Hail Balder! A prince of Asgard!

[proteus_lives]

Greetings True Believers! It's another Thor post!

One of my favorite parts of the current Thor run is the 100% awesome that is Balder the Brave.

He's the god of light and Thor's Asgardian BFF. He's one of Asgard's strongest warriors and often considered second only to Thor himself. He's loved and revered.

In this post he discovers his true heritage and his rightful place in Asgard.

Plus: The Warriors Three being snarky! Loki scheming! Balder being Awesome! Loki flirting with Balder!

Suggested Tags: char: balder the brave, char: loki. char: thor odinson/donald blake, char: fandral, char: hogun, char: volstagg, title: thor, publisher: marvel comics, creator: j michael straczynski, creator: olivier coipel



Balder is gazing from the towers of Asgard.







Kingdom of Texas, ha. Plus, hearing Loki say, "Hear me out." should scare the shit out any Asgardian.

Loki begins spinning her web. Talking their lack of freedom by limiting themselves to Asgard and wasting their reborn lives. She mentions Frost Giants walking the Earth, which captures Balder's attention.

He later visits Loki's boudoir and asks about the giants.



Wow, Loki's version of "You know how to whistle, don't ya Jake?"

Balder threatens to kill Loki if she's tricking him and walks through the warp-tube.



Balder treks through the mountains.





How awesome is Balder? He's so awesome, he can emo-out about his place in the world without sounding like a wuss.

Loki is watching him with a frost giant by her side.
A family's car has broken down on a mountain road. They can find nothing wrong with it, it's almost like....magic. They are set upon by Frost Giants. Balder arrives.



The last giant gets the drop on him but Loki appears "out of the blue" and kills the giant. She warns Balder about their mortality in this world. Cops show up and the family Balder saved acts like total dicks.

Thor has to pick them up!



That made me laugh, Loki just chilling and reading a magazine. What is she reading?

Balder is still moody and talking to Loki.





Loki loves the soap opera tactics.

Loki explains.



Loki describes an Odin-Party, which, as you can imagine is awesome. Odin hooks up with Frigga.



Odin rides out and meets an oracle which tells him of Balder's fate and Ragnarok.



I love this page.



They sit as brothers.



Loki enters and he reveals he has always known of the prophecy but, "I did no harm with that knowledge, for Balder is revered even by Loki."

Thor admits his shame in not telling Balder after their rebirth.



Loki acts so...familiar with Balder. I may be sick but I want to ship Balder/She-Loki.

Loki asks if there is a reason to keep Balder in the shadows.



The celebration is announced by a horn-blast from Volstagg that knocks people off their feet in Broxton. Balder asks to see Loki before he see his public.



Shippy.



Love that page. ALL HAIL BALDER THE BRAVE! THE BRIGHT!

Comments

[cmdr_zoom]

And Loki does, of course, abuse that trust. Because he is Loki, and that is what he does.

[proteus_lives]

He is the fire that burns.

[crinos]

I just love that "Wate wut" face Loki has when Thor agrees to let Balder take over.

Loki: Ah hah now begins.... Wait, it actually worked? Did not see that coming... Oh crap I said that out loud! AND THEN I SAID THAT OUT LOUD! STOP IT.

Balder: You let me take over just to get that reaction from her didn't you?

Thor: Totally worth it.

Also, I love the Warriors Three just hanging out on the steps like the cool kids in high school, trying to come up with insults for Loki.

[q99]

And only Fandral even coming close to succeeding :)

[q99]

This reminds me, I've always wanted to see a major take on Norse Mythology (movie or what have you) where Loki is not a villain. A trickster and troublemaker to be sure, but standing with the other gods.

[crinos]

Well, in the Super hero rpg setting Halt evil Doer, the Aesir Pantheon is kind of in reverse of this; with the Aesir being portrayed as bad guys because they want to set off Ragnarok, while Loki, not necessarily a good guy, wants to stop it (since, hey, he dies in Ragnarok too). To this end, Loki empowered the settings Thor Expy, Ymir the Radioactive Viking (yes, I'm serious) to act as his champion and stop Ragnarok.

Its a great setting to pick up, I enjoy it a lot. Its for the Mutants and Masterminds game system.

[acton]

Ever read "Eight days of Luke" by Diana Wynne Jones? It starts with him before freed from his punishment (the thing with the snake and dripping venom) and trying to prove that he actually is innocent of his latest supposed crime. Not "standing with the other gods", but he's definitely not the villain.

It's a young adult book and set in modernish times, but it's a fun take on the mythology. Okay, now I need to go reread it, excuse me.

[thehefner]

In the grand cosmic scheme of things, this Loki isn't exactly a villain either, as I understand it. This Loki has been shown expressing regret for his actions, as well as genuine love for Thor and his adopted family. He's just... well, he's Loki, he can't change his nature.

But then, I'm not too familiar with Marvel's Thor. I've just been hearing more and more great things that make me want to check it out.

[acton]

Anytime I see Loki I'm always wondering "Okay, and where is the catch? Please don't fall for it guys--darn it! They fell for it!"

