Thor #17
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThor vol. 2 #17 serves as the opening chapter of 'The Eighth Day,' a late-1999 Marvel crossover that introduced the Exemplars — eight mystically empowered avatars of ancient cosmic entities called the Octessence — and fundamentally expanded the mythology surrounding the Juggernaut by revealing that Cain Marko was never unique: he was merely the first of eight such champions. The issue delivers the first appearances of both Bedlam (Olisa Kabaki), a young girl from Kenya transformed into an avatar of psionic devastation by the Ivory Idol of Ikonn, and Conquest (Bridget Malone), empowered by the Kestral Key of Krakken, making it the birth certificate for two new Marvel villains who would go on to challenge the Avengers across multiple titles. By pitting Thor against a Juggernaut whose power has been mysteriously amplified and who cannot be stopped even by the God of Thunder, Jurgens forces a rare defeat on the Asgardian while simultaneously pulling multiple corners of the Marvel Universe — Asgard, the X-Men's legacy, and street-level New York — into a single interconnected plot. The crossover structure that #17 initiates also marks one of the more ambitious editorial experiments of the Heroes Return era, threading a shared threat through Thor, Iron Man, Peter Parker: Spider-Man, and a dedicated one-shot.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Thor vol. 2 launched in July 1998 as part of Marvel's Heroes Return initiative — the line-wide restoration of its flagship characters to the main Marvel Universe after the Heroes Reborn experiment — with Dan Jurgens as writer and John Romita Jr. as penciler, inked throughout by Klaus Janson. By issue #17, the creative team was seventeen issues into a run that would stretch to the title's cancellation at #85, and the Eighth Day crossover that this issue kicks off was coordinated across multiple editorial offices, with Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern handling the Iron Man chapters, Howard Mackie writing the Peter Parker installment, and Joe Casey scripting the concluding Juggernaut one-shot; the Exemplars' costumes (excluding Juggernaut's) were designed by José Ladrônn. The issue also contains an eight-page 'Fast Lane' Spider-Man anti-drug insert, a Marvel/DC joint public-service feature that ran across numerous titles that month.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Bedlam (Olisa Kabaki), an eight-year-old girl from Kenya who touches the Ivory Idol of Ikonn and gains vast psionic/mind-control powers as an Exemplar of Ikonn.
- First appearance of Conquest (Bridget Malone), who acquires the Kestral Key of Krakken and becomes an Exemplar of Krakken with formidable warrior abilities.
- The issue is titled 'The Eighth Day Part 1: Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut? Don't Tell Thor!' and opens the four-part Eighth Day crossover event.
- Written by Dan Jurgens, penciled by John Romita Jr., inked by Klaus Janson, colored by Matt Hicks and Gregory Wright, lettered by Richard Starkings; editor on record for Bedlam's creation is Tom Brevoort.
- Thor battles a Juggernaut who is 'stronger than before' and is being drawn by an irresistible mystical compulsion; Bedlam and Conquest arrive to collect him, and Thor cannot stop them — one of the rare occasions in this era where the God of Thunder is simply overpowered and left behind.
- Loki observes the origin stories of the other Exemplars from Odin's scrying pool in Asgard, providing the issue's in-universe exposition about the Wager of the Octessence and the broader threat.
- The Eighth Day crossover continued in Iron Man vol. 3 #22, Peter Parker: Spider-Man #11, and concluded in Juggernaut: The Eighth Day #1 (all November 1999), later followed by the Avengers 'Ninth Day' resolution in Avengers vol. 3 #23–25.
- The issue — along with Thor #14–16, Iron Man #21–22, Peter Parker: Spider-Man #11, and Juggernaut: The Eighth Day #1 — has been collected in Thor by Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr. Vol. 3 (ISBN 0785143858) and in the oversized Thor: Heroes Return Omnibus Vol. 1 (ISBN 978-1302908133).
Cast · 14 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Spider-Man #6/2000 (2000), Thor #17 (2000), Thor by Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr. #3 (2010), Spider-Man: The Next Chapter #2 (2012), Iron Man by Kurt Busiek & Sean Chen Omnibus #[nn] (2013), Thor: Heroes Return Omnibus #[1] (2017), Spider-Man #6/2000
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