Thor - The Legend Years: Part 2

LAST TIME, WE LEFT THOR standing amid the ruins of deserted mansion, having defeated Mr Hyde and The Cobra, holding the stricken form of Jane Foster in his arms. Jane would recover, of course, but we wouldn't be party to that in the very next issue of Journey into Mystery.

Journey into Mystery 112 (Jan 1965) featured the "untold" story of Thor's epic battle with The Hulk during the earliest days of The Avengers.

Strangely, Thor's next outing in the title would be a kind of filler issue which gave us a flashback to the events of Avengers 3 (Jan 1964), a year earlier, in which Thor and his teammates battled former Avenger The Hulk and his new chum, The Sub-Mariner.

Quite why Stan and Jack chose to run this flashback at this particular time is lost in the mists of history. But in retrospect, I've wondered if it didn't start with Stan saying, "Hey, let's have Thor fight The Hulk in the next issue of Journey." Then Jack came up with the resulting 13 pages of carnage - and three page framing sequence - on his own. I can't help thinking that if this were Stan's work, there would be more storytelling, a reference to Jane's health and some glimpse of Thor's life as Dr Don Blake. But, no ... what we get is a brawl, full of sound and fury (and not a little rage) that goes, well, nowhere, really. It's great fun, but doesn't advance the saga of Thor one bit.

Stan and Jack use an argument between the Thor and Hulk fan clubs to frame a flashback to the time of Avengers 3 and an "untold" battle between the Thunder God and the Big Angry Green Guy.

But what it does do is mark the beginning of a transition in the Thor strip. For me, this and the next couple of issue denote a watermark, where I see Stan stepping back a bit from involvement in the overall direction and plotting of the Thor feature and the hand of Jack Kirby being more evident.

For me, this issue marks the end of Thor as a super-hero series, pitting the two strongest Marvel characters agains each other. Journey into Mystery 113 would see the start of more Asgardian characters showing up in the storylines at least for the next twenty or so issues.

With that in mind, it's easy to see now, in retrospect, that Journey into Mystery 112 does have the feel of a filler issue. Lots of big, impactful panels means less drawing for Jack, perhaps buying him time while he pondered where to take the storyline next. Not that he'd need it ... for in the very next issue, we get a lot more Asgard, without treading on the toes of the "Tales of Asgard" series ...

At first glance, Journey into Mystery 113 (Feb 1965) probably looked a lot like the superhero Thor tales that came before - the cover certainly pitches it that way - but as you get into the story, you realise there's a lot more mythology going on here than previously.

Journey into Mystery 113 sports a fairly standard superhero cover, yet more than a third of the 16 page lead story is devoted to action and machinations in Asgard ... yet not even mentioned in Stan's cover lines.

The story opens with a spectacular action prologue, where Kirby really pulls out all the stops to immerse us in Asgardian mythic action. It's not clear who the Demon Men of Jotunheim (whom the Asgardians are fighting) are, but it doesn't really matter too much. All we need to know is that Thor acquits himself admirably in the eyes of his father, which make his almost instant fall from grace more of a surprise.

Battle action in Asgard: Odin and his warriors attack the Demon Men of Jotunheim (whoever they are) and bust a few heads. Not quite sure about Thor's cry of "For Asgard and freedom", as it appears the Asgardians are the aggressors here ...

Doggedly, Thor returns to Midgard, determined to reveal his true identity to the object of his affections, Jane Foster. It was always a bit of a mystery to me - I would have first read this comic when I was almost 11 years old - why Don Blake would give up being Thor for a girl. Not even a cool girl, but a complete wimp like Jane Foster. I don't know whether it was Stan or Jack who bears responsibility for the way Jane is portrayed and that Thor is so drawn to her. In retrospect, it seems more in keeping with 1950s sensibilities than those of the 1960s. Perhaps the intention was to deliberately make Jane unheroic and "normal" to create a greater contrast between her and Thor. Or perhaps it was the last glimmerings of Don Blake's personality that caused the attraction. Or maybe Jack (or Stan) just got it wrong. Whatever the cause, we'd see an effort to tie up that storyline over the next year or so.

"No really ... I'm Thor. Look, I'll show you ... wait, what? My hammer doesn't work!"

So Thor tries to show Jane that he and Don Blake are one and the same, but Odin - a bit cross - has removed Thor's power and he's stuck in his Don Blake persona. This is the point where The Grey Gargoyle crashes through the window of his surgery. And for the next few pages, a powerless Blake tries to protect himself and Jane Foster from the seemingly unstoppable villain ... which is a bit of a flashback to Journey into Mystery 107 (Aug 1964), where Thor was also forced to battle the Gargoyle in his Don Blake identity.

But Blake has friends in Asgard, and a mysterious helper is watching over Blake and Jane Foster. Odin isn't quite as hard-hearted as we're led to believe, and has despatched an Asgardian warrior, Honir the Hunter, to help Blake in his near-hopeless battle against his super-powered foe.

Just when things look darkest, help arrives in the form of an Asgardian warrior, Honir, who restores Thor's power long enough to deal with the pesky Grey Gargoyle.

It all ends with Don Blake thinking that it may be rash of him to give up his Thor identity for the love of a mortal ... though he'd continue to waver over the next several issues.

Journey into Mystery 114 introduced a terrific new villain, The Absorbing Man. A career criminal, Crusher Creel is all powered up by Loki solely for the purpose of defeating Thor.

Journey into Mystery 114 (Mar 1965) has Loki once again coming up with a plot to defeat his hated adopted brother. This time, though he uses his Asgardian magic to give a sociopathic mortal - the criminal Crusher Creel - the ability to absorb the characteristics of anything he comes into contact with, including living beings.

The issue opens with a slam-bang action sequence that ladles on the excitement. An "enemy agent" is escaping at high speed in a modified racing car pursued by Thor. Quite why Thor - a Norwegian god - would care about an enemy agent escaping from American authorities with some artefact that isn't explained or identified is a bit of a mystery, in retrospect.

Who is the "enemy agent"? Why is he fleeing from Thor? Where did he get the racing car from? Who gave him a high tech blaster to threaten Thor with? Does it really matter?

It does however, serve to lead into yet another failed attempt to ruin Thor's day by Loki, self-styled god of mischief. And no sooner has Loki applied the power pill to Creel's water glass, than we switch to Dr Don Blake's surgery where an injured reporter is promising to let the doctor know when he locates the recently escaped super-convict. Though, again, it's not explained why the reporter thinks Blake would be interested.

"Button nose"? Really? Even as a ten-year old I thought this was pretty mushy stuff. I was counting the days till we saw the back of Blake's nauseating infatuation with the wimpy nurse.

Nevertheless, that snippet of information is enough to get Doctor Don to transform into Thor and nose around in the Black Mountain Swamp area, looking for the super-powered crim.

Show rather than tell - Jack Kirby's storytelling skills quickly allow us to see the full extent of Creel's abilities and that the pesky reporter just gets in the way.

Then just when we think this is a standard, Thor-battles-another-super-strong-villain yarn ... it all takes a sharp left turn to Asgard, where the wily Loki has kidnapped Jane Foster (again) and brought her to the realm of the Norse gods. So Thor takes off to rescue Jane, leaving The Absorbing Man thinking he's beaten Thor.

Just as Thor is realising that The Absorbing Man can match his power, Balder arrives with a message that Jane Foster has been carried away to Asgard by crafty Loki ... and there will be much rueing of the day ...

All of this sets us up for a longer storyline, with more mythology and a little less superheroics, as the action shifts away from Midgard and things get out of hand in Asgard. But first, Thor has to deal with Crusher Creel ...

Not the best cover of the run, and I do wonder that if there'd been more time in the schedule whether Stan would have asked this one to be reworked.

Journey into Mystery 115 (Apr 1965) opens as Thor arrives in Asgard to confront Loki and rescue Jane Foster. Unusually, Loki actually takes on Thor in a physical fight. Not known for his courage, this is an out-of character move for the God of Mischief. Though the outcome is never in doubt, the battle is interrupted by Odin, who puts a stop to the fighting in his own omnipotent way ... though for an omnipotent being, he's a bit easily taken in by Loki's clumsy lies.

I would imagine that the physical fight between Thor and Loki is something Jack would have put in to add a bit of action to the story, but for me it doesn't sit well with the cowardly, sneaky persona Stan had built up for Loki over the previous couple of years.

All of this results in Odin ordering the "Trial of the Gods". Whatever that is, it completely blew my tiny 11-year-old mind. Who knew that gods could be put on trial? But before that happens, Thor is granted permission to return Jane Foster to Midgard, and to settle up with Crusher Creel, The Absorbing Man.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the rather unpleasant Crusher Creel has staged a home invasion, and is currently terrorising a defenceless suburban couple. Fortunately, Thor and the reporter Harris Hobbs arrive just in time to save the hapless husband from being crushed by Crusher.

This home invasion scene is a little brutal for a kids' comic. Again, this feels like something Kirby would have added, and indicates that he's putting a bit more into the story development at this point.

A mighty battle ensures, in which Creel absorbs an escalating variety forms - iron, fire and, penultimately, "every element from the earth beneath". But Thor has a sneaky trick up his sleeve (I know he doesn't have a sleeve). Using some hitherto unmentioned power of his hammer, he converts Crusher Creel into helium and watches as the villain floats away ... indeed, a tonitrua deus ex machina (look it up).

The ending is a bit convenient. It's never been mentioned before that Thor has the power to transmute elements, and I suspect the ending would have been different if Stan had been plotting this.

All that remains is for Thor to swing his hammer majestically, check up on the still-unconscious Jane Foster, then hie to Asgard where Odin, Loki and the Trial of the Gods awaits.

After seeing Thor battle "the Reds", Mr Hyde and The Cobra and The Lava Man, this version of Thor was strange and oddly disturbing.

I don't think Journey into Mystery 116 (May 1965) was the first Thor book I bought as a kid, but it's the one I have the strongest memories of. I'm fairly sure I came to it without having seen the issues immediately preceding it, because I can remember being a bit confused by the story, and thought the environment Thor found himself in was completely alien to the other Thor stories I'd read.

The premise is that Loki has kidnapped Jane Foster and brought her to Asgard then, when found out, blames it on Thor. Odin, for his part should be a bit more sympathetic to his son, but strangely isn't.

Bong! Let the Trial of the Gods begin. Though, in reality, all this could have been avoided if Odin has just listened to his decent son and not to his scallywag son ... but you know parents.

Instead, he insists the two foes undergo a trial by combat (not a trial in courtroom, as I had surmised from the cover), and dispatches the pair, weaponless, to the hostile land of Skornheim. From there, they'll have to fight there way home using only their natural strengths and wits.

Except that Loki is a cheating little sh*t and has brought some magic gems to rig the trial in his favour, and uses them to show Thor being menaced by The Enchantress and The Executioner (again!).

Fortunately, Thor's friend Balder the Brave, gets wind of Loki's little scheme and interrupt's Odin's yearly bath to inform him of this rotten ruse to sway the outcome of the Trial. Clad in his bathrobe and fluffy slippers, Odin confirms Balder's story, and despatches him to head off The Enchantress and The Executioner at the pass.

Back on Earth, Jane Foster is being dragged off by two Asgardian allies of Loki. Strangely, the passersby in the street rush to Jane's aid, which is strangely out of character for Kirby's Kast of Kharacters, who usually think unearthly happenings are either publicity stunts or none of their business.

Meanwhile, a member of Rick Jones' Teen Brigade has also spotted to two Asgardian villains menacing Jane Foster and desperately radios around, trying to enlist the aid of some other superheroes, but to no avail. I'm not really sure what the point of this sequence is as it doesn't add much, other than to showcase cameo appearances of some of the other Marvel characters, perhaps by way of product placement.

Finally, Balder arrives to help Jane Foster, but will he prevail aganst the two villains? And at the very end of the Trial, Thor struggles to catch the cheating Loki. (Apologies for the poor scans, but Colletta's scratchy inking doesn't reproduce well in these collected editions.)

We leave the story with Thor in Skornheim, trying and failing to catch up with Loki, and Balder preparing to intercept The Enchantress and her cloddish companion. Strangely, The Executioner makes no mention of having been turned into a tree by The Enchantress back in Journey into Mystery 103. Other than that, things aren't looking too good.

This issue marks quite a few changes in the path of the Thor strip. First, 12 of the 16 pages are set in Asgard, or adjacent realms, with just four page of Earthly action. Though this was far from a smooth or even transition, it would continue as (I'm assuming) Kirby began to distance Thor from his ties to Midgard.

The next change was that we lose the smooth inking of Chic Stone and instead are inexplicably lumbered with the spidery penmanship of Vince Colletta, an inker whose work I never liked. Reading later accounts of the period, I gather that Colletta ran an inking shop and always guaranteed to do the cheapest work for publishers ... which explains a lot. Notorious for erasing pencil art he couldn't be bothered to ink, Colletta always managed to make the worst of any penciller he was inking.