[savitar]

It really is quite scary how well Loki worked as a female.

I actually prefer him as her.

It just so damn worked.

[proteus_lives]

Triple motto on that.

A permanent gender-change would have been so daring for Marvel and the character.

[khamelea]

The Golden Age of Asgard-Marvel character design?

If not, pretty close. The painfully depth of the artwork might have something to do with it, but I think the way the costumes look archaic while still leaning ever so slightly toward Kirbyness by virtue of being so sleek. It really keeps the Asgardians from looking blandly pseudomedieval as they sometimes do. Maybe that's just me.

Then there's She-Loki. We hardly knew ye.

[halialkers]

To be fair the Classical-Age Germanic outfit of ragged animal skins really wouldn't fit superhero Gods very well.

[pallas_athena]

I don't know if this is canon in the comic, but in the myths Loki is instrumental in engineering Balder's death and preventing his release from Hel afterwards.

Given that, it's typically magnanimous and naive of Balder to forgive him/her, above.

[digicom]

Sorry, but I still prefer Simonson's Balder. He never seemed quite as clueless as this take. And he had a better outfit, too. :)

[halloweenjack]

I think that Simonson may have been the first Thor writer to actually give Balder a character arc, even if it was just that he moped around, got fat, and then got back into shape by his journey through the desert (taking care of someone who turned out to be one of the Nordic Fates or something IIRC).

[shanoa]

I find Loki's lack of eyebrows in most of these panels (they're there in the first couple) disturbing. I don't know why.

[slippy]

I like the lack of eyebrows (and lashes) because it's disturbing. Makes her look a touch more suspect.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, my only problem with this is why there isn't a standing order of "If Loki starts to talk, punch him/her in the mouth repeatedly until s/he STOPS talking. No good will come of listening to him/her... EVER!"

[amaniwolf]

Word!

[amaniwolf]

I liked the idea of Balder being a brother to Thor, and even of him ruling Asgard, but i was sad to watch him manipulated over and over by Loki. It seemed like his rule was destined to fail, he gets tricked into banishing Thor, tricked into moving to Latveria, where his people are experimented on and in his rule, Asgard is destroyed. I'm hoping things will pick up for Balder and he shows to be a Lord of Asgard people can respect. And yes...this art is epic.

[bruinsfan]

I was sort of confused by that since, Balder being the son of Odin's wife, shouldn't they have been raised as step brothers all along anyway even if everyone thought someone else was his father?

[kirke_novak]

First - your Thor posts totally sold me on that title. I got all issues, will order the TPBs. How good is that title? nnnnnnngh

Second - my favorite Balder moment came during Siege when he said "I am not called Balder the Bright for my towering intellectual gifts" which just reeked sarcasm to me and I ♥ a man who reeks sarcasm. Yessss.

[spockfran.livejournal.com]

I liked Loki better as a female
too bad it didn't last

[protogarrett]

I really liked girl Loki. Excellent design.

[rordulum]

The Loki horns work so much better on a woman than a man, for me. They just look too 'evil witch' for male Loki to pull them off, even though he's been wearing them for decades.

I have to say, though, I don't like that helmet design of Balder's. It has a tendency to look a bit 'penis head' from some angles. It needs more... stuff on it.

[ghosty732]

I love this series of posts you are doing!

I didn't realize how unlike Norse Mythology the Norse Gods of the Marvel U are. Isn't Balder always meant to be Frigga and Odin's son?

Was he still killed by mistletoe in the Marvel U? That entire saga (where his mother asks everything on earth to never harm him) is one of my favourite myths of any ancient culture.

[mildly_annoyed]

You're not alone, I find Balder and Loki incredibly shippy in the Broxton-Latveria storyline, whether it's she-Loki or he-Loki (though if only for the sake of having awesome female villains, she-Loki is cooler). It's odd though that the whole mistletoe thing never comes up - didn't they do that in Marvel canon?

[halloweenjack]

Yeah, but he got better.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm i must admit, i am impressed that Loki's Machinations went all the way back here... i mean his/her speach about Balder being unable to escape his predestined fate, or his lot in life, is a precursor to his want to escape his role as "Loki" and live free from that....

I love how brilliantly written Loki has been througout this run, and hope he will continue to be written this way (i have a true admiration for the Trickster mythos,) (also i know hes dead but still... he's Loki, and Asgardian:)

[big_daddy_d]

Has anyone ever hit on Loki in female form? Because seriously.. I would love to see the awkardness it creates.

[proteus_lives]

I think it happened somewhere in a Cabal one-shot.

[valtyr]

Baldur's a brunet? My world, shaken. I assumed he was blond.

I like the way that revealing the secret doesn't lead to any bad feeling between Thor and Baldur here; that they trust each other, and Baldur trusts that Thor meant well.

I love Loki in female guise.

[nothingbutcake]

I like how Loki apparently found time to shave off the eyebrows before Balder stopped in.

I really love Loki in Sif's body, as others have said.  It has an excellent mask-look.