Nice read, but ugly to look at.
With Karnilla’s attack on Asgard repulsed, Thor, Balder and Sif return to their training. This issue is mostly about the growing relationship between Thor and Sif. I don’t believe Balder even has a single line. But Loki is back to his old tricks too, and now he has a new ally in Amora, the Enchantress. Both want to break up Thor and Sif for their own reasons.
Story-wise, this series seems back on track. In fact, this may be the most well-written issue so far. The angst Sif feels at being the tom-boy of Asgard is a lot more believable than the teen posturing of past issues.
But no sooner does the story get back on track than the art seems to take a big step backward. The first, relatively minor issue I have is that the teen swordfighters are shown fighting each other in practice swordfights with no armor, and real swords. The way they go at it the sword-fighting school of Asgard must loose a couple students to decapitation and other mortal wounds every day!
But really, that’s a minor quibble. A bit more of a pet-peeve for me is that, up to now, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut about Sif being portrayed as a black haired girl. Anyone who knows their Norse mythology knows that the one defining characteristic of Sif is her golden hair! It’s as iconic to the character as Thor’s hammer or Odin’s eyepatch. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because this issue Sif actually makes a big deal about both The Enchantress and Brunnhilda being blonde – which just points up this inconsistency. Well… so far in this series Thor has no hammer, and Odin no eye-patch, so perhaps a mystic bleach job is in Sif’s future.
The good news when it comes to the art is Jo Chen’s awesome cover. The bad news when it comes to the art is that nothing inside the issue even comes close to it in quality. In this chapter, there’s an even bigger reliance on the colorist for shading than ever – there’s almost no added dimension from inking here. With this issue, the colorist does all shadows – and they seem to be overdone. The characters’ faces look ape-like, gaunt, or otherwise distorted in nearly every panel due to the high contrast coloring; and the scenes overall look muddy and dark. (I tried to include some image examples, but the uploader isn't working right now) I hope in future issues the coloring will be able to pull off this added job, or that the creators realize how bad this looks and go back to old fashioned inking.