While you make a fair, understandable point, Dread, I cant say I agree with you. I have often said that, with this run on Thor, it seems like JMS is aspiring to construct a Shakespearian tragedy in the guise of a Marvel Comic. And, of course, if you look at Shakespeares tragedies, you will see similar such contrivance. But Othello is not an idiot for believing Iago is his friend, nor is Hamlet stupid for failing to kill King Claudius when he is repeatedly given the opportunity to do so, instead waiting until he has lost everything and faces certain death. What makes these characters tragic heroes is that they are undone by their own goodness, fate and villainy turning their greatest strengths into fatal flaws. And it would appear JMS intends for the same to be said of Thor, and even Balder, in how Loki gains the titular victory over both of them.
I think its a narrow perception of the story to say Thor is duped by Loki or Balder is now on Lokis side and has turned against Thor. Neither of these is the case. Thor makes it very clear that he sees through Lokis charade. He even hits home this idea by, I believe, repeating the promise of fire and darkness that he vowed Loki would face if she betrayed him again, back in #5. Balder too, though he might not KNOW it as Thor does, at least suspects foul play from Loki. This is made abundantly clear when he attacks Loki after Thors banishment, and condemns her black tongue. Thor is no idiot. Balder is no idiot.
But the crucial issue that is being overlooked in this discussion thus far is exactly who Loki is talking to when she gives her speech about the ancient rule of Asgard, and questions if Thor should be considered above the law. She might be talking about Thor, and she might be addressing Balder, but she is directing her speech at neither. Her speech is in fact intended for the assembled masses of Asgard that fill the Great Hall during Thors trial. Its easy to miss them, as they are never the focus of any panel, merely appearing in silhouette. If anyone could be accused of idiocy or gullibility in this situation, it would be them. Weve seen in previous issues that they are stewing under Thors reign, that they are discontent with their situation. Loki has put careful work into fuelling those fires of disillusion. And now she has gathered them all, all these people who do not know the first-hand context of the situation, all these people who do not know how Thor had no choice but to take lethal action, all these people who simply know Thor long known as an arrogant hothead in his youth, now seen as at least an inferior king to Odin has killed Bor, first King of Asgard. And before them all, Loki now asks Thor and Balder if they will respect the law they swore to uphold.
And this is where Loki defeats Thor and Balder. Not through deceiving them, but by outplaying them. She takes their inherent virtues, and uses them as weapons against them. Say what you want about mitigating circumstances, Thor killed Bor. Thor knows that, however justified he may be in pointing the finger of blame at Loki, with the way Loki has framed the situation, any denial of guilt on his part will be seen by the populace of Asgard as flouting their rules for his own ends. Loki knows he knows, and relishes it. She has him nailed to the wall. Because after hes fought so hard to restore Asgard, and rebuild their community, he is not going to risk tearing it apart through civil unrest. His hands are tied.
Nevertheless, you can tell that Balder, if Thor had asked, would have risen to his defence. Its not like Balders suddenly all like Damn you, Thor, you traitor, you scum! Youre the only one I can trust now, Loki! Thor essentially falls on his own sword for Balder. He knows that, even if he were not banished for killing Bor, his days as a beloved, trusted leader in Asgard are over, he can not be the strong leader they need. Balder can. Thor knows a leader is what Asgard needs, even if it cant be him. So, like I say, Thor falls on his sword with that big speech where he accepts his fate. And with that speech done, Loki turns her focus to Balder, and the populations eyes are on him. Now that Thor has passed the crown to him, is he going to appear inconsistent or indecisive? If he makes a ruling that favours his friend, his leadership credibility too is compromised before all of Asgard. So, with Thors acceptance, he makes the only ruling the cards dealt to him by Loki allow him to make. His hands, too, are tied.
