Robot 6
Matt Fraction confirmed for Thor — along with John Romita Jr. [Updated]
The L.A. Times’ Hero Complex blog confirms what Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley hinted at last week — Matt Fraction is indeed taking over the ongoing Thor title. He’ll be joined by an artist familiar with the character, John Romita Jr., who drew the title circa 1998-2000.
Update: So it looks like I jumped the gun a bit; John Romita Jr. is drawing Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day book, whose cover is featured above, featuring Iron Man and Thor. The regular artist for Fraction’s run on Thor has yet to be announced.
Update: Fraction speaks with Comic Book Resources about Thor.

18 Comments
Alex R.
December 14, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I loved Jurgens and Romita JR’s Thor. It was the first time I really was interested in THor as a character in his own book. But I can’t pick this up. Even a short time after that that CW Clone THor and the curse of JMS, I can’t bring myself to do it. I see they still have that crazy costume.
Kevin
December 14, 2009 at 6:59 pm
YES to Romita.
HELL NO to Fraction.
djsweet
December 14, 2009 at 7:19 pm
JRjr’s Thor run was awesome! Fraction’s Thor specials were awesome! If this comic is 2.99 It will be awesome!
SC
December 14, 2009 at 7:21 pm
JRjr on Thor has been circulating for a while, since he told it to someone at a Con. Never been the biggest fan of his art, honestly.
Fraction’s Thor stuff was generally pretty good, so I’d say he’s a good choice, though, based on Gillen’s first issue, I wouldn’t have minded him sticking around.
Joe H
December 14, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Hopefully, Fraction can pull off the magic he used in those Thor specials. I love Thor’s costume more than his classic one, but not Romita’s rendition of it. Oh well, I’ll get over it.
Trey
December 14, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I really dislike Fractions hipster doofus attitude/humor from every darn interview he’s done. ANd his horrendous Uncanny X-men
Trey
December 14, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I am glad he’s taking the series off of Midgard, tho.
Joshua Long
December 14, 2009 at 7:41 pm
No to Fraction.
MotherFRAKIN’ NO to JRJR.
Never been a fan of JRJR’s blocky style, and Fraction’s last year at Marvel has been pretty bad (particularly Uncanny).
I’m still gonna try it out, but I’m not expecting much. Hopefully it’ll surprise me. I just wish Gillen could stay on.
Bill Reed
December 14, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Cleanup on aisle pants.
Preston
December 14, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Beautiful artwork and promising announcement.
Hopefully this will be 2.99, then it would instantly be on my pull list.
DrunkJack
December 14, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Some people will bitch about anything. Seriously, people bitching about JMS and Copiel’s Thor need to pick up any issue by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz. Your eyes cannot unsee the suck of that interminable run.
Considering how bad Thor has been at times…JMS and Copiel’s is the best run since Simonson. Third would be that ending Ragnarok run on the last volume by Oeming and Andrea DeVito. That was nice. JRJr’s first run was marred by lackluster writing from Jurgens (Who from Teen Titans to Booster Gold was just goin’ through the motions, none of it was any good, Booster proves he can be good, but his Cap and Thor runs were really mediocre and I can’t even remember what he did between those and Booster) so, yeah, I’m not bothered by this at all. Fractions specials were great, JR Jr can draw epic with the best of ‘em.
Can’t wait for the trades!
Meatbag
December 14, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I actually just threw my arms up and went “YES”. So excited.
Preston
December 14, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Btw, is that supposed to be a teh new Iron Man costume that Fraction hinted at unveiling at the end of this arc? I can’t really tell, but ti does look different than the current one.
Jacob
December 15, 2009 at 12:16 am
I’m one of those that dislike JRJr’s art, but I recognize that I’m in the minority. I don’t think I can bring myself to buying it, though. Especially after being spoiled with Coipiel’s beautiful stuff.
Tol
December 15, 2009 at 4:41 am
JRJR is good for some stuff… just maybe not for thor. I might pick up some of the old TPBs which might change my mind. Also the good thing about Fraction’s Thor specials was that it was a small thing, just the three issues. I am worried that he will make the storylines on the ongoing to convoluted like he did/does on Uncanny. THen again with Iron Man he managed to make it work, maybe one-character title is the way for Fraction.
BTW @Joshua Long, when you say Fraction’s last year in Marvel was bad, particularly on Uncanny, he only wrote the Iron Man and Uncanny on-goings i believe, and Iron Man (at least I and the Eisner Awards and the general public at IGN voting thought so) is pretty good, so his last year was more like half-bad. And half-good.
P.S. Unless he wrote something else perticularly badly in which case my apogies.
DrunkJack
December 15, 2009 at 7:24 pm
That guy was drawing Son Of Hulk (After Skarr) Andres Guinaldo could work, very detailed, organic looking stuff, but epic, could easily apply to Thor and Asgard.
And Pat Zircher’s art on the first of Fraction’s specials was nice (and I’ve never really been a fan of Zircher).
Fraction’s Thor specials were good. Fraction’s Iron Man was good. The X-Men books need another shake up. It’s not just Fraction that’s blowing it, the whole crew needs to go, artists and all (God I hate Greg Land) get some new blood in there, shake up the teams, make the status quo something that allows them to…move. The book has felt stagnant for a couple years now. Even when they were at Xavier’s they were rarely THERE, they were all over the world, in the Savage Land, in space. It seems like they’ve done nothing but hang around San Francisco for years. And I really want some sort of recognizable lineups for each team, I don’t mind having a gaggle of people coming and going, but core groups with a separate focus for each team would be nice.
Mysterious Stranger
December 15, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I’m glad JRJr isn’t the regular artist on Thor. His style, for me, just doesn’t fit the tone of Thor as he’s being written now.
I do like the idea of Fraction as writer. After JMS, I think Fraction really has a good handle on Thor. And if he writes it with half the effort and passion he puts into Iron Man I think I’ll be really happy.
ALex
April 26, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I loved JRJR’s Thor run with Jurgens. Very fun. That really doesn’t look like Thor because of that weak costume. I’m sorry, but that’s doesn’t even look like Marvel’s Thor or the original mythological Thor. I’m sure they let JMS do whatever he wanted too and he probably approved that ugly costume, too.