
Sometimes reboots are just tossing a #1 on a familiar concept. Other times, they’re complete resets for a character that bring something new to the table, while retaining the things that made the character great in the first place. This one is the latter.
We already saw Thor’s hammer fall from the sky in rural America, creating a crater, during J. Michael Stracyzinki’s run on Fantastic Four.
That’s where this starts: Thor is “dead” and in the limbo that follows the death of a God.

Don Blake is there too.

This actually goes a long to way explaining how they occupied the same form and what happened to Don Blake years ago when Thor removed the curse that bonded them.

In limbo, Thor meets with Don Blake, who has been “dead” a lot longer than Thor, who tells him that mortals need Gods again.

Much of issue #1 is the two of them debating, with Thor not wanting to subject himself or Asgardians to the cycle of life and death again.

JMS writes these kinds of things extremely well, and has a history of doing “risky reboots” that mostly worked out fantastically.

Of course, Thor chooses to come back–and he does so re-bonded with the form of the mortal Don Blake, in the middle of Oklahoma.
An excellent reset.
cast: Thor
JMS, copies
Grade: A