Comic book legend Walter Simonson returns to the title he is probably best known for to provide a variant cover for the last issue of The Mighty Thor.
In today’s world of relaunches, reboots and exclusive contracts, finding a creator who latches onto a single title and stays for an extended length of time is a very rare occurrence.
It still happens, such as Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley on over 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Dan Slott’s decade long run on Amazing Spider-Man and of course Peter David’s legendary run chronicling the life of The Incredible Hulk.
Unfortunately for readers, those are the exceptions and not the rule.
Thankfully, another exception is Jason Aaron’s current work writing the adventures of the Mighty Thor. Over the course of several volumes, first issues and title changes, Aaron has been telling a single amazing story of the God of Thunder with more twists and turns than you can count. That story reaches a major turning point in Wednesday’s The Mighty Thor #705, which sees the final battle between Jane Foster and Mangog play out with devastating consequences not just for Foster, but the Thor mythos as a whole.
With the final issue of the current run scheduled to go on sale next month and serve as the finale of the “Death of the Mighty Thor” arc, it seemed only appropriate that Marvel would ask a comic legend who knows a thing or two about Thor to provide a variant cover.
If you consider yourself a Thor fan and have never read Walter Simonson’s classic run from the 1980s, then we can no longer be friends. It ranks right up there with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four and Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans in terms of the best of what the medium of comic books has to offer.
Yes, it really is that good.
And so the fact Marvel would ask Simonson to provide a cover for The Mighty Thor #706 seems like a no brainer. And ironically, as pointed out by Thor editor Wil Moss in a statement, it actually features two characters Simonson has never drawn before.
“We’re honored to have legendary Thor writer and artist Walter Simonson provide this variant cover for the finale of ‘The Death Of The Mighty Thor,’ This is actually his first time drawing Jane Thor and the Mangog, a classic Thor villain from the Jack Kirby and Stan Lee era that he never go the chance to draw before.”
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If all variant covers were this special, maybe more people would actually seek them out.
The Mighty Thor #706, written by Aaron with art and regular cover by Russell Dauterman, goes on sale in comic shops and digitally on April 18.
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