Thursday, April 12, 2007

Best cover EVER: Thor Corps #4


This is the best comic book cover ever.

Why?

  • The cover features all four members of The Thor Corps, (l to r) Beta Ray Bill, Thor, Thunderstrike, and Siegfried (sorry, Roy isn't a member of the Thor Corps, he's leader of the Roy Patrol)
  • High-fivin' with enchanted hammers? That's awesome.
  • The Thors are in competition shape, all bulging and vascular and super-ripped and glisteny. It's like the cover of MuscleMag.
  • They have all shaved their arm pits. Which, come on, is really weird. Viking heroes who shave their armpit hair? (hello Google users!) Nuh uh.
  • Don't the Thors look like they're having a good time? They look like they all could either be yelling "For ASGARD!!!" or "GO RED SOX!!! FUCK YEAH!! NUMBER ONE!!!" Especially Siegfried over there on the right, he is just stoked to be there. I guess it would be pretty fun to summon lightning and shit with your hammer.
  • They've all got big knee-pad boots, one of the must-have superhero accessories in the Nineties. All the cool Asgardians wore them.

37 comments:

Zaratustra said...

That'd be a good cover for a 80's hair band record.

In fact, I think it was.

Anonymous said...

Knee pads!!!

Anonymous said...

It's a KISS Elseworlds story.

Or something.

Bill Reed said...

Luckily, the interior art was by Pat Oliffe, and it was actually a pretty fun story.

bucky said...

Yeah you know what those kneepads are for, I wonder if they also carry chapstick with them?

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

I was going to say that it looks like a rock band.

I'll add to it by saying that it looks like 4 pro wreslters got stuck in Brundlefly's teleporter with a rock band.

Jeff said...

This needs to come back as one of the 50 State Initiative teams. Made up of Thor robot clones.

Unknown said...

gaThat cover belongs on the side of a van. "The Thor Wagon: Come in and get hammered"

Anonymous said...

I don't know, it kinda looks like they're all laughing at the most hysterical joke ever and they can't help but grin.

Did someone actually paint that thing? I imagine it must be the centerpiece in that artist's art gallery.

Unknown said...

They do look like they're having a good time, but look at Beta Ray Bill. He's looking at the reader, with an "Oh shit, I hope my friends don't see this" look.

Anonymous said...

I think I hear that "You got the touch/You got the power..." (of Thor) song playing in the background.

Actually, the knee pads in the 90s were "Health & Wellness"-type response to the vast number of Marvel characters that suffered knee injuries in the 80s. That's actually what happened to all of the people that Scourge killed--they had to be put down, just like horses and Old Yeller. Very sad. You'd wear knee pads too, if the alternative was "pum-SPAK!"

Anonymous said...

Looks like a Molly Hatchet album cover. You know vikings gotta dig Southern Rock. They're all yelling, "Verily, 'Freebird'!" and "By my cousin's gnarly hump, playeth thou 'Whipping Post'!" And those hammers? Hollowed out and filled with Old Milwaukee.

Anyhow, that fourth Thor is the Thor ... FROM THE FUTURE ... from a fill-in issue way back in the '80s, right? That was a weird little story, and if I recall, it's got nothing to do with the 2099 bunch or any of Marvel's other super-hero futures. That's a weird idea: every so often, something snaps in a bunch of folks' heads and they run around in spandex. And then everyone forgets.

Anonymous said...

Yep, that's Dargo Ktor, the Thor of the future. And his mullet of the future.

Anonymous said...

Kneepads...hammers...

Maybe they're just getting ready to renovate a house?

Anonymous said...

I think the KISS "Destroyer" album cover minted the knee pad and shoulder armor combo.ryzgnc

Tyson said...

I think I saw these guys chugging beers and hanging out at an Yngwie Malmsteen show a couple of years ago. They pretty much had the same poses and expressions during Yngwie's solo for "I Am A Viking". (And why wouldn't they?)

Bully said...

"What If: Whitesnake Went Up In Reed Richards's Rocket Instead of the Fantastic Four?"

Lewis Lovhaug said...

The title's like something a professional wrestler would be saying. I have this image of Hulk Hogan flexing his muscles and screaming, "Are you ready for the THOR CORPS!?"

If I may ask, how are the contents of THOR CORPS?

Anonymous said...

