Guess Who's Back In Town

It's Wednesday morning - early, early Wednesday morning - and I'm behind on work. WHAT ELSE IS NEW, I hear you shriek? Well, there's a new comic out this week!

SO WHAT'S OUT THIS WEEK?

Immortal Thor #13, that's what!

We're answering a couple of questions long-time readers might have had in the back of their minds - f'rinstance, haven't we heard "the wheel has turned" out of the mouth of some other lightning-hurling god before now? What's up with that? Herc thinks his old sparring partner Nyx, Goddess of Night might have the answer - and he wants Thor's help investigating! And Loki's along for the ride too, which I'm sure won't cause any problems. Pretty sure.

Art-wise, we give a warm welcome to new series regular Jan Bazaldua and color artist Matt Hollingsworth, both of whom are doing absolutely amazing work. Jan's pages are always fantastic and get better every time they hit my inbox, and Matt's colors on top make them sing even more. This is just the start of their reign – some of what I've seen coming up is going to blow your socks right off your feet. It's good times for our favorite thunder god's readers... which probably means bad times for the god himself. The book's not called The Quiet Life Of Thor.

MARVEL COMICS PANEL BY PANEL: THE HIDDEN YEARS

PREVIOUSLY ON MARVEL COMICS PANEL BY PANEL: I checked to make sure the coloring on Marvel Unlimited was authentic, and came face-to-face with the most authentic authenticity of all as I discovered a previously undocumented FIVE ADDITIONAL PANELS OF MARVEL COMICS #1. These take place after the front cover, but before the introductory panel of the Human Torch - thus, these are the earliest panels ever documented in the Marvel Universe. (Motion Picture Funnies doesn't count. IT DOESN'T COUNT.)

Let's see what we're working with.

This is "Now I'll Tell One!", or more properly NOWI'LLTELLONE, bellowed like the name of a Lovecraftian entity. And this is the first panel of Marvel Comics. Forget the Torch, he doesn't exist. How many times must you be told? It's 1939! You are a child who until recently - until vastly more recently than we had assumed - was in possession of a shiny dime! Now you have the first explosion of a new universe clutched in your fist, but you couldn't possibly know that! You couldn't possibly understand that this panel, this diorama of human suffering, this panoply of power, passion and pain, is the key that unlocks the entirety of the Marvel Universe!

He use'ta live in a penthouse!!!

Maybe this cartoon use'ta be printed in a Penthouse. No, there's not enough naked women in it. Anyway, here we have the ur-text of Marvel. It's 1939, you're a child, until recently a dime, blah blah - the Great Depression has been happening, is my point. This guy use'ta live in a penthouse. In New York! He had a life of wealth, a life of ease. Now he's here - a "man at work", as the sign tells us, literally so deep in the hole he can barely see daylight. No wonder his Gump-esque fellow workman stares dumbfoundedly at him in what I can only assume through the pixelation is a mix of pity and disgust. This is a problem you're all too aware of as a small child in the year 1939. This, truly, is the world outside your window. In this one panel, Marvel is set in stone as the world of the hero-with-a-problem, the protagonist who knows both the highs of the penthouse and the lows of the hole, the hero who could be you.

And we're only one panel in. What will the next NOWI'LLTELLONE tell us?

IS THAT IT?

That's it. I gotta work, folks. The work don't stop. But once I'm over this hump, we'll have more. Maybe I'll even talk some Absolute GL at you, in the fullness of time. Until then, love and strength to all who need it, and I'll play us out with - what else, when Herc's back in a Thor comic? - "The Boys Are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy.