by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

Mike Avon Oeming is no stranger to Norse mythology, having written a back to basics tale chronicling the early days of Thor and the Warriors Three in Thor: Blood Oath (issue #1 in stores this week) as well as the last days of the God of Thunder in the pages of Thor during the whole Disassembled shebang and the further adventures of the last survivor of Ragnarok in Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill.

“I think some writers get a ‘go to’ tag attached to them,” Oeming told Newsarama. “I got the ‘mythology/fantasy’ tag and that’s a good thing for me, it’s what I’m most interested in. Marvel was happy with Thor: Dissasembled, Stormbreaker wasn’t huge but did well enough. Thor: Blood Oath looks amazing.”

So, what does a creator like Oeming do next? After all, he’s destroyed Asgard. What more could he hope to do next, right?

Say, what if Oeming were to destroy the Marvel Universe?

Well, it won’t be that far fetched a project. For now.

It was announced at the Marvel Knights panel at this past summer’s WizardWorld: Chicago convention that Oeming and artist Travel Foreman are working on a December-debuting Ares: God of War limited series.

“I had a Hercules pitch in, but the current mini was already approved so it didn’t happen,” Oeming said. “Part of this story is based partially on my Herc pitch. It also looks like I might be drawing a Thor-related project at Marvel, but it’s too early to do more than tease about it.

”So I guess when Marvel wanted Ares, my name came up. I have a good relationship with them at this point with Powers and Thor so it seemed right. Still, they could have turned down the pitch, but they liked it.”

Ares first appeared in Thor #129. He is the son of Zeus, monarch of the Olympian gods. “He has tried to take over Olympus and earth a few times,” Oeming explained. “He's always been evil. He's trying to turn around now, but he's definitely on a different moral plane than you or I.

“[Ares] is actually a father-son story,” he continued. “It’s about Ares trying to start over and become a new man, lay down the mantle of "God of War". But as he'll learn, you can grow and change, but you can’t change who you are. Ares won’t suddenly become a hero, he'll chop your head off in a second, he's arrogant, sexist and pushy. But under that, he can love and hate, be kind and cruel and mostly, his world now revolves around his son, Alex.

”What would a father do to save his son? What would you do? What would Ares, God of War do? (Hey, I think that should be a tag-line)

”Imagine Ransom, but with Ares instead of a whiney bug-eyed Mel Gibson.”

Oeming also revealed that some events in Ares are triggered by the fall of Asgard. “Also, there are some characters and items I have in Blood Oath that will appear in Ares. One of the items has already appeared in Daredevil, something Bendis introduced, but I’m not going to give it away.”

Other than Ares, “There is a Japanese god [that] we are using in the story: Mikabushi, the Japanese God of Evil. He's pretty cool [and] he’ll be talked about in Blood Oath as well. Travel has done some designs that are amazing. If you look up his art online or whatever, forget it. What he's doing here is far better than anything he's already done and he's really good. This stuff blew my mind. I’m so lucky with the artist I've worked with: Andrea Divito, Mel Rubi, Scott Kollins and now Travel.”

Earlier, Oeming did tease about drawing a Thor-related project. Marvel did promise that Thor will relaunch in a big way next year. So, isn’t it time for this “go to mythology/fantasy” creator to be involved in the Thor revival project? “I don’t know, man. Reinventing Thor is daunting to say the least. Also, while I have a good name behind me, I think for Thor [to] really relaunch the way Marvel wants it to, it needs a big-ass name like [Mark] Millar or [Neil] Gaiman to establish it as an important book. Marvel really does love Thor and wants him not to be a B-level character, but A-level right next to Spidey and the X-Men. He hasn’t been there in a long time. If the call comes, I’m sure I'll answer, but I trust Marvel will do the right thing and I’m helluva busy these days. Marvel’s my new home and they are treating me well.”

Other than these projects, Oeming, whose first creator-owned project was Hammer of the Gods, is also currently co-writing the Red Sonja monthly, drawing Powers as well as several Image projects.

To get to know the creator and to keep up-to-date on the latest news from Oeming, visit his website at http://www.mike-oeming.com/ and join the Oeming Newsletter by emailing him at oeming@aol.com