‘Thor Modern Era Epic Collection: Reborn From Ragnarok’ condemns the governmental failure in early-2000s America

Gods made idle by circumstance and legal interference.

July 10, 2024

Thor was only dead for three years, from 2004 to 2007, but so much happened in those two years that it felt like a decade.

The Mighty Thor ended in Ragnarok as a tie-in to Avengers: Disassembled. Here’s a short list of what occurred in his absence: The New Avengers were formed. Wanda decimated the mutants, Bucky Barnes returned, Hulk went to space, the New Warriors blew up, and there was a Civil War. Both Steve Rogers and Bill Foster were killed – the latter, still dead after an impressive eighteen years, was killed by a Thor lookalike Kill Bot. Iron Man took over S.H.I.E.L.D., and Matt Murdock’s identity was revealed (again). Gwen Stacy, Jean Grey, and Colossus all came back to life (to varying degrees of legitimacy). The Annihilation happened, Spider-Man was Other-ed, Wolverine got his memories back, and Cable was, briefly, a baby. Laura Kinney, the Young Avengers, the Runaways, and Vulcan all made their debut, and the Hulk declared intergalactic war.

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All of that – and so much more – happened before Thor returned in 2007’s Thor #1. You would think the return of a major character, both a god and founding Avenger, would have been a massive event, but Thor’s thunder might not have been loud enough to cut through all that noise – at least, not in the way you might expect.

While all the stories above somehow managed to impact and influence one another, the story collected in Thor Modern Era Epic Collection: Return From Ragnarok is remarkably self-contained. Upon Thor was allowed a lot of space to breathe before being forced directly into the conflicts of his peers.

Amid the epic chaos of the ongoing Marvel narrative, Thor’s restoration of Asgard to the rural flats of Oklahoma is an almost quiet, isolated thing, somehow less bombastic than terrestrial concerns. The only witnesses to the appearance of the massive, empty kingdom are a pair of befuddled state troopers who are less impressed by the uncanny miracle of creation than they are the sanctity of agricultural property rights. Treating Thor like a problem squatter, they insist he pack up and move. Thor rectifies his misstep by levitating the kingdom a few feet above the offended farmland.

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As Thor resurrects his godly kin, their lives come to resemble those of the townspeople of neighboring Broxton. They are not simple people – nor simple gods – but they leave slow, steady, and uncomplicated lives. Asgard is given a simple mailbox by a slow, steady handyman, and the Asgardians are invited into the community by way of local governance and bureaucracy. Zoning laws are discussed, as is sanitation. In Middle America, the traumatic events of the ongoing Marvel Universe seemed to have little effect on either man or Gods.

These are gods made idle by circumstance and legal interference, and this idleness becomes the central theme of Thor. While Thor is allowed to ignore the actions of his superhero pals, he is not allowed to ignore real-world events.

In the most powerful issue of the volume, Thor finds himself in the wreckage of a post-Katrina New Orleans. If ever there was something a thunder god might do, it would have been to turn back the storm that caused some 1300 deaths. Absence prevented action. Worse, the inaction of his super-powered friends – distracted by their petty squabbles – is made all the more apparent by the arrival of Iron Man. Tony is less interested in the destruction around him than in informing Thor that he must bow to the Superhero Registration Act. One of the richest men in the world (and one sitting in the top-cop spot at S.H.I.E.L.D.) could not be bothered to direct his considerable resources to the reconstruction effort of the city, instead focusing on unjust and inconsequential government oversight.

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Hundreds of thousands were without homes in this city (let alone the millions across the planet), and Earth’s self-appointed heroes were too busy fighting among themselves to acknowledge the struggles of humanity.

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Thor, justifiably, is furious – he brings lightning down on Tony so heavily that his armor becomes disabled. It’s a poignant symbol: he removes all power from the world’s most powerful man.

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Reborn From Ragnarok is a book fueled by its creator’s feelings of helplessness in the face of world events. US citizens were still recovering from the shock of 9/11, and the country was embroiled in the unjust and misguided War on Terror. Government officials – much like Tony Stark – were too distracted by confusing legislature to take early warning signs seriously. Even if they hadn’t been it was already too late: the Bush administration had cut budgets to several federal programs in order to fund their ongoing overseas aggression. Among those affected by budget cuts was the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the very agency created to respond to tragedies like Katrina. The people of New Orleans suffered due to a negligent government’s mismanagement of FEMA, and the cost was incalculable. Those in power had failed those without it.

Could have Iron Man and Captain America prevented the storm? Almost certainly not — that would be an act of a God they believed to be dead. But the Avengers could have almost certainly provided some the relief that FEMA could not; the Hulk could have been instrumental, as could the Sentry. S.H.I.E.L.D., an omnipresent military force, might have stepped into the shoes of a misdirected National Guard. A meaningless conflict prevented any such help — real or imagined — from responding.

As the constant noises of the Marvel Universe drowned one another out, so did the constant crush of the real world’s geopolitical conflicts. What felt like a decade of turbulence filled a few short years. Gods, like the government, seemed to have turned a blind eye to human suffering, and Reborn From Ragnarok chronicles that inaction.