Four Panel Folly Comic museings.

Runner Up!: Thor and the Warriors Four #2

Hey wait... Beta Ray Bill is a SPACE HORSE! ...Can't believe I've never noticed it. Huh.

I'm a little biased here.

A while back I became a fan of Alex Zalben's work with comic book podcasts. The dude is funny, interesting, and dang-right likable. So when he started writing comics for Marvel I wanted to buy his stuff. I wanted to LOVE his stuff.

So yeah, biased. But... the thing is... I do. I do love his stuff!

“Love his stu--”?… Maybe I should stop referring to his stuff as “his stuff”.

What is a silly concept for a story, a team up between Marvel's child super hero siblings Power Pack and Thor, turns into a really solid adventure. While not as sophisticated as the average Vertigo or Icon book, Thor and the Warriors Four tells a fun tale without insulting your intelligence. There are certain notes a story has to hit for me to really love it. Zalben hits all those notes.

Comedy: This issue is FUNNY. Eachof the siblings is funny in their own right. From Jack's brash bullheaded attitude towards everything to the youngest Katie's reactions of the magical world they're in, the Power Pack is genuinely humorous without being slapstick. Zalben's roots in comedy are front and center with this issue.

Heart: Since the Power Pack are in Asgard to save the life of their dying grandmother, this issue pulls on some heart strings. When Thor invites them to tell tales of their adventures, their stories of witches and danger are clearly re-imagined memories of their grandma. This emotion is surprising when it arrives in the issue but Thor and the Warriors Four is, more than anything else, about coping with death at a young age.

Fun Art: Artist-with-a-hard-name-to-pronounce Gurihiru must live for scripts like this. He fills pages with simple but beautiful renditions of the characters, making the title look “for all ages” without looking second rate. This is brilliant stuff. Gurihiru's clear and legible panels allow Thor and the Warriors Four to be a joy to read. It's never hard to follow the action. It's never unclear what's occurring in a panel. There's no reading the last couple panels again to make sure what you think happened actually happened. This is all thanks to his excellent eye for putting panels on the page and staging the image within them. It's like putting on your regular sneakers after spending an hour in roller blades. His art, like sneakers, is the most comfortable thing in the world after the overly dynamic works of other artists, like roller blades.

Cuteness: Without spoiling the issue, the last page is probably one of the cutest things you'll see. It is medically impossible to look at it without the sound “D'aaaawww!” escaping from your lips. For this reason it's important to keep from reading Thor and the Warriors Four while in the company of burly men.

I was totally unprepared for how great this issue was. Originally I was just going to buy it out of weird Internet-loyalty to Zalben but the dude's got some serious writing chops. I can't wait to see where the next two issues of this title goes. But... hey! Lucky you! You don't have to wait to read the first two issues!

Read them. You'll thank me. You'll go “D'aaaawww!” then you'll thank me.