Today, Marvel Comics announces Thor: The Deviants Saga by novelist and playwright Rob Rodi. Stephen Segovia (Silver Surfer, Iron Man/Thor: God Complex covers) provides stunning visuals.
This five-issue series is the latest journey down the rainbow bridge for the author of Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers (originally titled Loki), Astonishing Thor and Thor: For Asgard. Something of a spiritual successor to Roy Thomas' classic Thor: The Eternals Saga, The Deviants Saga sees the god of thunder squaring off with the immortal enemies of the Eternals in a monumental battle crackling with Kirby kilowatts.
We talked to Rodi about the new series, playing in the Kirby sandbox and the secrets to writing relatable gods.
iFanboy: The Deviant Saga pits Thor against the so-called "ageless enemies of the Eternals." For anyone not steeped in Marvel Cosmic lore of the late 70s and early 80s, who are these Deviants? Do their Interzonal perversions warrant such a despicable name?
Rob Rodi: In Jack Kirby's original conception, the Eternals and the Deviants were two offshoot races of humanity: the former were immortal (hence the name), physically perfect specimens with a whole laundry list of godlike attributes; whereas the Deviants were genetically unstable monstrosities who lived underground (the Eternals lived on mountain-tops). Each Deviant had a unique cellular structure that gave him or her a power no one else had. That's probably where the "Deviant" name came from: they deviated from everything, even each other. Though they also looked like hell, which didn't help.
iFanboy: This story sees the return of Ereshkigal. She was last seen blowing herself to smithereens. Maybe it's giving too much away to ask about the nature of her return, but can you talk about her latest schemes?
Rodi: You're asking me to explain why a character who died is suddenly alive again? Because, what, that's never happened before in comics?… Seriously, I do kinda hate that old cop-out, but Ereshkigal is such a superfine bitch goddess she should've never been killed off in the first place. My feeling was, she wielded the Star Brand, which gave her supreme power, so it should've been no big deal for her to fake her own suicide. Which she did specifically to put all the buttinsky super-do-gooder types off her scent for a while. She's been lurking around the alleyways of the Deviant capital of Lemuria ever since, licking her wounds and preparing for her next stab at power. What that is, and what it involves, you'll just have to wait and see.
iFanboy: Normally, it'd be up to the Eternals to handle all this, but they're out of the picture. How does Thor get entangled in this ongoing conflict? He's famously crossed paths with the Celestial corner before in the Eternals Saga, but what is the current relationship between Asgard and the world of the Eternals?
Rodi: The Neil Gaiman miniseries—and the Knaufs-scripted ongoing that followed—pretty much shook the bejeezus out of the Eternals, so they've been laying low ever since, sorting stuff out. We'll see the result of that at the conclusion of THE DEVIANTS SAGA, but when we open, Thor hasn't really had any contact with the Eternals for a while. In fact he's surprised when he seeks them out, and finds that they've all gone…elsewhere. Just a few stragglers left behind… but a couple of those stragglers are favorites of mine who got no love at all from either Gaiman or the Knaufs, so they're overdue for some major face time. And boy, do I give it to them.
iFanboy: You've been producing some especially entertaining Thor stories over the years. What attracts you to these characters and this mythology? And what does it mean to play in the sandbox Kirby set up so long ago with the Eternals?
Rodi: Thanks for the kind words. Made my day. As for your question…man, I just love the bigness of that Kirby sandbox. Every thought the guy had was epic. I'm sure he put exclamation points after each item on his grocery list. "MILK! BREAD! LIVERWURST! TUMS!" In my other career, as a novelist, my job is to take ordinary situations and expose the critical, life-shaping magnitude of our everyday choices; it's a kick to do just the reverse with Kirby creations—start with these cosmos-spanning characters who do everything but belch planets, and expose the intricacies of their characters, the subtleties of their motivations. They're just so captivating, and so infinitely flexible. They wouldn't have survived this long if they weren't.
iFanboy: How do you tap into the minds of these godlike or even downright godly characters? With more grounded characters writers can establish point of view with pop culture references or allusions to current events. With larger than life characters like this, you don't have the benefit of that shorthand. Or do you? Is there a method to finding relatable qualities in an Eternal or Asgardian or Deviant? Or do you simply embrace the bigness of the mythos?
Rodi: Well, you know, I'm not un-godlike myself, so… Seriously, it's a matter of scale. You can't make this supremely powerful beings too vastly different from you and me, because that removes them from any point of reference a reader might have. Kirby tried to duck 'round that in the early issues of The Eternals by having Ikaris drag a human chick named Margo along with him everywhere he went, sort of like a pull-toy, and her function was to freak out and say "I can't believe what you're doing, OMG" a lot — but pretty quickly he shunted her aside and had the Eternals and Deviants themselves take center stage. And the way he handled it was by given them ambitions, lusts, jealousies, regrets, and so on, just like we normal slobs do — only on an epic scale. The romantic rift between Kro and Thena, for instance; we can all relate to stories about couples who are divided by cultural or ethnic or religious differences. In Kro and Thena's case, those differences are genetic and cosmic and go back a million years, give or take a millennium. But we get it; we're on board.
iFanboy: Your stories are also probably situated on the opposite end of the spectrum from "street level" Marvel happenings. Are they any other character (heroes or villains) who might straddle this line between foiling bank robbers and clobbering deities?
Rodi: Doctor Strange comes to mind; love to have a crack at him someday. The guy bops around dimensions at the drop of a hat, turning everything inside out and seven shades of yellow, but he also lives in Greenwich Village. He probably orders out Vietnamese. Checks out the fusion jazz at the basement bar two blocks down. Has a favorite dry cleaner on the corner. (Though that cape probably doesn't need to be picked up; it just finds its own way home.) Yeah, I could dig me some Doc.
Thor: The Deviants Saga #1 of 5 hits shelves in November.
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That image is pretty stunning. I have no real interest in the story, but I’m sure it will be beautiful to look at if that is a sample of the series itself.
The Eternals Saga is one of the greatest Thor stories of all time and one of the best use of Kirby’s cosmic characters, so I’m excited about this. And while Rodi’s shown a great understanding of Thor and his Universe with the Loki miniseries and Thor: For Asgard, I was fairly disappointed with Astonishing Thor. Hopefully this is more along the lines of the first two.
This sounds like a damn good Thor story.