Thor #496Issue(s): Thor #496 Review/plot: This is also the second part of the First Sign crossover. Captain America has led the Zodiac army to the Enchantess' apartment, hoping that Thor will swat them away with his hammer. But Thor has lost his powers. Luckily, when the Enchantress' apartment was emptied last issue, that didn't include a pair of giant machine guns hidden in the wall. And, convenient since Cap is here, they are loaded with "rubber bullets. Filled with a heart relaxant. Relatively non-fatal". To spare the Enchantress' servants in case of an attack, and so that the Enchantress could "interrogate" the attackers. The guns shouldn't have worked since the Zodiac barrier is canceling out all technology, but instead they only operated for two minutes instead of ten. Seems like a plot cheat. In fact there's a lot of inconsistency around the technology nullification. We're told that there are a lot of sirens heard in the distance, and it seems like at least some people's guns work. Anyway, Cap naively looks the other way while the Enchantress "interrogates" some of the soldiers and learns that there's a dimensional portal ten blocks away. Enchantress stays behind to guard the prisoners while Thor and Cap go to investigate the portal. So Cap and the "powerless" Thor ("without my godhood, I have only the strength in my back and the weight of Mjolnir to protect me") have to fight their way through more Zodiac goons. The semi-notable bit (it made the cover, anyway) is that Thor wields Cap's shield during the fight. Thor seemingly gets a rib cracked because Cap is using tactics he'd normally use around a more invulnerable Thor. But he basically seems fine, albeit a little tired. The weird bit is that Cap and Thor get a little help from some people who took Audrey Hepburn's film Wait Until Dark as an instruction manual. Anyway, they make it to the portal. As with the previous part, the plot here is very thin (and unlike the Cap chapter, it doesn't even have any ongoing subplots to pad it out). I'd love to see the brainstorming notes for this crossover; i would hope it sounded more interesting than "have them fight faceless goons for two whole issues". Part of the idea might have been to introduce the characters (and the readers) to each other's current status quos, which isn't so interesting when it comes to shirtless, powerless-but-not-really Thor, but whoo-boy will that change with part three. Quality Rating: C- Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly from Captain America #449. This is part two of First Sign. Part three is in Iron Man #326. References:
Crossover: First Sign Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A
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