This is not to say Balder is infallible. It is clear his will is weaker than Thors, that he will be a weaker king than Thor. And Loki is busy at work battling at Balders defences, trying her utmost to poison Thor in his mind, plant seeds of doubt in his thoughts. For now, he is resisting, but should he ultimately be swayed against Thor, all this groundwork means it will be a credible transformation, rather than simply a contrived plot device.
And THANOSRULES, JMS knew we would all see through any attempt to portray Loki as "good" from a mile off, and any surprise "she was evil all along!" twist would be utterly telegraph. So he wisely bypassed all that and let us see right from the get go she was her old evil self, even while this was kept secret from the rest of the story's cast. Dramatic irony, another device of Shakespearian tragedy.
I'm cool with disagreeing with me. I just have some problems with some of your points, too.
Namely, Shakespeare did not establish back stories and prior plays with a cast of characters across 40+ years of time to set up various dynamics. It is easier to allow for some contrivances in a one shot play, especially one that is over 400 years old (and had to entertain elites and peasants alike) than to allow it for a canonical story starring interrelated characters and enemies after nearly a half century when a lot of that material gives cause to a concern about the contrivance. Odin bent the rules for the greater good many times. He was often away from Asgard on sleeping spells or seemingly killed or whatever and forced Thor and the others to step up. Loki has proven time and again to be Asgard's, ANY Asgard's, main threat. It isn't simply something that happens in one play, with only a few lines as backstory. This is part of a 600 issue serial. After 600 issues, Thor, Balder, and Asgard have allowed themselves to be outwitted by Loki as if it was issue #1. As if they knew no better, and had no recent evidence. Four years is a long time in Asgard, I guess. That was the last time Loki tried to kill them all.
The "assembled masses" of Asgard must have short memories if they so blindly trust Loki. Ideally, Thor hasn't be a perfect king; Odin only had about 5,000 years, while he only a few. But to throw their lot with their eternal villain seems daft, even for Asgardians who, under JMS' pen, seemed incapable of figuring out how to play a game that involved something other than drinking or killing. That is the logical hole. In order for Loki to be smart, everyone else has to be a fool, or at least gravely naive and short-sighted, and that is a detail that bothers me about the plot as a whole. It reminds me of those JLA stories where no one can have common sense but Batman, or those X-MEN cartoons where only Wolverine can be "cool" or competent or whatever.
Everyone said that all of the heroes and people willing to blindly follow Iron Man's fallacies in CW deserved their fate. Surely anyone who sees Bullseye and Norman Osborn as superheroes in the Marvel Universe deserves to be ****ed over in the end by them. Do the Asgardians equally deserve whatever fate Loki inevitably gives them, which usually equals attacks or death?
Loki is the PRINCE OF LIES. It says it in the ****ing title. It's like if your menace was named Captain Dog-Raper, and you allowed him into your home, and, hey, one day he raped your dog. Heavens, how could we not see this coming!? You have to be a fictional character or a total moron to give anyone with such a well known history and crimes the time of day, much less blind devotion. Asgardians may be warriors, but I never imagined them as total morons. Well, besides Volstagg.
Let me get this straight; for like a hundred years, especially within the last 15 or so, Loki has done everything superhumanly possible to destroy Asgard, or rule it, or kill Thor, or do any number of things in Asgard. He's destined to lead the way to the Ragnarok, and he has done so on many occasions, gleefully, even the MOST RECENT TIME. But, none of that matters now. Thor, who has been Asgard's defender for the longest time and is usually Odin's favorite, has a few months struggle running things on a new Asgard on a world they haven't all lived on before. Like scared rats, they all turn on him? That is what Thor sacrificed eternal peace to resurrect? That is what Thor just defended from the Skrulls? THEM!? They're suddenly no better than the Midguardian mortals who worship Norman Osborn more than they have ever worshiped a genuine hero just for shooting a Skrull in the head.
There is a line from a JLU episode called "The Question Authority" that was written by Dwayne McDuffie. The Question has a line, that I am going to paraphrase (by that I mean change two words):
Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics that are part of what it is. A is A, and no matter what reality he calls home, Loki is Loki." Had Thor, Balder, and the rest merely went with history and logic in that regard, Loki at the very least would have had to work harder to control them all.
