Thor has been picking up speed for the past few months. After a pretty, but meandering, start we’re finally steeped in traditional Thor lore. The Warriors Three bantering and badgering Loki, Balder doing his usual wandering and self-questioning, and Loki plotting and conniving.

It’s been a little hard to believe Loki as a woman. It’s sort of like a mix of Loki and the Enchantress. But this issue really got his (her) character down. And after all, he’s (she’s) the master of lies, so whatever his outward appearance is dosn’t really matter. And just to add to the iFanboy shapeshifter debate, in Norse mythology Loki was the father of Fenrir the wolf, Jörmungandr the serpent, and Hel, ruler of the realm of the dead. But when he was in the form of a mare, he (she) mated with a steed and gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged steed of Odin. Talk about transgendered.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying this series after getting very close to dropping it. Coipel’s art is fantastic, JMS’s scripting is right on. If there’s any problem, it’s that Thor’s character has yet to really define (or redefine?) himself. It looks like he’s going to be taking on his father’s mantle by ruling Asgard, but the tradeoff is that he seems a less realteable character now. I hope we see some stories where Thor can develop more than just the paternalistic ruler side of his personality.