Posts Tagged with Odin

Vikings: A TV series worth watching, by Thor

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Stop me if you've heard this one before: a crew of vikings walks into a monastery... (History Channel)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a crew of vikings walks into a monastery… (History Channel)

Perhaps we can thank the success of lavish historical dramas such as Rome or the high-fantasy overtones of Game of Thrones for the newest kid on the swords-and-intrigue block, Vikings. The series premières March 3 at 10 p.m. (ET) on the History Channel.

An Irish/Canadian co-production, Vikings tells the story of ambitious Norseman Ragnar Longbrok (Travis Fimmel), who, in the year 729, defies Earl Haraldson (Gabriel Byrne) by secretly refusing to go raiding to the east in Russia. Ragnar tells his brother there’s no point pillaging the same settlements who are just as poor as they are. It’s based loosely on the exploits of the real Ragnar, who became a renowned chieftain.

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Why you should read Walt Simonson’s entire run on Thor

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MightyThorOmnibuscropIn the 1980s, superhero comics were in the process of reinventing themselves for a more sophisticated audience, and one of the creators who took advantage of that was writer/artist Walt Simonson when he took the reins at Marvel Comics’ Thor.

Chris Clarememont and John Byrne had made their mark on The Uncanny X-Men; Frank Miller and Klaus Janson had overhauled Daredevil into something epic. (Byrne and Miller, of course, later revolutionized Superman and Batman, respectively.) But Simonson, who had worked on The Mighty Thor in the late 1970s, already had mythic material to start with, and when he returned to the title he built it into a world-shattering story.

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Thunder God Thursday: Trust Odinn

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OK, fine, we all know Odinn (Óðinn) isn’t the god of thunder; that would be his son, Thor. But I have loved this meme pic since I first saw it on Facebook. Not much to add, other than: this is clearly an Allfather you can trust.

Trust Odinn

Norse code

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ONE of the reasons Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were able to cast ancient Norse gods as modern comic-book superheroes was that they were comparatively unknown, Richard Wagner and the names of our weekdays notwithstanding. Here, then, are a few terms so you can tell your Asgard from a Hel in the ground.

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Werewolf Wednesday: Grant Gould’s The Wolves of Odin

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I had the opportunity to interview comic book writer and artist Grant Gould a few years ago about his labour of love, The Wolves of Odin.  Since then, he’s continued it as a webcomic and worked on a sequel volume, Marauders of Midgard.  I thought I’d post this 2009 interview ahead of Grant’s upcoming appearance at C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Grant will be in Artist Alley at table H9, where he will have his artwork for sale. He’ll also be doing custom sketches during the show, so if you’re interested, visit him at his table and sign up early, as spots may fill up fast. (By the way, also attending is last week’s Werewolf Wednesday interviewee, Rachel Deering. Visit her at booth 719.)

In the meantime, if you haven’t read The Wolves of Odin, here’s what you need to know: Vikings. Werewolves. It’s all good.

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