And I disagree with JMS that having Loki "pretend to be good" would have been a problem. The devil is in the details and execution. As I and some other posters suggested, all Loki needed to do was pretend to be Sif. Just because JMS couldn't have thought of a good way doesn't mean it was impossible. Instead, he took the easy way out. Thor, Balder, Asgardians = Naive, stiff, with short memories. Loki = Brilliantly Clever. That it too simple, especially for a run that is acclaimed as the second coming.
I don't mind stories where the villain is cunning and manipulative, and manages to set up some good arcs and status quo shifts. I just grow irritated by stories where that only happens because the hero(es) have to basically allow it to happen by being overly rigid and with a short memory.
Balder doesn't "attack" Loki. He threatens Loki because the situation was trying on him and he was not in the mood for a snide gloat about Thor's exile. It was a mere break in Balder's tenure as Prince, which is to sit on the chair, let Loki do all the talking, and then agree to whatever Loki says.
The Asgardians KNOW, ALL OF THEM that Loki has and does use their rules against them. So does one adapt to that threat, or keep falling for the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!? Wasn't this about breaking cycles? How are they doing that if they refuse to get wise to their sole nemesis within their midst, who has been there since forever and has NEVER changed?
After the 1,000th time Superman takes the bait and opens that lead lined box or door, and is surprised to find Kryptonite there, it is no longer the villain being brilliant; it is Superman being stubborn, at best.
No, I refuse to think the story couldn't have been set up better to get to this point. That is the dilemma of good writers; you know they are good at what they do, and have written good stories. Hence, the flaws that even amateurs like me can see seem so glaring.
INCREDIBLE HERCULES' star is often dismissed as a drunken oversexed adventurer, but he seems to have more insight about this than some of the Asgardians; he is aware that because immortals never have to change, they often never do, repeating the same tired cycles because they remain constant in a changing world. If only Balder or some of the others were half as wise.
Plus, can't Thor use his "Odinpower" to uncover some of Loki's tricks? Odin magically knew plot convenient stuff all the time. Didn't he pluck out his eyes for wisdom and all that? Bah.
Speaking of calling bulls*** when Thor is being mistreated, I also saw Hulk vs. last night. First off, let me just say that the commentary track on Hulk vs. Thor is ******ed and it comes off pretty clearly that neither Kyle nor Yost knows a goddamn thing about Thor or his world except what they gleaned from probably like 5 or 6 of Simonson's issues. That said, the movie's not too bad as a movie. Outside of Thor predictably coming off like a drooling moron in his fights with the Hulk, it's almost enjoyable. It's certainly one of the better animated movies Marvel's put out, although that's not saying much. I enjoyed Hulk vs. Wolverine more, even though the plot is a little looser and sort of wanders a bit in that one. Deadpool is handled extremely well, which I was happy to see. He had some genuinely funny moments, which is all you can really ask for from the character. Some of his jokes felt forced, but outside of Joe Kelly's run, some of them always do. Kyle and Yost are clearly a lot more comfortable in the X-Men world, which makes sense because they're X-Men writers and they've done two X-Men cartoons already. The animation style on the Wolverine movie was also better, I thought. The style on the Thor movie felt a bit too blocky, and not in the good, DC/Timmverse sort of way. The shadowing on some things, like Loki's face, were just horrendous on the Thor part, but everything works pretty well on the Wolverine part. It's pretty infuriating that Wolverine fares better in his fights with the Hulk than Thor does in his, but I'm used to that sort of nonsense.
Anyway, decent movie, terrible fights for Thor, almost kinda looking forward to Tales of Asgard if I make myself forget that Kyle and Yost are the primary forces behind that as well. In the end, though, Marvel really just needs to either get some new blood on these things or call it a day in the animated DTV department. Every single one of their animated movies has ranged from fair to absolute dreck. Maybe they should give Timm, Dini, or Burnett a call.
