The other day I
purchased perhaps the heaviest tome that will ever sit upon my bookshelf: a
Marvel Comics omnibus containing the entirety of Walter Simonson’s run on The Mighty Thor. A hardcover with over a
thousand glossy pages, the compendium collects Simonson’s nearly four year run
writing the Mighty Avenger, the bulk of which was also drawn by him (Sal
Buscema pencilled 18 of the 45 collected issues).
With the
exception of a few high profile scribes, Grant Morrison and Brian Michael
Bendis chief among them, it’s rare nowadays to see a single writer dictate the
course of a character and the surrounding universe for so long. And after
reading most of the omnibus—I still have yet to read the final two fifths or
so—I want to see more of these auteur
efforts, because Simonson’s run contains some of the best superhero comics I
have ever read.
