November isn't far away, and soon the first major wave of Marvel NOW! books will be upon us. Marvel is holding a week's worth of Next Big Thing press calls to shed more light on these upcoming releases. Today's call focused on Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic's Thor relaunch, Thor: God of Thunder. Both creators were present on the call, along with editor Lauren Sankovitch. To accompany the call, Marvel released some new preview art from Thor: God of Thunder #2.

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Kicking things off, Aaron talked about his intention to shift the spotlight of the new series more firmly on Thor. "What I wanted to do with this book was focus in on Thor himself in a big way – who he is. To do that I've kind of stripped away a lot of the supporting cast we've seen in recent years and focused on, not just one version of Thor, but three. We see young Thor hanging out with the Vikings, drinking a lot and screwing lots of Viking women and killing Frost Giants with a giant ax. We see present day Thor on a grand, cosmic adventure taking him to brand new corners of the Marvel Universe. And then in the far future – a future we've never seen before – we see old King Thor. He's the last god left in Asgard. He's missing an eye. He's missing an arm. He's been through hell. We don't really know what happened."

As previously revealed, Thor will be contending with a new villain named Gor, one that has a habit of killing gods. Aaron hinted that Gor's actions will provide a sort of connective tissue between the three time periods. "He's a being who's been stalking the cosmos for centuries, killing gods that whole time. And we don't know why. We don't know where he came from. That ties this all together – this grand, sprawling epic that spans centuries. But really, at the end of the day, it's just about, 'Who is Thor? What does Thor want? How has he changed over the years, and how is he going to change going forward?'"

Aaron noted how the original comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were a major source of inspiration, particularly in regards to his depiction of the younger Thor. "When I first got the Thor gig I hadn't read a lot of Thor. I'd only read the Simonson stuff as it was coming out and then the present day books. So I had never read those original Thor stories. When I knew I was going to be writing Thor, I went back and read Thor's first appearance and went through all those comics. It's some of my favorite Kirby stuff I've ever read. And especially those Tales of Asgard stories are great. In one of those stories, we see young Thor when he's trying to pick up the hammer. Every time he would go out and perform a good deed, he'd come back and be able to pick it up a little bit more. That kind of inspired what I wanted to do with this version of young Thor. This is before he's worthy enough."

Both Aaron and Ribic noted some other interesting influences on their work. Aaron said that his take on Thor is partly inspired by Conan, and the series will feature more internal narration. Ribic pointed to French comic artist Moebius as inspiration, particular in the design and architecture of Asgard.

As for King Thor, Aaron revealed that this is an older Thor than readers have seen before, as he rules "near the end of the universe." Aaron noted certain similarities between this version of Thor and the one seen during Dan Jurgens' run, but said "this is far beyond that." He described the future landscape "dark and melancholy... things have gone to hell." Readers won't learn initially how Thor lost his missing body parts or where the rest of the gods have vanished, though they will see him offset his missing limb with the arm of the Destroyer armor in battle. Aaron said, "For as long as I'm on the book, I want to come back and keep doing stories about young Thor and old Thor. This is really the beginning of one long, sprawling character arc that plays out over the course of several story arcs."

Fans shouldn't expect much in the way of cameos from familiar Thor supporting players or his allies on the Avengers. While Aaron admitted that Loki would surely appear sooner or later, he and Sankovitch pointed towards Kieron Gillen's upcoming Young Avengers relaunch as the ideal place to read more from the character. Other familiar faces like Sif and the Warriors Three will appear eventually, but not during the first story arc.

Aaron compared his plans for Thor to his recently concluded Wolverine run in terms of how the series will shift genres from story to story. Most notably, Gor's presence will inject the book with a strong horror vibe. "This is not a big, ax-wielding Kirby villain. This is a creepy little guy who sticks to the shadows with strange weapons. We don't quite understand initially how he does these things he does. And we certainly don't know why... This is more Se7en than it is a traditional comic book villain." Aaron noted that his depiction of Gor was inspired by Derf Backderf's graphic novel My Friend Dahmer.

The creators were hesitant to reveal just how strong a tie there is between the three timelines. Aaron used Batman's back catalog as an analogy for what he wanted to accomplish with this series. "In terms of how it all plays out, part of it was that I wanted to do something that was a big, sprawling, present day cosmic story, while at the same time doing a Year One story, while also doing a future story. So it's kind of like me wanting to do Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns at the same time I'm trying to do a present-day Batman story. That's not just for the sake of this first arc. That'll be my entire run going forward."

Thor: God of Thunder #1 is slated to ship on November 14.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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