Journey Into Mystery #104, Story C

Featuring: Tales of Asgard
Release: March 3, 1964
Cover: May 1964
12 cents
A tale told in splendor by: Stan Lee
A drama drawn in glory by: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Don Heck
Lettering: Art Simek
5 pages

I appreciate that the Tales of Asgard stories are willing to try different things. The initial offerings concerned Odin and the early days of creation. Then we got a series of stories about Thor as a youth. Now we will get a series focused on Heimdall. Stories about Balder will follow. The series feels it has the freedom to explore a variety of characters and eras of Asgard.

Heimdall was briefly introduced to us in Journey Into Mystery #85, where we learned he was the Warder of the Bifrost. We are given the general sense that he is very good at his job and that almost nothing slips past him. However, we haven’t seen much evidence of that. Indeed, we’ve seen Loki fool him twice. In issue 88, Loki disguised himself as a snake to escape Asgard. In an ancient tale told in issue 101, young Loki created a hole in Asgard’s defenses without Heimdall realizing it.

We now learn the story of how Heimdall was awarded his post. The right to stand eternal watch at a station is not something I would have competed for, but Heimdall did. Agnar the Fierce and Gotron the Agile both presented their cases to Odin. But they could not compete with Heimdall’s heightened senses. He could hear a plant growing far away in hills thought to be barren, and his eyes that can scan time and space could see an approaching army of Storm Giants still two days away.

Heimdall is an important Marvel character and will eventually make his way to the big screen, played by Idris Elba.

Unfortunately, this otherwise good issue presents us with perhaps our clearest continuity flaw yet. Odin decided the Rainbow Bridge needed a guardian after a recent invasion by Storm Giants. Odin notes Thor’s hammer saved the day. However, in Journey Into Mystery #101 Heimdall was clearly shown to already be the guardian of the Bridge before Thor had earned his hammer.

How to reconcile? I guess we assume Odin means the Bridge had no regular guardian. Perhaps warriors had taken turns guarding it on occasion before. We previously saw Heimdall on a day he was to guard it, and it now becomes his regular posting. Or perhaps Odin was referring to his own hammer saving the day, describing it as Thor’s because it would one day be Thor’s. “Only by using my hammer that I one day plan to give to Thor…”

More likely, this is just the way myth works. The stories are so old that the details have been long forgotten, and each tale is an imperfect attempt to capture the truth of events.

Note that in Journey Into Mystery #100, we met Agnar, King of the Eagles. We are not aware of any connection between that Agnar and Agnar the Fierce, who we meet this issue. They seem to just share a name.

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 56/100
Significance: ★★★★☆

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 2. It is also available in Thor Epic Collection vol. 1: God of Thunder. Or on Kindle.

Characters:

• Heimdall
• Odin
• Agnar the Fierce
• Gotron the Agile
• Odin’s gardener

Story notes:

• Notes tell us this is of the first of a series of “biographies in depth of Asgard’s heroes”.
• Rainbow Bridge connected Earth to Asgard; was once unguarded.
• Trolls working to repair walls after Storm Giants attacked by the bridge.
• Thor’s hammer helped save the day from Storm Giants; this note from Odin is a continuity oddity.
• Agnar has the strongest lungs and can blow a warning on the Dragon Horn of Asgard.
• Gotron defeated 7 Storm Giants.
• Heimdall can sense approaching danger.
• From Odin’s garden, Heimdall can hear the tiniest plant growing in the heart of the hidden hills. The land had been barren since a dragon scorched it with his breath.

#181 story in reading order
Next: Tales to Astonish #56
Previous: Journey Into Mystery #104