Were it not for the “Secret Empire” emblem on the front and the plot summary on the first page, it would be easy to miss that this issue ties into an event at all. Perhaps the issue is all the better for it. After all, as Rick Remender recently lamented on Twitter, interconnecting one story with not only an event comic but with several other tie-ins as well can be a nightmare. Instead, Mark Waid uses “Secret Empire” as an opportunity to explore the character of Thor. This story follows the events of “Secret Empire”, wherein Captain America banishes Thor to another dimension. This is an Avengers book in name only, as the only Avenger who appears here is Thor. The Avengers #9 picks up her plot, following her into this new dimension and her story there.

After a short, two issue break, artist Mike del Mundo returns to the Avengers for a wonderful self-contained issue. This was a perfect issue for del Mundo’s return. His cinematic, epic style matches the location’s weirdness and sense of displacement. One particularly well-rendered scene depicts a character laying on the ground, the alien grass sweeping over him. It’s a serene scene in the midst of some over-sized action. Very little actually happens in this book, but what does happen feels enormous. Del Mundo’s presence on the book was noticed, not to slight Noto in the least, who certainly is an artist of worthy caliber. It is only that del Mundo’s art, colored here by Marco d’Alfonso, gives this book a completely different feel. He makes what might have otherwise read as puny seem mighty on the page.

The mythic atmosphere of this book makes this issue read less like The Avengers more like Tolkien’s The Hobbit, complete with a long walk up a mountain. Playing the role of Smaug is Yod who, like Thor herself, is a stranger to this dimension. Waid approaches Thor from the angle of a stranger, one who questions her claims as a god as head trauma. Seeing our comic heroes from the perspective of characters who are not themselves acclimated to the universe reminds us of the preposterous nature of these heroes. Though, from the reader’s perspective, there is some small bit of irony that the person expressing disbelief in Thor’s claims is himself an inter-dimensional being in a land overrun by a space monster. (It reminds me of a scene from Firefly in which one character dismisses something as science fiction, to which another character quips that they all live in a space ship.)

The issue is tightly scripted, with a beginning and clear end goal. The story takes no turns and plays no tricks. The stakes remain straightforward and easy to buy into. I can’t see how this story will have any sort of effect on the overall arc of The Avengers, yet it doesn’t bother me. The weight of this story is placed squarely on the relationship between its two leads. This is the kind of story that Mark Waid does particularly well, a character-based story with minimal characters. We understand Thor better as Hecla understands her, with a sense of reverence. He understands her sense of duty and honor to a people to whom she owes nothing. He journeys with this god from unbelief to belief because of the awesome works he has witnessed. He believes in her, ultimately, not as a god but as a friend.

I could certainly understand why readers would want to skip this issue, as it adds to neither to the ongoing story of The Avengers nor “Secret Empire”. It is one of those issues concerned only with telling a compelling story about compelling characters. This is sort of story I often wish comics would do more of: no decompression, no stringing the audience along towards the next story, the next adventure. It is a story that takes its readers on a fun ride that begins on the first page and ends on the last. With Marvel Legacy approaching, odds are that the time to read the tales of Jane Foster as Thor may draw to end soon. This comic takes some time with her, though it could be argued that this story may well have been a Thor Odinson tale as a Jane Foster one. I may have wanted to see a bit more of Jane Foster, not just her Thor persona, in this story to set it apart from the kind of story Waid would have told with Odinson. Nevertheless, though this story is a welcome exploration this character and a worthy tale of friendship and honor.