And finally, here is where the Thor strip begins to turn away from Earth-bound adventures and, by setting the action in strange and wondrous locations, emphasises to idea that Thor is a god, not a superhero. And aside from the unfamiliar terrain the stories are set in, the other thing that disturbed me a little when I was a kid was the stern and cold demeanour of Odin towards his supposedly favourite son. Maybe that was deliberate, as it definitely made me empathise with Thor's plight. Because what kid hasn't felt fear and frustration over not being believed by a parent? All in all, and unsettling but compelling read for an eleven year old.

The episode in Journey into Mystery 117 is a brief diversion from the main plotline, in which Thor becomes involved with a hapless family, victims of the war in Vietnam.

Then, after all the breathless action in issue 116, Journey into Mystery 117 (Jun 1965) is a bit of a pause in the story. Stan and Jack use it to clean up the loose ends from The Trial of the Gods, which takes up about seven pages. 

To cover up that he'd cheated in the Trial of the Gods, Loki sends the Norn Stones to Midgard where "Thor will never find them." Meanwhile, just by showing up, Balder spooks The Enchantress and The Executioner into abandoning their attempt to kidnap Jane Foster. 

The remaining nine pages are taken up with Thor travelling to Earth where Loki has concealed the Norn Stones. His quest takes him to South-East Asia and there follows the nearest thing Stan gets, so far, to criticising the war in Vietnam, with a subplot about a family torn apart when the eldest son joins the Communist cause.

Thor quickly tracks the hidden Norn Stones to Vietnam and is befriended by a South Vietnamese family, which results in tragedy and death. 

For the most part, Marvel in the Silver Age mostly avoided commenting on the touchy political topics of the day, and Vietnam was an especially hot potato. Stan finally addressed the matter of political commentary a couple of years after JiM 117, in the first few Bullpen Bulletins - April and October 1967. I've already covered those editorials in an earlier instalment, so I won't rehash them here, except to say that though Stan first protests that Marvel is simply here to entertain, he'd get a bit more serious in the later bulletin, asking readers if they thought Marvel should take a stance on contemporary political issues. But the question went mostly unanswered, until incoming younger scripters like Denny O'Neil, Steve Gerber and Steve Englehart were able to make their own views on The Issues of the Day plain in the stories they were writing.

So impressive as a villain is The Destroyer that he was chosen as the antagonist for the first Thor movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Journey into Mystery 118 (Jul 1965) introduced a new and terrifying foe for the God of Thunder. There was a hero of that name during the Golden Age, appearing in All-Winner Comics 2 (Oct 1941) and cropping up in various Timely comics until the end of WWII. Thor's version of the character would be comparatively underused, appearing in Thor Annual 2 (1966), Thor 151 (Apr 1968), controlled by Sif, and Thor 228 (Oct 1974), where he becomes the herald of Galactus to free Firelord. The name would be adopted by Jim Starlin for his version of The Destroyer, Drax, in Iron Man 55 (Feb 1973).

From the opening encounter with a US Army helicopter, Thor manages a couple of lines of dialogue before he lands and encounters the hunter. So, still in Vietnam, then.

After his run-in with the Viet Cong in the jungles of Vietnam, Thor is about to leave the area, when he decides to stop and check that the Norn Stones are safe. This is a poor decision because a "renegade hunter" happens to be nearby and figuring Thor might be worth something on the open market, tranquilises our hero with knock-out gas. Guided by Loki, the hunter is compelled to have his bearers tie up Thor with a few ropes and then, following an irresistible urge, he sets off to find a nearby temple. Loki causes the temple to be revealed and the hunter enters to find a weapon, The Destroyer, concealed there eons before by Odin. The hunter's life essence is absorbed by the Destroyer, activating the metal monster. Meanwhile, Thor revives and snaps his bonds like so much spaghetti. He follows the hunter to The Temple of Darkness and finds the paralysed mortal body of the hunter. Without warning, The Destroyer attacks and Loki, watching from afar, realises he may have made a mistake. Fearing that Thor will be killed rather than just humiliated, he rushes to confess to Odin before too much damage is done. But Odin sleeps the Odin-sleep and cannot be awakened for fear he will forfeit his immortality. A ranting Loki is locked up by Odin's guards and the end seems inevitable for Thor, as his hammer is damaged and, trapped by The Destroyer, he's helpless to escape the creature's "elemental destructive" bolts.

So here's an epic villain fail ... tie one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe to a bamboo bed. With ropes. And how is it with all the clamour in the doorway of his bedroom, Odin sleeps right through it?

Now, because we're seeing a much greater emphasis on the Asgardian side of Thor's life by this point in the series, I'm presuming this is around the time in which Jack Kirby is pretty much plotting the strip and handing the pencil art to Stan for dialoguing. I'm fairly confident about that because the plotting is pretty terrible.

Bear with me ...

So, conveniently, there's a hunter (with a full entourage of bearers), of questionable moral character, hunting, for goodness sake, in the jungles of Vietnam while the war rages around him. He knocks out Thor with some gas and ties his captive up with rope. A hunter, who knows who Thor is, who has presumably hunted elephants and maybe rhinos, and he thinks a few ropes will hold Thor. The bit about finding the Temple I can swallow, as Loki's doubtless guiding him, but my main problem with this is that Odin hid a supremely destructive weapon, still active it would seem, on Earth. Where any dodgy character could find it. And then, in the mother of all coincidences, Odin is asleep and can't be disturbed.

Thor trapped, his hammer sliced in half and deadly bolts of elemental destruction creeping steadily towards him. Now that's a cliffhanger ending.

Don't get me wrong ... I still love these stories. And The Destroyer is one of the greatest of Thor's adversaries. But my problem with the plotting here is exactly the same as I would have with Kirby's later Fourth World books for DC. Tons of great ideas, not very well thought through, not played out to any kind of logical conclusion, and all driven by coincidence and deus ex machina. It's left to Stan to paper over the cracks with his dialogue. Which almost - but not quite - works.

Not the best cover of the run - made up of art lifted from interior panels, the chances are the lack of an actual cover from Jack Kirby was some sort of deadline crunch.

Fortunately, the following issue wrapped up the tale in a style that relied a little less of forced plot machinations. In Journey into Mystery 119 (Aug 1965), even though Loki contrives to have the Norn Queen awaken Odin from his sleep, and though Odin is prepared to step in to aid Thor, The Thunder God prefers to defeat The Destroyer himself. By using the hunter's mortal form as a shield, he's able to force the hunter's life essence back to his own body and The Destroyer once again becomes immobile.

Even though Odin offers to shut down The Destroyer Thor, in true hero style, prefers to get himself out of the mess and initiates his human shield plan.

I'm not entirely convinced by Thor's ploy of trusting that The Destroyer wouldn't destroy his human shell. After all, if he controls The Destroyer, why would he ever return to his vulnerable original form? But Stan literally doubles down on it by having The Destroyer say that Thor is pledged never to take a mortal life (panel 1, page 8) and have the hunter repeat it as thought it's a new thought in panel 4 on page 10.

Loki's punishment is to be indentured to Odin's imperial warlock ("a wizard," Stan footnotes helpfully), and Thor is left with a wonky hammer. He'd have to repair it next issue, in a scene that may have inspired the creation of Stormbreaker in Avengers: Infinity War.

Sometimes I really do wonder just how smart Odin is. Locking Loki up in a sorcerer's workshop doesn't seem to me to be the best way of keeping a cunning master of magic like him out of trouble.

All-in-all, an improvement from the previous issue ... except for that cover. Obviously hastily cobbled together by the production department, it's pretty disappointing. And knowing that Jack Kirby wasn't one to miss a deadline, I had a little trawl around to see if I could spot a reason for this.

 Here's the panels from the story used by the Marvel production department to create the cover for Journey into Mystery 119 ... the real mystery id why this was necessary.

I noticed that Kirby was only supplying layouts for August's Captain America story in Tales of Suspense 68. And beginning in the following month's Tales to Astonish 70, he would again only be supplying layouts for the Hulk story. It didn't take me long to notice that both Journey into Mystery Annual 1 (Sep 1965) and Fantastic Four Annual 3 (Oct 1965) were cantering up in the schedules (due on sale in the July), and with an extra 40 pages to pencil, Jack was probably a little squeezed for time. And all of that might explain why Stan didn't have time to fix the questionable plotting in Journey into Mystery 118 ... because we know that Editor Stan Lee wouldn't hesitate to have Jack redraw something if it didn't fit Writer Stan Lee's standards of storytelling.

Just like Jack, I'm a little squeezed for time as well, so I'll leave it here and pick up with the remaining six issues of the Journey into Mystery run, along with the Journey into Mystery Annual, next time.

Next: Hello Hercules