THOR #300
Even reading it again today in the light of a new century, the story told in the multiple-issue arc leading up to Mighty Thor #300, dubbed by fans of the time “The Celestials Saga,” simply blows my mind. Talk about “cosmic” with a capital “C.”
Why, within the pages of this Roy Thomas/Keith Pollard classic, we discover (among other surprises) the long-lost identity of Thor’s mother, the true curse of the Valkyrie, the reason Odin fashioned the Young Gods, the whereabouts for centuries of the goddesses of Asgard, the true nature of the Destroyer armor, the origin of All-Father Odin himself, the idea that Ragnarok is cyclical in nature (tying in nicely with the much-later Avengers Disassembled: Thor), and a confrontation par excellance between the Destroyer, the Uni-Mind and the star-spanning Celestials! (Whew.)
With a little assistance from the young duo of Mark Gruenwald (that a familiar name, Quasar fans?) and Ralph Macchio, Roy Thomas cements his legacy as a writer of cosmic scope (as if he had not already done that with the superb “Kree-Skrull War” in Avengers) with this many-issue, multi-level saga that brought together the Asgardians, Olympians, Eternals and Celestials to essentially tie up each and every loose story thread in Thor up to that point.
I will be honest: As a young reader, I had not noticed the lack of goddesses in Asgard over the long haul of the preceding issues. (Sif, Karnilla and the Enchantress were always enough for me.) But in “The Celestials Saga,” here they come galloping on horseback through the Golden Gates over Bifrost, led by – Frigga, the wife of Odin?
The “belief effect” – a chief reason demons and gods exist and are resurrected in the Marvel U, often espoused by Steve Englehart and others, even until today with Abnett/Lanning and the Universal Church of Truth – takes on cosmic consequences here as we see the death of one age of Norse gods and the birth of another. Heck, the continuity even drips into Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, a pleasant romp but the only portion of the saga that becomes tedious after an issue or so. One of my favorite features in this section of the tale? Thor learns many secrets of his past and of his race’s past from the recently-plucked Eye of Odin! What a marvelous story-telling device in this instance.
An early highlight of “The Celestials Saga” was the conflict -- with a double-page spread, if memory serves – of the Olympians taking on their similarly-named Eternal doppelgangers. Zeus vs. Zuras, Mercury vs. Makkari … you get the drift. Absolute. Cosmic. Continuity. Crazy! And if computers had been what they are today and the Internet had been around as it is, I guarantee that battle would still be many fans’ wallpaper.
Until the coming of Walt Simonson to the title, the quality of Mighty Thor fell off drastically after “The Celestials Saga,” I am sorry to say. That is why I appreciate the hard work that went into taking the history laid by Lee and Kirby, Conway and Buscema and others, and weaving it into an epoch of cosmic proportions that truly brought Kirby’s Eternals and Celestials into mainstream Marvel continuity for all of us fans to enjoy.
With adventure on a grand scale, a surprise around every corner, painstakingly researched and with unwavering continuity – and not to ignore the impact of Pollard’s art, which was beautiful yet dynamic all at once – you will be hard-pressed to find a tale with as much punch, as much wonder, as much meaning as Thomas’ grand opus, “The Celestials Saga.”
