I usually wait to see Marvel Comic movies until the adults have had a chance to review them, the success of Spider and Iron Man notwithstanding. But this is what I have been told is the basic story line.
Donald Blake, medical doctor and unsuspecting comic book character, is exploring in the Nevada desert. He comes across a military encampment that looks strangely like the one at the end of Iron Man II. Because in fictional realities (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) everyday people can singlehandedly outwit dozens of trained military and intelligence professionals at once—with a minimum of personal training, a few personal skills they have picked up in the back story, and a lot of pluck—Blake is able to unintentionally elude every guard.
Unintentionally, mind you, because there is no way Donald Blake can know what’s waiting for him when he stumbles across the super secret hammer uncovered by the excavation. Once he stumbles across it, however, he cannot help but pick it up to see what he has found and suddenly….
A bolt of lightning strikes him. He feels his muscles rippling with power and his chest expanding by at least twelve inches. His abs, already rock hard because he is in good health and perfectly fit, ripple from a six pack to a twelve-pack of rock hard steel. His denim shirt and jeans shimmer and transform into a costume of steel and elastic, mostly black but with an ultra-titanium breastplate decorated with six additional embedded plates that feel as light as a feather. A red robe spreads from his shoulders like an angels wings.
He is no longer in Nevada, he’s in…
Where the hell is he? He realizes he is wandering in the shadow of a black mountain forge with a golden anvil, surrounded on each side by two orange Valhallas floating in the clouds. They seem like they must fall from the sky, as would the Greek temples floating in the skies nearby.
“Great,” says the bearded man in the toga standing next to him. “First Cleopatra, now you guys. We were promised a monopoly on the God thing.”
“Who the hell are you,” Blake says, “Socrates? Plato?”
The bearded man stamps the ground with his foot, startling the black dragon above him so much he nearly collides with a wyvern.
“I told the game designers I don’t look Godly enough. I’m Zeus, the head honcho. The God of all Gods.”
“I thought that was Odin,” says Blake, suddenly wondering how he knew that since he previously had had no knowledge of Norse mythology.
A jester bumps into him and cackles. “If you’re the God of all Gods, how come he’s taller?”
The jester dances off toward the off-angled castle at the center of the kingdom. Protestors surround it shouting, “We want the dark one back.”
He can hear the jester’s voice laughing over the crowd. “Doesn’t stop the dragons from shitting on you, or the demons from pissing. And no Greek nymphs to scrub it off.”
Zeus blushes. “You won’t get used to it.”
A door bursts open in the left Valhalla and Freya emerges, spreading her arms and floating slowly to the ground. “Welcome to We Rule, Thor,” she says. “The social network game for puerile teens and failed writers hoping to boost their careers with a crappy blog.”
“My name’s Blake,” he tells her, “Donald Blake.”
“You can forget that from here on out,” she says. “It’s Thor.” She sweeps her hand across the horizon. “Take a good look. It will all be gone in four to six weeks and replaced with something new. I’m surprised this geezer is still hanging on.” She points to Zeus. “He used to have the best payout of any building and cost a whopping 35 mojo. Now he can’t even make it into the top ten.”
Zeus flashes his middle finger, which emerges from his hand like a bolt of lightning. It is a bolt of lighting. But it fizzles out and sizzles in the large snow patch at Freya’s feet.
“See what I mean?” she says. “Enjoy it while you can. We’ll probably have been replaced with King Kong’s mountain sometime in August.”
“I’m in a game?” Blake shouts. “A game? I was supposed to be in a blockbuster summer movie.”
She raises her nostril in contmept. “That was Chris Hemsworth, and, trust me, you’re no Chris Hemsworth. I have his posters plastered all over the walls of my apartment in Valhalla.”
“But it’s a game. A role playing game,” he protests.
“A social network game,” she reminds him. “There’s a difference. And it could have been worse. You could have been in the movie Almighty Thor with Richard Greco. It played on the SyFy channel the weekend of the film opening.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was so bad, they used Patricia Velasquez as the Norse warrior goddess. Imagine that, an actress who can barely speak English playing a Norse goddess with a Spanish accent. She was hot, though. If I leaned that way, I would have her poster all over my apartment at Valhalla. But really? The bit where they teleport into New York? I had to stop the TIVO right there.”
“I’m in hell,” Blake/Thor says. “I’m in hell.”
“No,” Freya says, “That’s another novel. With sample chapters starting this week in the Pages section. It’s been six months since it was first promised, but six months in the real world is like a week in hell.”
The jester returns, dancing around her and laughing. “That’s his excuse? And I thought I was the jester.”
The movie Thor versus the new Thor in We Rule. Notice the difference anybody?
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Thor photo by Mark Fellman.
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We Rule: The Hidden Grimoire 