Midgard (New York City)...

One may find that hospitals smell of many things, and that every person has a different interpretation of that mix of scents. Doctor Reed Flowrey thinks of people and time, and their connection, when he is in a hospital. He is now, as he makes his way down the mundane halls of his workplace towards the open door only yards away.

The light from this clear doorway is to Rebecca Nordan's liking, though her surroundings are not. One woman can only have so much patience, and she's been waiting for almost an hour, half-sobbing, half-enraged and utterly unaware of what is happening. She sniffs back a tear, and takes the air into her flared nostrils in a miniature gust. She smells fear and death. She smells the machine-like workings of it all, and food prepared without care. She smells disappointment, waiting, and sickness. Rebecca smells the hospital, and allows the thin snot to rest in her nose.

Beside Rebecca is the unstable body of her lover, or former lover, Glen Moray. For years he has been a victim of sickness, partially paralyzed in body and in mind by a illness that rends his bones and muscles as well as his brain. He considers himself, when he could, a weak man most of the time, once again in both ways. He cannot care for his Rebecca, nor love her in the way he wishes so much he could. His only desire aside from that is the want to escape from the pain and the numbness. Still, the illness has never left him…and it has been worsened by a power unseen. His body fades from naked eye and all other detection at times chosen only by chance, sometimes here and sometimes gone. Glen does not feel it when he is gone, because he feels nothing. He is simply not there. But when he is there, here, in the confines of rough blankets on a stiff mattress in the concrete and drywall fortress of the hospital, he can occasionally coax his nose to its original use.

Glen smells a chance to heal. Or maybe a chance for release. And he smells sweet Rebecca, forever at his side.

"Ms. Nordan?" Rebecca spins her head quickly and rubs the makings of tears from her reddened eyes to see Doctor Flowrey's thin, bearded face protruding through the doorway. Finding her in the room gives him the intent to enter, retrieving a clipboard of forms from the unused door. "How are we doing?"

Rebecca looks to Glen's still, currently present body. He appears to be sleeping. "Glen's…fine, I guess. As fine as he has been."

The doctor's facial hair finds a hand to stroke it while he surveys his patient. "I see…and what about you?"

"Hmm?"

"How have you been, Ms. Nordan?"

It takes a moment for her to come into the conversational situation. After all, it is not something she must do often at home, to talk. She and Glen have not had a long exchange of words worth notice in years. "…Oh. I'm okay. Kind of tired."

"We all are. This sort of thing is keeping the hospital quite busy, you know…" Could this be a hint of rudeness? In her state, Rebecca seems to think so.

"You don't think it's his fault that he's like this, do you? This is what you people are paid for, and we don't even know what's happening…" Her explosion simmers and lays at rest when Doctor Flowrey places his hand on frail shoulder.

"Please, Ms. Nordan, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that we have a number of patients who are having the same…'problems' as Glen."

Seconds pass and Rebecca thinks over her reaction. "Oh God, I'm sorry, doctor. I've just been a little…worried."

"And you have every right to be." His statement is meant to comfort, but only flares a self-attack.

"But I've been preparing for the end for years…I've always known it was coming, though this wasn't ever what I had in mind. And now that it's here, I'm scared. I'm terrified, doctor."

The physician takes revel in her sudden outburst of admitted emotion, and he finds nothing strange in her words.

"Death isn't something you can really prepare yourself for, Ms. Nordan…no matter how many times you think about it, or even see it, it's something different every time. You should feel worried, and you should feel scared…but please don't feel bad for that."

The soft fingers on Rebecca's hand tap lightly over Glen's barely rising and falling chest. She looks to him longingly, eyes glassy with held tears, and she smiles slightly at the thought and sight of him.

"I…..I just wish I knew what was going on…what was happening to him."

"Me too, Ms. Nordan." The doctor passively agrees. "I wish I knew what was happening to all of them. I wish I could help more, but this room and these facilities are all we can offer. That and my condolences."

