Simonson takes a bit of a breather with a really light bank heist storyline involving Beta Ray Bill and Sif, that feels mostly like the standard, garden-variety plots that Thor unfortunately saw a lot of before now. Still Simonson imbues it with his own magic with the Bill/Sif relationship subplot.

But then, along comes Thor, riding straight into Hel. And Simonson was firing on all cylinders, art and story-wise.

I truly understand why everyone says this was the best run. For my money, I think I'm still leaning toward Jason Aaron's run as the best, but this is a very close second. ( )

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This volume of The Mighty Thor feels a bit transitional, between the epic battles of vol. 2 (including the death of Odin) and whatever is to come in vol. 4. A lot of the book deals with the repercussions of the big battle in vol. 2: the army of Asgard is still trapped on Midgard* in Central Park (though when this is resolved, it's surprisingly easy), the city of Asgard is being rebuilt, and the question of who will rule Asgard is beginning to be considered. Loki of course wants it to be Loki, and uses Lorelei (who began pursuing Thor romantically in vol. 2) to make Thor agree. This results in a pretty great Thor/Loki fight where Thor throws his hammer and then grabs Loki's neck so that when the hammer returns it will take off Loki's head. Tthis scene was actually directly ported into Thor: Ragnarok. (Simonson got a credit in the film, which was nice.)

Also Thor has maybe the best "next issue" boxes, such as this one from the end of #357, where Melodi is jealous of Sif's relationship with Thor: "NEXT: Is Thor becoming a romance comic? Has Marvel's fabulous, rock 'em-sock 'em book degenerated into nothing more than puerile soap opera? Will kissing become the rule rather than the exception? IS NOTHING SACRED? Don't hold your breath!! And don't miss our next issue!"

There are also some hijinks on Earth with Beta Ray Bill, and Thor decides to deal with the death of his father by invading Hel-- as you do. He doesn't get his father's soul back, but he does liberate trapped human souls.

There are also four issues of a Balder the Brave miniseries collected here, which are decent. I've liked Balder's appearances in this series but don't know that I was clamoring for a spotlight for him. They are decently fun, though.

Walter Simonson knows his stuff, of course, but I felt like this volume didn't contain much meat. Hopefully vol. 4 gets back to the core of what made vols. 1-2 such a success.

* Earth.