Notice how in these scenes Balder is acting rather un-Balder like - forcing Rattusk into his armor and driving him into the giants' lair at the point of a knife, etc.

The scenes showing Rattusk dying are from Agnar's point of view as he attempts to recreate what happened to Balder. Yeah only complaint I have is Karnilla being a bit damselly this time.īalder wasn't deceiving Karnilla when he told her that her servant sacrificed himself heroically. Utgard-Loki appears again in Thor 381-382. Although Agnar doesn't approve of Karnilla, Balder reminds him that she helped Asgard fight against Surtur in Thor #352.There's no footnote for this, but Utgard-Loki previously appeared in a Tales From Asgard type story in Thor #272 under his alternate name, Skrymir.Balder sustained an arm injury in Thor #361 that is cured in this series. Balder left Karnilla after issue #1 to journey with Thor to Hel, as shown in Thor #360 through Thor #362.A minor note: later, the shrunken frost giants will be seen to be led by a giant called Grundroth, and while he doesn't explicitly appear in this story, the fact that he is among those that were shrunken means that he must have been here somewhere, and so i'm listing this as his sort-of first appearance. It shows how popular Thor was that it was possible to put out a Balder miniseries, but i'm glad that was the case and that there was room in the Marvel universe for stories like this alongside the Punisher and X-Men.Ĭhronological Placement Considerations: These issues take place 'weeks' after issue #1, and with some overlap with Thor #364-366. If i have a complaint at all about these issues it's that the powerful Norn Queen Karnilla is placed into a damsel in distress scenario, but this is a fairy tale story. It's because Thor won't take his father's throne that Balder is forced to. As Karnilla points out, though, it's really Thor's fault that they have to be separated. So despite the love that they both profess for each other, they are forced to separate. Karnilla had already agreed to devote herself to trying to find a way to restore her people, and thanks to the growth of her character in this story, she doesn't hide the note from Balder when they arrive back in her kingdom. While Balder is rescuing Karnilla, Hogun of the Warriors Three arrives in the Norn kingdom and leaves a note saying that Balder has to return to Asgard and take the throne. But as White Pepper notes in the comments, that scene was told from Agnar's perspective, and we learn the truth here. One of her goblin servants seemed to betray Balder during his quest to save her, and Balder seemingly tricked him into getting killed.

He's also somewhat deceptive to Karnilla.

Balder the brave covers