Without lifting her eyes from her slumbering lover, Rebecca sits again. "Thank you…" she says softly. Doctor Flowrey probably says something else…maybe a theory on what is happening or his own thoughts on death or just more soothing words. Rebecca does not know because she does not listen to him. She only listens to the ever so soft breath of poor Glen, once again slowly disappearing from the fields she knows either to return soon or never at all. Rebecca knows this, but she does not allow herself to cry. She has had quite enough of that, for the moment, and thinks that she may have run out of tears, sitting but still standing at the mouth of the rest of eternity's long river.

Little do she or any others on Midgard realize that there is only one thing, one who is more than a person standing between them and the fall at the end of the river. Little do they know that he is.....


#537

October, Year 3

"At the Mouth of Eternity"

By Will Short

What Hath Gone Before:

A desperate Thor approached the Silver Surfer and his small group of travelers for help with his quest to save all that is. They were otherwise occupied, but managed to give Thor the means of traveling to the Watching City, K’Raan, a planet-city on which the Norse God was meant to find information and only found hostility. Led to the powerful creation Harrid, Thor searched for answers while, in Asgard, Odin and Loki had an exchange most jarring…

Inside the City-Planet of K’Raan...

The sight of metal shifting like the ocean’s blue waves to form their own structures can be alarming to just about anyone. And in spite of all that Thor, Norse God of Thunder, has seen in his eternal life, he jumps at such a happening.

"By the Gods…what creature bends magic to render such metal malleable?" Thor wonders allowed, still finding none to answer him in the barren room as the transforming floor forms underneath him, almost a liquid, save for the solidity the god finds as he is forced to sit on the new formation.

"Not all things are creatures, Thor." Says the unfeeling voice Thor had heard speak before. The machine-like quality of this voice rings true to its origin, as the thunder god discovers when the large screen presented before him flashes on, showing what looks like nothing more than random shapes and numbers against an inconsistent, swirling background.

Angered, Thor stands quickly from his makeshift chair. "I am not a poppet to be played with, hidden one. I shall not be forced to sit." Another stirring along the rarely interrupted ground and two pincers of the same material reach for Thor’s experienced arms, forcing him once again into his seat.

"It is an invitation that you cannot refuse."

The god’s strength in struggling easily frees him from the cold arms, and he immediately jumps from the landmark, only to have it melt back down into the floor that it came from.

"As you wish. You may find that disobeying in this place is not looked on well." The generated voice seems to come mainly from the front of the room, and the screen’s images move in response to the speaking.

"And thou may find that I have no care for such matters." Thor says with obvious hostility. "I am no rude god, yet even I cannot ignore my ill treatment only instants after arriving at this place. I know not what creed of being thou art that commands architecture and speaks without appearing, but I request that thou showest thyself, else I should lose my temper." Serious words spoken confidently and truthfully. Harrid senses this.

"Look at the screen then, Thor." Harrid suggests. "There you will find me." Thor averts his attention to the only true disturbance of the wall, the rectangular screen of glass glowing with entropy. The same type of images are still displayed there, changing drastically only with the utterings of Harrid.

"I see only what thou hast directed me to…a screen."

"And behind that, there is more. An entire network of machines and computers are connected to a single base behind this screen. This is the heart of all of K’Raan. This is myself, and I am Harrid."

"Many of thy words are foreign to me, Harrid, but I comprehend thy being. Thou art a great machine, connected to this entire kingdom, then?"

There is almost amusement to be found in Harrid’s response, but it would be hard-found. "Kingdom? Yes…yes, I am the controller of this ‘kingdom’, the entire city-planet and all on it." The break in rhythm Harrid takes is unneeded, but is taken despite.

"This place is a rich, finely-kept tapestry. Each thing, each person, each event is placed perfectly for the cause of one point, and only one point: to watch, and nothing else. I fear that your presence here threatens that intent."

"Those who have to quarrel with Might and Right have nothing to fear from this god," Thor says, half-threatening.

Harrid waits a short time between their sentences. "I am not what you would call ‘evil’, Thor. It is not within my programming. That same programming drives my unit and this world to observe, but to never interfere."

Such a statement brings the image of a large, balding head with empty eyes to the god’s mind. "There is a race that follows the same code. Some few have chosen to break it…and some of those who have not have gone mad."

