Roy Thomas, Keith Pollard, Chic Stone and Carl Gafford, The Mighty Thor #299, p. 1, cover date September 1980, in Thor: The Eternals Saga Vol.2 (New York: Marvel Publishing, 2007, p.134).
Based on Norse mythology, the comic-book character The Mighty Thor was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first published by Marvel Comics in 1962. The character has been variously referred to in Thor comics as ‘Goldmane’, ‘a godling’, ‘the offal of Asgard’, a ‘molecular rearranger’, ‘Lord of the Living Lightning’ and ‘Master of the Shrieking Storm Winds’ as well as the nickname ‘Goldilocks’ from Stan Lee.
Roy Thomas, principal writer and editor of this collection of issues No. 292-301 Thor: The Eternals Saga, commented on the character’s design:
[...] Thor was handsome. Handsome, hell-he was darn near beautiful, if that word can be applied to a super hero. His face and form were those of an idealized Adonis or Hercules, the flaring white wings on his helmet were as graceful as a true hawk’s, and his flowing golden hair swirled in the winds he created with his hammer.” (Thomas 2006: 38)
As the image above reveals, Thor has no hammer in issue No. 299 (2007, 134) of the saga, “Passions And Potions” an adaptation of Götterdämmerung or Twilight of the Gods from Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung cycle of four operas. He plays Siegfried, not a god but a man, his lady friend Sif is Brunnhilda, and his enchanted hammer Mjolnir is swapped for a sword named Needful. The sword is invincible but the man is mortal. The setting is not Asgard but an alternative universe down the Rainbow Bridge called Midgard, or Earth, in that part called Germany where along the River Rhine Thor, sorry Siegfried, meets up with the Rhinemaidens guarding the Rhinegold.
I can hear the spoiler alert chimes ringing so I won’t divulge any further plot details apart from the fact that in other chapters in this collection Thor’s secret identity of Dr. Donald Blake is referred to and there are scenes of dragon slaying, meetings with the Avengers and the Celestials, and frequent action sequences. This is opera seria (tragedy) not buffa (comedy) without music and dancing.
The story starts with a splash page, a formal comics storytelling device defined in The World Encyclopedia of Comics as “the establishing panel, covering an entire page in a comic book story; also called a bleed panel.” (Horn 1976: 735) The splash page was subsequently described by Will Eisner as
an introduction… a launching pad for the narrative [that] seizes the reader’s attention and prepares his attitude for the events to follow [and that] becomes a ‘splash’ page proper rather than simply a ‘first page’ when the artist designs it as a decorative unit.” (Eisner 2008: 64)
The splash page generally works as a substitute for the standard grid layout of comics page design for although it may contain multiple images these are most often fused into a single form. Eisner also argued the ” two frames” to a page claim that is made up of a panel on the page plus the page layout as a whole. (Eisner 2008: 41) Here the singular full page panel becomes the page apart from the gutter and the page number. There is no panel bleed.
The page has been graphically orchestrated by the artists Keith Pollard and Chic Stone and the colourist Carl Gafford and meets Eisner’s expectation of a splash page. The characters stand on a rock ledge enveloped in pink and orange flames in a dramatic moment. Siegfried confidently and defiantly holds his sword aloft. The line marking the edge of the sword forms a neat elision and merging with the edge of a larger image of Siegfried’s helmet. There is no panel border between these two images of differing scales within the one panel with the result that the singularity of the splash panel is preserved and the grid layout ignored. On each of the remaining sixteen pages of the issue, however, the comics grid returns.
Siegfried has fallen in love with Brunnhilda. His raised sword forms a neat boundary line on which to hang a larger image of his face in a romantic, heroic manner. The Eye of Odin looks on and, as if acknowledging the serial nature of comics, some summarising of the story so far is provided in a caption above the image for the edification of new readers and as a memory jog for continuing readers.
Thus this splash panel not only points to forward developments as Eisner asserts but also backwards to what has already taken placed. It also contains speech balloons, the chapter title, creator credits and a reference to Wagner’s opera in adition to a banner headline for The Mighty Thor! All of these decorative graphic and textual elements fit together to form the splash panel that takes up an entire page and which points to the characters and drama that follows.
Thor’s role as Siegfried and his experience of Ragnorok sit within that enduring comics genres, the superhero. In his study of that genre Gerard Jones concluded: “…after nearly seventy years, the comic book superheroes are still flying through the movie theaters, TV screens, video game consoles, and toy stores of the world.” (Jones 2004: 339) Make that fifty years in Thor’s case. The franchise has had a recent film, game, comic, figure and merchandise release, continuing the creative development not only of Norse but also of Marvel mythology.
REFERENCES
Brevoort, T., DeFalco, T., Manning, M.K. and Sanderson, P. (2008) Marvel Chronicle: A Year By Year History (London: Dorling Kindersley)
Eisner, W. (2008) [1985] Comics & Sequential Art (New York: W.W. Norton)
Horn, M. (ed.)(1976) The World Encyclopedia of Comics (London: New English Library)
Jones, G. (2004) Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (New York: Basic Books)
Thomas, R. (2006) Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe (New York: Sterling Publishing)
Thomas, R., Macchio, R., Gruenwald, M. et al (2007) Thor: The Eternals Saga Vol. 2 (New York: Marvel Publishing)
ADDITIONAL LINKS
On the two types of opera, a good reference is The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, now available online through Oxford Music Online. A subscription is required; some university and public libraries may hold one.
