Secret Wars – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Chris Sprouse & Karl Story — Thor Vs. Thor

April 26, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Thors #3, November 2015

Rune Thor decks Ultimate Thor in the Secret Wars spinoff, “Thors.”

Chris Sprouse and Karl Story deliver a cool action splash from this series where members of the Thor Corps investigate the deaths of many, many Jane Fosters.

If you Google “Rune Thor,” you’ll find a close-up of this page used as the “bio-pic” on the Marvel Fandom Wiki.

Cool indeed.

*Thor vs. Thor, the first time, courtesy of Walter Simonson from 1983 in the Wayback Machine. (With contemporary coloring.)*

Eric Powell — I’d Like To Meet His Tailor

January 22, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Secret Wars Too, #1, January 2016

Eric Powell brings his offbeat sensibility to the good doctor in this two-page gag story featured in a Secret Wars parody comic.

I acquired this page directly from Eric at SDCC a few years back, and apparently the other page had just sold to another lucky purchaser.

Missed it by that much.

(Full two-pager presented below.)

*The TPB cover by our pal Jim Mahfood is much more interesting than the comic book cover, which is a gag without much art.*

Doctor Doom has a terrific legacy in the pantheons of Marvel humor. Stan and Jack did a hilarious send-up of the FF-Doom-Silver Surfer multi-parter in the very first issue of Not Brand Echh in 1967. (The amazing published splash page here is from the actual story of course, not the parody.)

Will Conrad — Beneath 150 Billion Tons (?!)

December 21, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Secret Wars Novel, Novo Seculo Brazilian Edition (“Guerras Secretas”), 2015

The Hulk saves his fellow superheroes by holding up a … mountain.

And no, you can’t make this up. It’s Will Conrad’s very dramatic rendering of the original Secret Wars story (Issue #4, 1985) for a contemporary Brazilian edition of a Secret Wars novelization.

How did Jim Shooter come up with 150 Billion Tons? I’m really going to have to ask him that one of these days. All I know is there are some pretty powerful heroes counting on ‘Ol Greenskin, no matter how much those rocks weigh.

Will has done a number of these Brazilian novelization covers and they are all fabulous, but this is my favorite.

*Another version of Hulk holding the mountain, from Spider-man and the Secret Wars #1(2010.)*

Chris Sprouse and Karl Story — Love and Thunder

October 3, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Thors #4, January 2016

Thor “4” is entitled Love and Thunder.

Love and Thunder?

Sounds potentially a bit comedic. But if only “a bit”… I’m ok with that.

Thor Ragnarok mixed seriousness with humor as well. I like the film — and mass audiences responded to it very much— but it comes a bit close to camp in places.

Fingers crossed that a new film doesn’t cross that line that line completely.

I’m definitely intrigued to see Thor’s pal girlfriend Jane Foster take on the Thor role. (It’s already happened in the comics.) Might we have more than one Thor when the film ends?

Maybe. Chris Hemsworth has said he isn’t planning on going anywhere if he has anything to say about it, so who knows.

We can have more than one Thor. We have had at least a few in the main Marvel Universe. And throw in alternate realities, the multiverse, etc., and you have many, many Thors.

Case in point: This Secret Wars (2015) spin-off, appropriately titled Thors. The plot is too complex to cover in detail here, but in this pivotal splash on Doomgard, Jane Foster attempts to rally the other Thors to fight a common foe instead of each other.

See, she’s not only Thor — she’s now a leader among Thors.

And great art, as always, by the terrific team of Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

“Ink and Thunder” sounds about right to me.