"It is impossible for me to go mad. I have no mind. But I am aware of such a race, because I am a creation of a Watcher."

"I might assumed as much. It would appear that thou art now the sole ruler of this kingdom, though…prithee, what happened to thy maker?"

Slowly, Harrid responds. "I will tell you if you will wait and listen."

"I will listen, though I am without a great deal of time. There is…"

"Yes, I am aware of the sickness. It has already reached this world."

"Then make thy tale short, Harrid, for both our sakes."

Once again pausing, the breathless Harrid’s screen goes blank.

"Very well…"

"Exactly three million, fifty-six thousand and twenty-one years, seven months, thirteen days, nine hours, thirty-five minutes and three seconds ago, a being of the race called…"

"A short story, machine." Thor interrupts impatiently.

"Fair enough. Millions of years ago, a member of the race called the Watchers came to this planet when it was very young. He set up living quarters from which he could uphold his duties, and through the many years he also watched the evolution of the life on the planet he had chosen. Over millennia, he saw microscopic organisms birth crustaceans, then fish, then amphibians, then reptiles and mammals, and finally the highest state of evolution so far on K’Raan, mammals who walk upright and have the ability to speak and have free will, the first Kraanians. The Watcher took more interest in the Kranians than his work and, despite his species’ rule, interfered with their affairs many times over. He helped them, and they helped him in return. Together they built a city with the technology of the Watcher and the physical help of the Kraanians. It was soon after then that the Watcher created this unit as an artificial aid to his duties, which he was gradually ignoring more and more. I had a simple existence, running the growing city and keeping watch over the Watcher’s duties. But I quickly realized that there was unrest. A small faction of the Kraanians planned to overthrow the Watcher, who had taken an unofficial office as their leader. This, I could not allow. The Watcher was by then blind to the inner workings of his own city and beloved people, and so I decided that he must be protected at any cost."

The silence comes as a surprise to Thor, waiting for a continuation of the tale he has been told, which, despite himself, the god has taken a fancy to for the mere thought of entertainment alone.

"Be there more to thy tale?" he asks the great machine.

"There is more that I have never revealed."

"It is no matter…I did not come to this place for tavern stories of times past. This has been no more than a distraction and a waste of our precious time. It is obvious that you have some sort of control over the people of this planet, Harrid, and though I do not know how you have done this, I sense that there is evil behind your brisk outside."

Harrid’s screen flickers with life again, sending its rays to all places of the room only to find solidity and die, their lives spent.

"At other times, this would be a greater matter to me, but I do not wish to risk anything else. I came here seeking salvation, Harid…I came seeking answers. Wilt thou give them to me?"

"You have not asked a question, but no, I will not. What K’Raan watches is its own."

"Very well."

Without so much as another word, Thor spins on his heel and walks towards the back, shadowed end of the room. The air about him could be felt overwhelmingly if there were living creatures within. But it is only he and the computer Harrid, alone at the heart of K’Raan. Thor knows this very well.

He stops at the center of the cubic cell, feeling the watching of a million invisible eyes on his position, and he holds his hammer up to his face, as if to inspect it. The few cracks on its strong Uru may seem like impurities to some…but to others, such as the mallet’s wielder, they are each proud memories of battle. Slowly, Mjolnir is lifted high above Thor’s helmeted head, tiny crackles of energy forming and slithering like infant serpents crazed for sustenance.

"Thor…?" Harrid begins. He is not allowed to finish, and he is not interrupted by words, but only by a voice.

THOOM!

The voice of the angry heavens above.

KRAKA-THOOM!!!

"Thor…what are you doing?" A beacon of organic light suspended in the heart of a cold, dark colony, Thor strikes lightning down on the heartless technology surrounding him with force that only the thunder god can summon.

"You must stop. Do not do this." Even in this time of assault, Harrid’s voice remains unwavering in its indifference. With Mjolnir still glowing heavily in his hand, Thor looks to the screen.

"You wish for me to stop this lightning?" He asks in partial sarcasm, then halts his energies to take swift flight towards, and eventually through, the thick door. "So be it, Harrid…but for how long, I cannot say!"

