Thor: The Dark World #1 & #2 Prequels Review

Thor: The Dark World Prelude #1 & #2 Review

By: Jay 

Marvel’s next sequel, Thor: The Dark World isn’t set to hit theaters until November 8^th 2013, but Marvel wants to cash in on the Summer Movie meal ticket by releasing its 2-issue Prelude comic. Are these comics worth it? Do they get you excited for Thor: The Dark World? I read both and I’ll let you know my opinion. If you haven’t seen any Marvel Cinematic Universe movies since Thor, and don’t want any Spoilers for Avengers, or Thor: The Dark World do not proceed past the SPOILER WARNING image.

The bifrost is destroyed and Asgard is no longer connected to the Nine Realms. Loki is alive and is on Midgard with the one thing that can reunite Asgard and the Nine Realms again.

Christopher Yost and Graig Kyle are the writers for both of these tie-in issues and they do a good job catching the reader up on what has happened since the end of Thor. For the majority of the two issues we get a Thor-centric view on the events of the Avengers.

There are three parts to the story. The first half of the first issue deals with the aftermath of the end of Thor. We see what Thor destroying the bifrost bridge caused not just Asgard but the rest of the Nine Realms and the universe itself. Jane’s story is also continued as she tries to use science to reconnect with Thor while holding onto the hope that he will return to her. The second half of the first issue and as well as the majority of the second issue gives us some Thor-centric deleted scenes from the Avengers, with the rest of issue two being a set up for the Thor sequel.

Yost and Kyle added some nice scenes in there, especially the scene between Thor and Iron Man with Tony comparing them to Game of Thrones and Mad Men respectively. We also got some nice progression of Jane’s character. We get to see some of what she has been thinking and how she felt during the Avengers, which I have a feeling we will see in the sequel itself. We also might have been given a hint at characters that could pop up in the Guardians of The Galaxy.

Each issue has its own artist with Scot Eaton doing the pencils on the first issue and Ron Lim doing them for the second issue. I have to give credit to the inker Andrew Hennessy who inked the first issue alone and was joined by Rick Magyar for the second issue. They really made the two artists individual issues flow together nicely. With those props given to the inkers, the pencilers also did a really good job. There are some really beautiful scenes that look like they could have popped out of the Thor Movie. While they got some of the majesty of the movie in these issues, they lacked the capturing of the actors. There wasn’t enough details to make me really connect these characters to the movie, which a prequel, or movie adaptation should do.

A prequel should do three things:

1.)    Prepare you for the movie.

2.)    Give you insight into what the feel of the movie will be.

3.)    Most importantly get you hyped to see the movie NOW.

Overall I liked these issues I thought they were solid, but they didn’t do what they should have done. They were entertaining but they only gave us a little insight into what Thor: The Dark World will be about, and left me feeling more like I read deleted scenes from the Avengers than a Thor prequel. With a combined price tag of $5.98 ($2.99 each) Marvel is really trying to drain fans by giving us a two-issue Avengers padded Thor prequel that could have been trimmed down into one issue. If they would have done that and actually prepared us for Thor: The Dark World I would recommend this, but given that it is a one-issue story padded and stretched out to fit two issues just to drain fan’s pockets I have to recommend not picking up these books. 

That is what I think about this book. Let us know what you think about Thor: The Dark World Prequel #1 & #2 in the comments. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to know whenever we post more previews, reviews, news and interviews on Comic Frontline.