“Free” Comic Pick of the Month – July 2018

I don’t read comics nearly as often as I used to, in case that’s not been obvious to this point. As a casual comics fan, I’ve been pleased to find that there are quite a lot of options out there for readers who want to “check out” free comics without committing their hard earned dollars to an actual purchase.

There are a lot of ways to read free comics online. However, for today, I’m just going to focus on one platform – Amazon Prime Reading – for a few reasons:

• You can read a lot more comics for free from other sites, but if you’re reading comics people uploaded, you’re ripping off the comic companies and creators, and you should knock it off.
• I don’t like to read comics in my browser, and the experience of reading comics on a tablet is great on the Kindle App.
• If the news is to be believed, Amazon is taking over the world and approximately 112% of Americans now have Prime subscriptions – so it’s probably the quickest, most accessible for you if you just happened upon this article.

I can’t say, yet, how the full library of Amazon Prime Reading compares to Amazon Kindle Reading, Marvel Unlimited, Comixology, or any of the other options available to readers. I’d guess that if you have access to any of those other platforms, though, the comics I’m spotlighting  are probably also available there.

My pick for the inaugural edition of the Free (Casual) Comic Pick of the Month is:

Thor Vol. 1: The Goddess Of Thunder (2014-2015)

(Click for a link to the book – he says, over-explaining it all… The link is for your convenience, not my benefit. I’ve been too distracted to try and make any money off any of this tom-foolery)

What’s up with the New(ish) Thor?

Passing the comic racks over the last few years, I always wondered what was up with this new, female version of the God of Thunder. Did Thor change into a woman?

That’s not a silly question – for a while, Loki was a lady., so there’s precedent here in the realm of Asgard.

I’m even old enough to remember when Thor was enchanted by his brother and became The Frog of Thunder.

 

So, for a long time I wondered whether this new chapter (you know, having a female Thor) was a genuine story in Thor’s ongoing development or a simple stunt to drum up sales. Was this a Spider-Gwen or a Lady Stilt-Man?

Having read the book “Goddess of Thunder”, I can gladly report that this comic is a welcome addition to the Thor mythos. And, also, that you don’t have to be steeped in Thor’s full history to have a good time reading this book. It’s actually pretty self-explanatory.

Thor is no longer able to lift Mjolnir, which now sits on the surface of the moon – very much vexing both him and his father, Odin. In fact, no one is, until a mysterious, unnamed woman strides across the lonely landscape and takes Mjonir, transforming her into The Goddess of Thunder.

Why can’t he lift the hammer any longer? Long story, short… Based on the events of a prior book, he’s no longer worthy.

Who is The Goddess of Thunder? The investigation by Thor – who is very much NOT a fan of someone else wielding his mighty hammer – is one of the more entertaining plot-lines in this book.

Thor Volume One: Goddess of Thunder collects the first five issues of the series and could not be more fun to read. From the big battle sequences to the small character moments – and then to the fact that there’s a guy named Dario Agger who runs a Fortune 500 company and is also a secret minotaur, this book blends the heroic, the mysterious, and the outright crazy in just the way comics should.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, I’d highly recommend you read this book. Even if you have no idea what’s been going on with the Thor comics, reading this book is a great time. And, it won’t cost you a(nother) dime to download and read if you’re a Prime member.

I’ll give this a big “check it out” – even for casual comics fans. If you’ve got Amazon Prime, it’s not going to cost anything more than your time and (probably unlimited) bandwidth.

Cheers!

• CCG