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In The Immortal Thor #16–18, Al Ewing basically runs a two-front war: Thor’s internal “All-Father vs. son of Gaea” identity crisis in Asgard, and a very pointed “old villains repackaged as new gods” threat on Earth. Dario Agger (the Minotaur) is back in play and starts assembling a bizarre, retro roster—Radioactive Man and other early-era Thor foes—framing them as a new “pantheon” meant to challenge (and symbolically replace) the old gods. #17 escalates the gimmick into something more mythic: “four new gods” (fire/stone/wrath/trickster-serpent) are explicitly positioned as the kind of coordinated force that could topple an All-Father, and the issue’s hook is that this is “what broke him at last.” The kicker is that while Thor is swatting down the Earth-side “new gods” concept, the Asgard-side plot turns personal: the Enchantress has outplayed him, and the consequences land hard—Magni (Thor’s son from an alternate timeline) is pulled into the present, instantly changing the emotional stakes and the “heir” question hanging over the series.
That pays off in #18 as a deceptively classic-feeling Thor issue: Thor (now with Magni, plus Sif/Enchantress in the mix) bulldozes a lineup of “minor” themed villains—Gargoyle, King Cobra, Mr. Hyde, Radioactive Man—while the real plot is about what Magni means and who’s actually steering events. A lot of reviewers read the fight as intentionally nostalgic comfort-food (Thor clobbers goons, the “big bad” lurks), with the larger purpose being to cement the father/son dynamic just long enough for Ewing to start twisting the knife—because Magni’s presence wasn’t “earned” in-universe so much as engineered by Amora’s gambit. And the Minotaur angle doesn’t disappear—Dario’s “playing dead” vibe hangs over everything, so the arc reads like: Thor wins the punch-up, but loses positional advantage, because the board is being set for something older and colder than Roxxon theatrics.
Then #19–20 pivot from “eventful combat” to “mythic staging.” #19 is explicitly a breather structurally—Marvel labels it TALES OF ASGARD, and it’s a multi-artist issue about what happens when Thor leaves for a far star and the realm keeps moving without its king. The point is to show the ripple effects: Magni trying to find his place, relationship threads like Beta Ray Bill/Sif, and ominous messengers warning that bigger forces are coming. And #20 snaps the series back onto the main rail: Toranos (the Utgard-Thor / elder storm god) returns, his lightning hits Thor “at the heart,” and the gate to Utgard is open again—this time it won’t close until Thor walks through. It’s less about action and more about inevitability: Thor steels himself for what reads like the “last adventure” phase of the run’s core myth-arc, with Utgard and its elder gods no longer looming in the background but actively throwing down the gauntlet.
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