The burst of metal and force that used to be the door sends debris flying like shrapnel into the neighboring wall outside, from whence Thor had come. He does not stop with the door as he plows through that same wall, creating yet another quake of titanic measurement.

The room Thor enters is larger than most he has seen, apparently a dining hall for those who serve to protect the giant city-planet. The god’s arrival does not go unnoticed.

"The intruder…he has escaped Harrid!" One calls, arranging others around him for a small militant group.

"Fire at will, men!" With the command, a barrage of multi-colored beams pierces the air around Thor. He plummets towards the men, the lasers that he does not dodge only increasing his intensity, and his foe scatter like disturbed, cowardly roaches. For only a second, the agents believe the threat may have passed on through the steaming hole before them.

CRASH!

Their thoughts, or hopes, are proven wrong as the speeding form of Thor erupts in a geyser of debris and power from the ground again. The few that have stayed still fire their useless, though advanced, weaponry, annoying their target above as he collects his power.

Lightning bolts strike in all directions, and the amount of static electricity can be smelt. One stabs through a wall, melting it all the way through to that on the other side. Another finds its place among a formation of tables and seats that are easily incinerated into charred bits of their former state. Still others nearly miss the handful of men standing vigilantly aside, who flee within seconds of their threat's arrival. Among the deceased burning wood, the defunct metal walls and their machines, aloft by enchantments even older than the planet of K'Raan itself, there is Thor, calling to what could be the city itself.

"Harrid!" He cries, and then again. "Harrid! Can thou hear me?"

After waiting, he hears his reply. "Of course I can hear you. I am everywhere, Thor."

"Then hear me well, heartless Kraanian king...the times are too desperate to hold any secrets from me! Thou and thy city are equally at risk as any and everything else...I ask thou now to reveal all to me."

Only the noise of twisting metals and machines in the background give him answer.

"Reveal all to me.....!!!" And then things are revealed.

Thousands, millions, billions, countless lusting tentacles stretch forth from the bent, shifting walls to reach their prey with a hungry vengefulness. And as each one comes, by themselves or in inevitable waves, Thor compensates. Three of more take grip of his perspiring upper limb, yet with a single movement, the thunder god rips them from their rooted base and tosses them down like the spent superfluous appendages they are. Even as he does so, more metallic arms slighter onto his body in a vain attempt to crush Thor's immortal body. Completely intertwined in the mechanical caress of Harrid's extensions, Thor hears his host's digitized voice once again.

"You have interfered with our utopia. Now you will be digested as a part of it." Quick, light pain rushes throughout Thor. The only outside sign of this is the sweat on his tough skin and the uncomfortable grimace on his face.

"Thou...cannot digest.....a GOD!" But at the same time the pain fluxes, and Thor finds that this may not be all that true. Tentacles surging, grip undeniably tightening, there is mighty tension between the two forces...

Thor feels other things among his pain. He begins to feel more and more ill, tired, weak...he cannot tolerate any weakness, and either Asgard, nor Midgard nor anything else, can survive it.

It rises from his gut to his throat to his dry mouth, where it comes as an explosion to shake cities. It shakes K'Raan.

"aaAAAAAAGGHHHH! ENOUGH! Thou would threaten to swallow the Son of Odin..."

Another explosion, this time physical and again shaking all foundations.

"...But...I...say...thee....."

With a power-burst from within and a swipe of fabled Mjolnir, Thor frees himself and bellows triumphantly, "...NAY!!!"

His freedom is won, and his rage is quite close to overflowing both himself and the entire room. Back through his self-made exits and entrances Thor flings himself, back to the heart of it all...back to Harrid.

"Harrid!" the battle cry of a god beyond his limits, "Thou has seen my power and felt a portion of it as well! Wilt thou now reveal to me this plague?"

There is no answer while Thor awaits.

"No? Then I shalt rip this planet asunder for that which I seek!"

"You would not do so, Thor. Your honor would be at stake, and if you destroy me, you destroy K'Raan, and your chance of learning what you want to know."