Um... does anyone else feel the artist spent a little too much time lovingly detailing the um... the... Thor-ness of these heroes in the area just south of their golden belts?

Unknown said...

erm... Dave, this is a joke, right? That cover looks quite gay to me.
No offense, if it's not a joke.

keny said...

This cover should be used the next time Dave needs a "fuck yeah!" picture.

And I second the motion asking about the contents of this mag.

Anonymous said...

Bully, you rule!
LOL

Chris said...

um...couldn't help but notice that all the Thors have a "package" - and a lovingly rendered one at that - except for BRB who appears to have a cameltoe. What's up with that?

Anonymous said...

matt t. --- "Verily, Freebird!"-- I choked on my sandwich i laughed so hard. it kinda hurt. like Freebird.

Phillip said...

Contents = crap. Seriously. Also, I have to say I noticed BRB's cameltoe as well. I guess he's not all horse, huh?

Devon Sanders said...

The only thing missing is a roadie picking Beta Ray Bill up off the stage floor.

JohnF said...

Eric Masterson's buttcheek.
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT!!!

Anonymous said...

John Foley said...
Eric Masterson's buttcheek.
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT!!!


Holy crap! What the hell is that thing, a midget hiding in the seat of his pants, or a giant Asgardian ass tumor?! Whatever it is, it's all kinda wrong. And Thor has one too.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that if it's apparently all right to show underage (well, even though they're all clearly in their 30s) schoolgirls in the nude in Mantra it should be okay to show clearly-defined packages in THOR CORPS!

Jeez, I can't say THOR CORPS! without capitalizing it and yelling it at the top of my lungs.

Anonymous said...

That is soooo Manowar !

Thor the mighty, Thor the brave
Crush the infidels in your way
By your hammer let none be saved
Live to die on that final day
Gods, monsters and men
We'll die together in the end !

\m/

Chris Arndt said...

I'm just going to stop everyone to point out that the dude we refer(red) to as "Siegfried" is actually named Dargo.

What isn't interesting to anyone except to me (which is why we are indulging in this: we, not just me, because it interests me) is that when I first saw this cover and I saw the blurb, telling the names of the Thors in the Corps, I wasn't yet familiar with Beta Ray Bill yet and I certainly knew Thunderstrike as the class-b Thor, much like Captain America had his understudy, Iron Man had his Rhodey and eventually Spidey grew a clone.

So I didn't know what name belonged to what freak aside from Thor is Thor and Thunderstrike has that beard and horrible jacketthing.

So I thought Dargo was Beta Ray Bill, because an alien-sounding name belonged to an alien-looking freak, and "Beta Ray Bill" sounds like a nickname some future human dude would have. Given the irreverence.

Why would an alien be named "Bill"? After all.

Then I figured it out much, much later.

Walt Simonson is a genius. Of course the alien freak is named "Bill".

Who Dargo Ktor is does not really matter. At all. But someone cares who the "Hammer Brothers" are: http://www.marvel.com/universe/Thor_Corps

Interesting: "the Thor Corps used the awesome powers contained within their enchanted hammers to prevent the end of all reality."

You never mentioned this, Dave. A temporary curse upon ye.

Anonymous said...

I think the weird ass-cheek thing indicates that Thor and Thunderstrike are about to devastate some poor bastard with the Asgardian version of the Flying Butt Pliers.

Personally, I hope it's Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man.

Tyrell Cannon said...

"I love what you do for me, THORyota!"

She-Hulk's Bitch said...

ahh no...

William said...

It can't truly work, I believe like this.
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Sina said...

Where's Puddleglulp? :/ AKA: Throg, tha Frog of Thunder? :D Verily, weilding his mighty hammer-chip off the old block of Mjolnir (...*literally*! :P ) known as the tremendous & sky-shattering Frogolnir, the Mighty & Venerable heroic champion, Throg, also known as humble Puddleglulp, son of Simon Walterson (adopted, from the pet store...i don't care what canon contunuity says, Puddleglulp was an honest frog born of the nurturing mother earth Gaia like all frogs noble & true n' merely had a human scion for his companion prior to becoming the sky-shaking Frog of Thunder :D ) would make for a fine & worthy addition to this gathering of Thor Corps! :) For Gaia! For Asgard! For the Burning Galaxy! For the 26th Century! For Central Park Pond! B)

Sina said...

Something tells me *everything* looks quite gay to you :)