‘The War of the Realms’ – Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson (Marvel)

I’m not going to lie, this was meant to be a review of Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s ‘Spear of the Emperor’ but I fell asleep halfway through writing it, last night, and never finished it… You’ll get that tomorrow instead, today is now all about ‘War of the Realms’.

I’m normally what you’d call ‘fashionably late’ to all the big Marvel events; ‘War of the Realms’ is actually marks the earliest point that I’ve ever read one of these ‘events’ and I’m still a few months late to the game. Still, better late than never right?

Reading ‘Avengers Vol. 4: War of the Realms’ encouraged me to pick up this book and fill in a few gaps in that storyline. Reading ‘War of the Realms’, I wasn’t all that surprised to find a few more gaps in my reading but, on the whole though, it was a lot of fun (and I do mean a lot) and I’m really glad that I gave it a shot. Could it form the basis for a future phase of MCU films? I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see that happen…

The War of The Realms is upon us! Malekith, king of the Dark Elves, has been conquering the Ten Realms and now has his sights set on the last one: Earth. And with armies of Frost Giants, Fire Goblins, trolls, angel warriors, Roxxon corporate soldiers, the Enchantress and the prince of lies himself, Loki, at his side, Malekith may just succeed. Asgardia is no more, Old Asgard is in ruins, and the majority of Asgardians are refugees on Earth. Now Thor and Earth's heroes - including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and even such unlikely allies as Venom and Punisher - are all that stand in Malekith's way! It's an event five years in the making as the Mighty Thor creative team of writer Jason Aaron, artist Russell Dauterman and colourist Matthew Wilson reunite to save the Ten Realms! Collecting: War of The Realms 1-6, War of The Realms: Omega

‘Don’t look now, but they have tanks made from giant alligators.’

Not only is this now my new official favourite line ever, it just goes to show the vibrancy of imagination on show in this book and how easily the coolest of ideas can be fitted into a plot that’s already full of them. ‘War of the Realms’ is a book where it is incredibly easy to keep turning the pages, no doubt about it.

That’s not to say that the book doesn’t trip up a little every now and then. ‘War of the Realms’ falls foul of the symptoms of ‘Marvel Event Syndrome’ in that it doesn’t quite manage to stand alone as a tale in its own right; there are gaps where you are clearly expected to have bought a tie-in volume or two. These aren’t massive gaps (to be fair) but they are noticeable enough to make the plot jump and jolt a bit when there is really no need for it. I think there might also be an issue with the chronology of events and how these are ordered in the book. I may be entirely wrong but I’m sure I saw Thor flying around, and doing battle, at the same time as he was supposed be nailed to Yggdrasil… I’m going to need to re-read ‘War of the Realms’ anyway but I’ll definitely be looking out for this.

These are relatively minor quibbles though when you realise that ‘War of the Realms’ is the culmination of five years’ worth of build up, by Jason Aaron, (a lot of story to be wound up then, maybe it did need at least some tie-ins…) and that there is still a healthy mix of plot being moved forwards and loads of action with all your favourite heroes bringing pain to countless hordes of trolls and dark elves. You can’t complain really when you have all of this in one book. This kind of thing is what comics were made for and ‘War of the Realms’ is all the better for it.

I’m woefully behind with my ‘Thor Reading’ but even someone like me can see that Aaron is bringing things to a close here in terms of character development, for Thor, that has been built up over a lot of backstory. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Thor but seeing what he goes through here, how he faces these challenges head on and where this leaves him at the end… You can’t help but feel some empathy here and I finished reading ‘War of the Realms’ with more than a sneaking feeling that I’d be doing a lot more catching up as far as Thor is concerned.

Russell Dauterman’s art does the story justice, no question about it. Dauterman seems to have a happy knack of drawing constant fights without giving the reader ‘fight fatigue’ and that’s very much a good thing as this book is concerned. He also draws the most amazing ‘Beserker Thor’ that I’ve ever seen. Seriously, check it out.

‘War of the Realms’ is probably best read with at least a couple of the tie-ins to support it but there is more than enough in its pages to let it stand on its own and that’s just what I need from a Marvel book these days. A book that positively quivers with plot and action, I’d have no hesitation recommending ‘War of the Realms’ to anyone.