What curls around Thor's lips slowly could possibly be described as a smile, though the placement could seem strange if so. Harrid does not see the glint in the Thunderer's eye, he only hears the overwhelming bluntness of his words.

"Thou keeps such knowledge from me in existence, hence there is no difference whether thou art in order or destroyed by my hand. As for my own honor…I have that of a Norse God. But in this state, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. Hear me, Harrid…I do not care to honor one such as you, for it could be argued whether or not thou truly exists or not. If all is to end, then I shalt begin the chain with thou. Make thy choice: answer me, or be the first to end. It makes no difference to me."

As has been frequent, silence passes between the monstrous, injured computer and the madly ill god. They both hear the sparks passing between exposed cables and dented metal flesh far off elsewhere. Besides that light crackling, and Thor's quiet breath, there is nothing. Nothing…and then power.

Like the inorganic tentacles that wished to contain him before, bolts of yellow, vengeful lightning are rendered from every wall, ground and ceiling included, finding their way to their master, who glows with their might. Then the clouds form, misplaced in the room of desolate steel and circuitry. They swirl and darken above their caller, who commands their tears to fall. They so fall. In floods of destruction there is rain, rain coming and blowing horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and every other which way. A formerly absent wind is found to now be blowing and strengthening, gradually elevating to a heinous level of force. The only still thing in the room is the God of the Storm.

Thor is still in his place, watching Harrid die.

Below all noise, there is faint speaking. "Thor…this will…..not…not-not….no…*krakle*…all Eterniy has…*beep*"

The god knows not what was said, but shouts to answer nonetheless. "My storm, I have conjured, Harrid! Thou cannot survive it…thou will not withstand my pain, the pain and power of all Asgard, of the Allfather Odin! Now I command thee, o' Keeper of this Watching City, yield to me!"

Quick as the winds around him Thor thrusts forth with a desperate warrior's power, shattering the screen that represented his foe. "Yield!" Foreign technology found behind the screen's replacement, a hole, cannot escape his loose sanity, his anger.

CRASH!

"YIELD!

CRASH!

"YIELD!!!"

Then it all gives way. Over a million years of conformity stirred with fear mixed with mechanical control finds release in the legendary Mjolnir. There is no strike back to Thor…there cannot be. The general glow of his surroundings fades and dies, and he knows that it is gone.

Behind the screen is a corridor, unlit and cold. Thor follows through this passage on light heels, lighting his way with a current of energy from his mallet. All this reveals is another length of hall, extending far ahead. A few more steps forward reveals a long figure on the ground before Thor. Upon further inspection he sees this nude figure laying supine on the hard floor with wires attached to its lanky form…and to its large, unusual head.

"Od's throne…"

Once fully bathed in Mjolnir's light, the being turns its body to face Thor and to stare with wide, white eyes. It looks weakened, as much so as Odin had when Thor last laid eyes on him. Thor offers a strong hand to the creature, but it refuses by shaking its head slightly.

"I…cannot rise. Tell me…..how long has it…been?"

And in final realization of this body's identity, Thor attempts to soothe him and lay him back further. "It has been many, many years, old Watcher."

He nods a giant's nod. "I thought…it would…be." He stops for a moment to cough. "Is it gone?"

"The contraption? Yes. I destroyed it." This seems to bring content to the sickly Watcher's face.

"…and my people? Are they…?"

"Whatever hold the machine had over them is now broken. They are free."

The Watcher's huge smile is relaxed. "Thank you…old god…..I have not forgotten you and your people…..other this long time."

Thor puts his hand on the Watcher's forehead. "And what is thy name? I must know."

"My name?" he asks, slowly succumbing to a near calling from the darkness beyond, "…..me name…is…..Harrid….." The life exits Harrid the Watcher's body, Thor can feel it. He lays his crimson cape over the corpse of one above his own restrictions, and looks to the seemingly endless halls ahead.

Once in that direction, Thor does not know how long he walks, but he does so anyway, solemnly and silently.

