwork is deceptively simple. I can’t praise Samnee and Wilson enough for bringing this story to life visually. There were moments that made me laugh out loud, and others where I truly felt sorry for Thor and his plight. Poor fella just wants to go home. I particularly enjoyed that any time Loki showed up he mentioned that he had learned a new trick by reading a book he shouldn’t have been reading. This makes me wonder about the libraries in Asgard. Is there a restricted section in the palace library, like at Hogwarts (I am of course assuming that the Asgardian royal palace has a library, because if it doesn’t, then it’s hardly a palace I’d want to visit). And if there is a restricted section, why would Loki, a prince of Asgard, not have ready access to it simply by virtue of his rank in Asgardian society? I’m thinking too hard about this, I’m sure, but that’s the fun of comics, isn’t it?
If you’ve read a bunch of Thor comics, then you must be sure not to miss this one. If you’ve only seen the movies or only have a passing acquaintance with Marvel comics Thor, then you will enjoy this book. It’s an easy jumping-on point, and gets to the heart of the characters pretty quickly. Have fun! show less

Summary: The untimely cancellation of Firefly left fans with a lot of questions unanswered. Some of these were dealt with in Serenity, but Shepherd Book's origin story remained mysterious. What did he do before becoming a Shepherd? How does he know so much about weaponry and tactics? Why does the Alliance defer to him once they scan his ident card in the episode "Safe"? This short graphic novel attempts to answer all of these questions and more, starting at that fateful day on Haven, and show more working backwards through time, looking at the key events that set Book on his life's path.

Review: I wish I hadn't read this. I am a huge Firefly fan, so I couldn't help myself... but once I had, I wished I hadn't. Not that it was bad. The story itself was solid, and showed believable character growth (or character reduction, since it's moving backwards in time?) that explains how Book got to here from there.

But. There's a but. While I was as curious as anyone about Book's past, I actually liked the fact that it was left mysterious. Whether or not Joss would have revealed which pieces of it if the series had been allowed to continue is a matter of pure speculation at this point. But I thought that the exchange between Mal and Book in the movie Serenity kind of put paid to the issue.

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It's of interest to me how much you seem to know about that world.
Shepherd Book: I wasn't born a shepherd, Mal.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You have to tell me about that sometime.
Shepherd Book: [pause] No, I don't.

Some things remain mysterious, and we don't always get our questions answered. And I was okay with that. And the problem I had with this book is that fans have had so long to speculate, that to be provided the answers flat out, in this very short book, felt anticlimactic and not entirely satisfying, relative to the possible answers that I'd imagined. (Plus, either I missed something, or the backstory as given here doesn't really gel with the fact that the Alliance would instantly render help to the point of letting the Serenity go without inspection upon seeing Book's ID, as established in the series.)

The art in this one was kind of a mixed bag. Book himself is really well done, and the backwards aging is nicely handled; even though the art is relatively simple, you can still see aspects of older Book in the younger versions. The other characters don't fare as well; they're only present briefly, but are typically recognizable only by their clothes. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: For Firefly fans only. And even there, I'd say only for Firefly fans who really want the official answers about Shepherd Book. While it wasn't bad on its own merits, I personally preferred the ambiguity. show less

I can't believe it took me nine years to get my hands on this!!

As a big Firefly fan, for me the most frustrating thing about the show's far-too-short lifespan, was that we never found out anything about Shepherd Book's past.

While it would have been far, far better to have had the late Ron Glass provide us with the answers in another season or four of Firefly, this graphic novel does at least answer some of the questions we'd all been left with. I think it still doesn't quite explain the VIP show more treatment Book got on the Alliance ship when he was injured, but I guess a fake ID of some sort for just such an occasion wouldn't have been entirely out of character...

The jump-backwards format that Zack Whedon chose to tell this story became more interesting and appropriate with each jump. I think a linear-forwards type tale, starting at childhood, wouldn't have had the same impact, and certainly would have been less interesting. as it was, with each new jump, it left me wondering how he had come to be in that situation, which would lead to an "ah!" moment in the next jump, followed by the next question.

I enjoyed it very much. show less