Craig Kyle is the VICE PRESIDENT of Marvel Animation now. Chris Yost and Frank Paur are frequent collaborators. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're aboard for the long term.
I agree with you that Thor jobbed, that they were clearly more comfortable with Wolverine and the X-Men than writing Thor, and so on. That said, it still was probably the best Thor story I have seen animated. I didn't mind the character models; they were made to contrast with HULK VS. WOLVERINE. They did remind me a bit of the style Disney used for HERCULES, though.
I really can't stress enough how little Loki has to do with what Balder's doing. Loki makes suggestions here and there, but he's just spurring Balder onto decisions he probably would've made on his own. Balder is pretty much nobility incarnate. He believes in the truth and the rule of law. He's loyal to a fault, so the best dramatic tension for him comes when his loyalties are divided. His loyalties are certainly divided now, between his best friend and the principles of Asgard, which he suddenly finds himself in command of.
Loki has manipulated him here, of course, but it's nowhere near as heavy-handed as everyone calling Balder an idiot makes it out to be. Loki's merely chosen what to show Balder; Balder himself has arrived at his own conclusions. So far, Balder has learned that Thor is basically abandoning Asgard every day, to the detriment of his subjects, in favor of adventuring on Earth and spending time as Don Blake; Thor is essentially keeping the other Asgardians prisoner in their own home with condescending claims that they're "not ready" to face Midgard; Thor and Odin lied to Balder for his entire life about Balder's heritage; and now Thor has killed a member of the royal family, which is about as serious a crime as you can possibly find in Asgard--the equivalent of bald, unabashed treason in any other country. Given all of that and Balder's personality, he's doing exactly what he believes is right and Loki has very little to do with it at this point. Frankly, if Balder were a lesser man or had a shred of ambition, Thor would probably have been deposed 2 or 3 issues ago, back when his negligence as a leader led to the death of one of his subjects.
Also, the severe nature of the punishment for Thor's killing of Bor has the answer to the question everyone's asking about why Loki is tolerated: he's a member of the royal family too, remember? Saying that no one should believe him (which no one does, really) and that he should be killed is all well and good, but the same law that makes killing Bor such a heinous crime applies to Loki as well. As I mentioned before, Thor already got punished even more harshly than he is now when he finally did try to kill Loki years ago.
How LITTLE Loki influences? Dude, Balder hasn't questioned a single thing Loki has ever said this run. His entire tenure as Prince has been to sit on the throne while Loki does the talking, and then agreeing to what Loki suggests. When Loki isn't talking, Balder looks at the situation like a deer in the headlights, wondering when Thor or Loki will offer a suggestion. Loki is the prince of lies, who has created plots that have endangered and literally killed Balder many times. One well reasoned omission from Thor and suddenly Thor is worse than Surtur to him? Suddenly Loki's word is to believed? All those battles together were for nothing?
If this is what Balder believes is right, kicking Thor out of Asgard and allowing Loki free and total reign with their kingdom, with his own mind, then he is no better than those grunts in the Pentagon who give Norman Osborn more respect than they every gave Captain America (who, we should recall, died as people were calling him a traitor). If you allow the ants into the picnic, you have no right to be surprised or irritated when they spoil the food.
I can understand Thor not being the best leader of Asgard; it is new to him. He is more used to the role of hammer swinging adventurer than head of state. Like I said before, I do genuinely like most of the stories, and the new status quo of him getting out of Asgard and on the road. Lord knows he was doing almost nothing per month as king. But did we have to swallow that annoying character lapse? That no one believes that Loki is Loki, just because he/she has breasts now? But the fact that Loki apparently has earned more benefit of the doubt within Asgard than Thor after all of those schemes and whatnot is rather appalling, and could have been handled much, much better by JMS.
Like I said, the rest of the sundae of his run is terrific, and this issue was cool. I just get tired of having to dismiss that one rotten cherry atop it.