When he comes upon a doorway, his eyes must make an adjustment to the light, blinding in comparison to the shady hall he is slowly leaving behind. Inside is a room, medium in size, with any number of screens of varying sizes placed throughout. Each is cracked or completely shattered, possibly reached even thus far by the might of Thor’s final blow to the ruling machine. Surveying as he walks, Thor can hear the buzzing of a single, still working screen. It is easily found, and the sight seen on it startles Thor almost as much as the sudden voice behind him, a voice that is distorted by a familiar static.

"So. Harrid is dead?"

The agent is picked up from his place on the ground by a startled Thor, who holds Mjolnir in a position to assault. Seeing the agent unarmed, Thor drops him back to his feet.

"Yes," he answers, "Both of them."

"What do you mean…both of them?"

Thor ignores his question and stares at the screen. "Is this…is this not Eternity?"

"Yes, it’s Eternity. You’ve seen him before, haven’t you?"

"Before, yes…though never quite like this. The entity looks…" Thor quickly looks to his unlikely companion, "Eternity is sick?" To this, the agent only nods. "And that is the cause of this entropy?" Once again, a nod. Thor looks once more to the screen and feels the pain in his gut and head. He sees this pain reflected and magnified in the image on the screen.

"Deliver me to Eternity."

"What?" the agent asks in shock, "I can’t do that…I can’t interfered at all. Harrid forbids it…"

"Harrid is gone. The counterfeit Watcher is destroyed. Thou hast no code by which thou must live, nor do thy people…I suggest thou tellest them that. Now send me to the ailing Eternity, if thou can."

Within seconds Thor stands ready on a device he has little understanding of but trusts in despite. The agent stands ready at his own controls.

"When I am gone, look into the hall once more. Thou may have use of what thou find." The information is given with good will, and in another instant, the Thunder God is gone from K’Raan and stretched through bent space to his final destination.

An Asgardian Tavern ("The Scaly Flagon")…

Crawling on his monstrous belly, Volstagg attempts to yell triumphantly, though it comes more as a half-spoken string of coughs and words.

"Haha!…*koff, koff*…The victor emerges unsacathed!…*gasp*…*koff*"

"And who dost thou claim…*ahem*… as victor?" Hogun asks, also chest-down on the dank floor of the tavern.

"Mine own self, of course!" he says, then laughs until nearly choked.

"Thou claims…*koff*…victory even though I am the true champion…"*koff*… of the Warriors Three!" Fandral claims proudly.

"A champion who sputters like a hag! HA!" Volstagg laughs as heartily as he can. "I’ve heard of no such legends before…*koff*."

"And yet you raise yourself above us…*ahem*… while thou chokes on thy own breath as well! How canst thou name thyself the victor?" asks Hogun.

"Surely I am the winner, for I have inched further than the both of you combined!" And yes, it would appear so, though both Fandral and Hogun would disagree.

"Thou hast more weight to carry, Volstagg!…*koff…Such weight would bring you forward." Hogun reasons, though unreasonably.

"Nonsense! My weight only adds to the effort needed!"

"See here now, both of you…"

It does not matter who spoke last, or honestly who spoke at all, for so heavy a ruckus was made by the trio’s arguing that none, be they god, man, or other, could tell who was saying what or even what they spoke about.

I see nothing but...nothing. Not a single light or object in sight. I cannot even see mine own hand in front of my face. Some fear the darkness, and I am usually not one of them, but in such a gorging blackness as this, and the empty feeling that it carries, even I am to question my bravery. I know that I am here for good reason, and in all, there is nothing to fear, for I know that the end will find me either way. To block my hated fear, I think of how I came to be here after arriving at Eternity's foot...

"Eternity…I beckon you! I have sought thee out!" I shouted to get the being’s attention. Eternity looked like a portion of space itself, only a half-lit blue face against a loosely defined body of inky void that represents a body. His single brightest eye seemed to twinkle dim like a dying star. He, or it, nearly blended in against the backdrop of deep space.

"Eternity, canst thou hear me? I wish to help! I will do anything!"

