THE ROOTS OF RAGNAROK

Comic book legend Walt Simonson retells the myth

ith the exception of Jack Kirby, no comic creator has depicted the operatic grandeur of asgard like Walt simonson, whose 1980s run on Thor is arguably the thunder god’s finest hour. during his tenure, simonson first offered his interpretation of norse mythology’s ragnarok, images from which have inspired the third Thor film. “ragnarok is a fabulous story,” says simonson, who wrote and drew the acclaimed take on the myth. “go out and find a copy of the elder edda, or the poetic edda. there are old translations up on the web. generally placed first is a poem called ‘Völuspá’, which is the birth and death of the universe basically. the last bunch of verses are our record of ragnarok, and what the Vikings thought was going to happen. the story there is so cool that almost everybody who’s done thor has to do their own version. stan Lee and Jack Kirby borrowed from it. I borrowed from it twice – with thor facing off against the midgard serpent and the giants attacking the gods.” In his run, simonson also introduced a version of the fire giant, surtur. Inspired by Kirby’s own, he too features in Thor: Ragnarok.

“Jack’s drawing was very graphic. he had these black horns coming out of a black forehead. Later Jack drew more regular horns, coming out of the side of the forehead. but I thought these graphic things that he drew were really pretty cool. that was really the inspiration for my own version of that character.”

today, simonson’s delighting fans once more with another take on the tale – in IdW’s Ragnarok.

“I thought it would be interesting if ragnarok occurred, but because thor wasn’t there, the bad guys won and the cosmic balance is out of whack,” he says of the non-marvel project. “so the nine Worlds has collapsed into one vast realm. there’s no day, there’s no night. there’s just this kind of twilighty, dusk-like light across what’s left. the place is now called the dusk Lands.” Ragnarok’s first arc, “Last god standing”, reveals that thor has been imprisoned for hundreds of years. “he’s missing his lower jaw, so he has a zombie look to him. he finally breaks out, discovers what happened to the nine worlds, and discovers his wife and children have all died. at the end of the first arc, thor picks up his hammer and goes out to find his enemies and kill them. as long as he’s alive, ragnarok continues. the twilight of the gods is still happening.” asked why he prefers norse mythology to that of other cultures, simonson laughs. “oh, it’s so much grimmer! my father’s parents were both immigrants from norway, so maybe my interest is hard-wired. but I don’t like the cold. I would have been an awful Viking.” Joseph McCabe