Before winding down his run with the King Thor miniseries, Jason Aaron delivered a pretty poignant finale with this week’s Thor #16. The issue saw return appearances from many of the Marvel universe’s Asgardians — as well as a surprise resurrection.
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Spoilers for Thor #16 below! Only look if you want to know!
The issue revolved around Thor’s coronation as the ruler of Asgard, which was complicated by the fact that he wasn’t really present for the party. While Thor traveled around Midgard and beyond doing good deeds, Frigga and Odin tried to help the many guests at the coronation.
At one point, Loki made a surprise appearance at the event, joking about whether or not his presence was warranted. He tells both Old Thor and Young Thor to tell Thor that he was there, and leaves him with a present before returning to Jotunheim. The present is Toothgnasher, one of Thor’s mystical goats.
If you don’t remember, Toothgnasher was last seen in Mighty Thor #700, when he attempted to guard Mjolnir from Volstagg. In the process, Toothgnasher was brutally decapitated by Mangog, which seemed to squash hopes of him being resurrected anytime soon.
While Toothgnasher’s return was arguably spoiled in the issue’s cover, it was still a pretty endearing moment, and serves as a sort of icing on the cake for what’s happened in Aaron’s Thor run recently.
“I can say certainly everything I’ve done on Thor has been building towards [War of the Realms],” Aaron told ComicBook.com earlier this year. “And it will dramatically change Thor’s status quo, and the status quo for kind of all those characters around him. Then I’m wrapping up my Thor run kind of right after that. Also, everything that I’ve been doing now will be building into Avengers, so it’ll have big ramifications not just for the Thor corner of the Marvel Universe, but for the bigger gooey center of the Marvel Universe, as well.”
“We’re still in talks about when is he [Aaron] going to get off, what he wants to do with his arcs, but it’s not going to be this year,” Marvel Editor-in-Chief CB Cebulski added. “With War of the Realms he told the story he wants to do, now he’s got to figure out what he wants to continue doing and when he’s going to leave. Every creator has an end to their run. He’s had an amazing run, but as to when that is going to be, neither I nor Jason, nor anyone at Marvel can say just yet, but we have been talking about things.”
Thor #16 is available in stores now. King Thor #1 will be released on September 11th.