The silent embodiment of everything was silent for the moment, but blinked, then asked me, "I HAVE SEEN THE TRIALS YOU HAVE TAKEN AS YOUR OWN. YOU CLAIM THAT YOU WILL DO ANYTHING, GOD OF THE VIKING THUNDER. MORE THAN BRUTE FORCE AND NOBILITY WILL BE NEEDED. I…*koff*…I REQUIRE HEALING FROM WITHIN."

"And I will give it to you if I am able, if only thou shalt tell me how!"

Motioning with a finger the size of my entire body, Eternity called for me to come nearer to his diminishing greatness. At the mouth of Eternity, I heard his words.

"CLIMB INTO MY BEING AND SEARCH FOR THE DISTUBANCE…I DO NOT PROMISE YOUR SAFETY, BUT EVEN I CANNOT DELVE INTO MY OWN DEPTHS."

And so I had. And so, I am here.

This "here" appears to be nowhere. I have lost all sense of direction and balance floating among the creamy black. But I still feel ancient Mjolnir at my side as comfort, and I strain my eyes into the distance as I see something...A light? A creature? Nothing at all?...making its way towards me. Though mine eyes could deceive me, as my mind deteriorates with the same sickness plaguing my molded body, I do not believe them to do so.

It is closer now. It looks like.....It looks like light, pure light that I cannot define the color or colors of. And this mysterious light is engulfing me in waves that go between both blinding white and depressing black. I feel like I am falling. I am falling.....

Will I ever stop falling?

NEXT: "The Darkness Within"

THE HAMMER STRIKES

So, another turn in our hero's story has come and soon it will have gone. Eternity itself is sick and now Thor has entered the most cosmic of beings to try desperately to aid it and in turn, everything else. Who is to say whether or not Thor will save his beloved dual homes of Asgard and Midgard? Well, I am. And you will have to wait a while, though most likely a short one, to see. Now, a letter about issue #536 from my Epic Branch Editor, Jason "J2" Snyder.

"Okay, here it is, my promised letter!

First of all, let me re-emphasize something I mentioned to Gary after reading his latest Defenders issue. I've never been an incredibly huge fan of the Asgardians (Thor included) just because things always seem to be repetitive in every single story I've read.

Now with that out of the way, I can safely say that you really bring Thor (the character, not simply the title) alive. His desperation (and perhaps his disillusionment) easily comes through this issue when he tracks down the Surfer. His treatment of Nova is even better. Having read the latest SILVER SURFER within the same day as this, I feel your characterization is at least as good as Russ' handle on Nova. I'm encouraging you to continue having appearances of her throughout your run (if Russ allows it)...maybe some sort of romantic fling since they seem to have a small spark this issue?

Also, let me mention that this storyline with Odin and Thor being sick, as well as Asgard being ruined again, is much better than the recent "Dark Gods" story in the regular Thor title. Jurgens doesn't seem to have gotten the handle of the characters in his almost thirty issues like you have in only two.

Finally, I definitely agree with Jeff Melton in his letter that the words seem to poetically flow off the screen. I really hope you stay with this title for awhile (as well as Doc Strange and Man-Thing, which are also great...wait, shouldn't YOU be sucking up to me since I'm one of your BE's? =). Anyway, good job, and I'll definitely be back next issue!

-Jason"

Jason, Jason, Jason...you and Jeff are going to give me a big head with all that "poetic" stuff. In all honesty, that is something I usually try to make a good part of this title, because it is based from mythology, which to me should always have a nobler poetic sense to it. Something else I wished to display was Thor's oncoming desperate madness, which apparently I did. To be truthful...I just tried to wing the Silver Surfer's personality along with his two companions by what I thought of them. I'm very happy, and surprised, that you thought I came out well. I'm not sure about Nova popping up more as a love interest...but who knows; Russ and I are pretty good friends. Finally, the comment about my take on the characters compared to Jurgens' only makes me that much more determined to establish myself as an all-around writer...not just one of your cooky Epic authors. Thanks very much for reading and then writing the letter so soon, Jason, and I hope you keep coming back, as well as I do with any and all of you who read this. 'Till next we meet...

-Will Short

October 5, 2000

11:29 PM

Will Short can be reached at WeekapaugB@aol.com