D'Aulaire's book is one of my children's favorites.
I object to the Marvel comics Thor on the grounds that he is prettified, sissified, and cleaned up. Asa-Thor was a red-headed, rowdy, short-tempered, mead-swilling, good old boy. He was the god of the smallholder and tradesman, the ordinary working stiff. He would never have spoken in high flown quasi-Biblical language.
While you're reading the epics, check out the Story of Thor's Fishing, and the other short poem dealing with the insult contest he has with a disguised Odin at a river crossing. Gives you a better idea of his personality and character.
I like the Thor of the Norse epics, too--D'Aulaire's version is pretty true to Snorri Sturlison's which I like. I don't think I've read the Story of Thor Fishing, so I'll keep an eye out for that--thanks for drawing my attention to that! On the Marvel Comics Thor, you might be right that he's less of a "good old boy" than the epics' mead-swilling Thor, but I always saw his quasi-Biblical manner of speaking as noble rather than sissified. I mean, according to the
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Thor can bench press 100 tons, which makes him stronger than anyone outside of Hercules and Hulk, both of whom he's fought (Marvel's Hercules is actually closer to the epic Thor, I'd say). In
Hulk #300 after the U.S. Army, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers had failed to stop a berserk Hulk they called in Thor who proceeded to take him on single-handedly and was about to kill him with one strike of Mjolnir when Dr. Strange intervened--if that's sissified, I'd hate to imagine what a non-sissified Thor would be capable of! :)
