When there should be only one of a cool thing, and instead there are two or three of that cool thing, a cover almost immediately becomes two to three times cooler:

And that’s what makes this Thor, God of Thunder cover rad. Two Mjolnirs! Three Thors! All rendered in the fantastic fantasy stylings of made-to-draw-muscly-god-dudes artist Esad Ribic. Whoever these Thors are looking at is about to get wrecked. And me, I am a simple man who wants to see that wreckoning.

While the “more of a cool thing factor” is this cover’s primary draw, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Ribic’s painterly style, which fit this initial Thor, God of Thunder story so well. As mentioned above, this comic looks exactly like a piece of classic fantasy art. There are not a ton of artists who could convey the same sturm and gravitas Ribic brought to this cover via the colors and textures applied to the Thors, their weapons, and the storm swirling around them. This cover would still look fantastic in the hands of say, the later Thor art team of Russell Dauterman and Matt Wilson, but it would be a different cover. And it wouldn’t quite have that same retro fantasy magic.

You can, of course, go too far with the “more of a cool thing” conceit. (Stares pointedly at Dark Nights: Metal.) But this Thor, God of Thunder cover, and the story as a whole, stays right in the sweet spot of delivering a couple neat twists on a character and concept readers may have thought they’d already figured out – and giving the current Thor a chance to grow in the process.

(Want to check out more posts in the Cool Comic Covers series? If so, click here.)