Interesting piece — I really enjoyed P. Craig Russell’s adaptation of the Ring Cycle, so I may have to hunt down a copy of this to satisfy my curiosity.
One point of clarification: the terms “opera seria” and “opera buffa” are generally applied to styles of Italian opera that were popular across Europe in the eighteenth century, and are not used to characterize Wagner’s operas, which are very different animals. Wagner preferred the term “music drama” to describe his style of composition, as his melodic lines aren’t constrained by the song forms that were ubiquitous in Baroque and Classical opera.
Thanks for the clarification Katherine. I knew that those were Italian terms and used generically to describe types of opera but didn’t know that Wagner had his own term of preference.
In following your curiosity the other opera related issues in this series are:
Issue #293 Mar 1980 “Twilight Of Some Gods”
Issue #296 Jun 1980 “From Valhalla..A Valkyrie!”
Issue #297 Jul 1980 “The Sword Of Siegfried!”
Issue #300 Oct 1980 “Twilight Of The Gods!”
All are collected in Thor: The Eternals Saga Vol. 2.
I hope you find them both interesting and amusing.
Thanks for the list, Michael! I’m sure I will find these very entertaining.
You’re welcome Katherine, and I hope so.
So many interesting things going on in this page! I’ve always admired the opening pages of many Marvel comics from the late 60s and 70s, to my eyes heirs to the tradition of the illuminated manuscript. This page offers at least seven different ways in which text is part of the graphic image here, and how ancillary editorial text blends in with the narrative/descriptive and dialogical. The opposition between the strictly diegetic and what would be extra-diegetic is deconstructed (for lack of better word) through their integration in a wholesome text (the page), where images and text are of equal –yet differentiated– importance.
Consider for example this miniature from the Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis, originally published/produced in the end of the 14th century. The framed image (a panel indeed) brings together two different columns of handwritten text, and though the illustration is clearly localised by its frame, the banner bleeds out of it to blend in with the text against the space of the text.
Something similar though clearly distinct happens in this other miniature painting from a 17th century manuscript of the epic poem of Shahnama (Isfahan, Iran, 1630-1640). The tree performs a similar function than the banner in the French miniature I referenced above, but in this case it is the handwritten text which is inside sequential, quadrangular framed panels, juxtaposed with the graphic image. Note how the left feet of the demon Akwan clearly steps on/in the last framed panel of text in the lower right corner of the page. The text is clearly part of the action depicted by the image; the image is part of the action described/narrated by the text.
These two examples from two different cultures and times are examples of how the page as a delimited physical space works as a canvas for the juxtaposition of two types of graphics, text and illustration. Like this page shown by Michael (and like several other pages by the likes of Jack Kirby et al), the elements of composition emphasise a blurring of writing and image which in turn provoke a juxtaposition of time and space.
Sorry for digressing a bit, but this is what Michael’s post made me think of after I first read it… Cheers.
That’s wonderful for you to mention illuminated manuscripts in this context, Ernesto! These definitely fit into the design development of comics. I vaguely recall a section of Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading that dealt with the visual and textual elements of illuminated manuscripts. What you are describing fits within the discipline of visual communication. Word and image are combined to construct the overall design. Words can potentially play a visual role by virtue of the selection of their shape, scale and colour. Even the choice of font of simple textual elements may have a visual impact. And once combined with the image the reader’s eye can wander back and forth from type to illustration in attempting to comprehend the meaning of the panel or page. The use of the combination of word and image is particulary impressive when either element is unable to carry the meaning alone i.e. when covering the text or image renders the panel or page incomprehensible. It’s a fascinating aspect of the construction and reading comics.
Roz Kaveney has also pointed out the similarities between superhero comics and opera:
“Both are radically impure forms based on some fundamentally absurd conventions; both are irritating if one does not develop a taste for preposterous rodomontade and brightly coloured costumes. Both of them can do certain things that other art forms can only do with great difficulty; comics and opera can slow narrative time down while moving it forward at a steady pulse [...] Both forms can give you, effectively and without implicit comedy, the thought processes of both parties in a dialogue, or a clear sense of what someone is saying at the same time in a complex scene [...] At their best, both can portray immense emotions played out on vast canvases, and yet be capable of dropping to pianissimo in a second when it is needed.”
“Superheroes! Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Film” (London: I.B. Tauris 2008, pp. 22-23).
That’s a useful passage you have found there Tony. I think Kaveney’s claims have some resonance here. When I first saw this Thor story, “Passions And Potions”, I was both amazed and amused to learn that it was an adaptation of an opera, especially of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. Marvel doing Wagner! Absurd, but there we have Thor playing the role of Siegfried as if an actor in a theatrical production. He wears a “brightly coloured costume” (bright red, blue and yellow), observes the “fundamentally absurd conventions” of the superhero wearing cloak and tights and assuming a secret identity (Siegfried not Thor), changes his main prop for this particular performance, a sword instead of a hammer. And the emotions are “immense” ranging across jealousy, infidelity, betrayal and loss. There is more economy with time in this case, however, with the comic capable of being measured in minutes but the opera in hours. I think there is potential for further application of Kaveney’s comments in a comparitive media study of opera and the comics superhero genre.