Featuring: Thor
Release: November 3, 1963
Cover: January 1964
12 cents
A Stan Lee-Jack Kirby Marvel Masterwork!
Inking by: Chic Stone
Lettering by: S. Rosen
16 pages
| Previous | #292 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #11 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #112, Story B |
| Journey Into Mystery #111, Story B | Journey Into Mystery | Journey Into Mystery #112, Story B |
Lee and Kirby seem to share top billing in the credits (Lee’s name first, of course) without breaking down who did what.
It’s interesting that they wanted Thor to battle the Hulk, but rather than have Thor battle the Hulk, they had Thor tell a story set in the past. Perhaps Hulk is too busy with the ongoing Leader Saga to be able to appear in Thor’s book. Stan is perhaps becoming aware his fans expect continuity and resorting to tricks not to break it.
Thor tells children a story when he sees them arguing over who is stronger: Thor or Hulk. Superhero fans have asked such questions for decades, and Stan had likely received more than a few letters asking the question. As he’s done before, he puts the fans’ queries–and the fans themselves– directly into the story.
I love the Hulk/Thor signs the kids made, and just how passionate and angry they all seem about this important question.
Thor’s tale is set in the middle of Avengers #3, expanding the story told then. Recall the Avengers battled Hulk and Sub-Mariner in Gibraltar.
Obviously, Stan felt the fight would only be fair if Thor didn’t use his hammer. However, if Thor doesn’t hold his hammer, he turns into Don Blake. Also not fair. Odin uses magic to allow Thor to be Thor without his hammer for 5 minutes.
In another clue to the secret of how this hammer works, we see Hulk pick it up. Thor notes Hulk can only lift it because the enchantment is temporarily removed. What about the enchantment would prevent Hulk from lifting it? The hammer is very heavy, true, but Hulk is very strong. This might be the very first hint about any requirements for lifting the hammer beyond mere strength.
Thor makes it clear he is faster than the Hulk.
Kirby uses a large panel to convey the menace of Hulk effectively.
No decision reached on who is stronger. Even Odin declares it inconclusive. That doesn’t answer the fans’ question, Stan!
I appreciate a good slugfest. I think this is only the third good one yet, after Hulk vs. Thing and Spider-Man vs. Scorpion.
I have some chronology questions about the last page. After Thor leaves the children, the story cuts to the Hulk. The narrator describes the Hulk scene as “days later”. Such narration has proven quite unreliable so far. It would actually make the most sense if this was an image of Hulk in the past, after returning to America from the events of Avengers #3. Because then it’s clear the fight with Thor would still be on his mind. It’s strange if both he and Thor are coincidentally thinking about their last fight from months earlier.
However, the narration interpreted literally would suggest this scene is indeed a few days after Thor told the story. Hulk happens to be thinking about Thor, and we would then have to figure out where in the big Leader Saga Hulk gets the space to breathe and be angry about Thor.
Let’s take a look at some direct comparisons between this issue and Avengers #3. Kirby was clearly directly referencing his original art, but also redrawing it entirely, cleaning it all up. Lee mixed it up, sometimes matching the original dialogue, sometimes rewriting it completely. In the first two panels, the dialogue is different but not inconsistent, so it may just be showing us other things that would be said. But there’s no reason for Namor to refer to modifying the air raid alarm twice, so the dialogue has been changed in the middle panels. Whereas in the final panels, Lee matches the dialogue. So he must have had the original in front of him.
These next panels line up closely but not exactly. Perhaps the new panel takes place just after. Namor is still hanging on to Giant-Man, but Thor and Iron Man have engaged.
When looking for clues as to where in the original this new battle takes place, there doesn’t seem to be a good spot. From this new story, we know Thor and Hulk shouldn’t fight again, so it should be after this page.
Arguably, this new story is an expansion of the 3 panels where Thor and Hulk struggle over the hammer from the original. Here’s a hammer struggle depicted in the new story.
Note Iron Man has similar thoughts about his transistors in both versions. In the original, it’s still early in the battle, almost certainly before the Thor/Hulk bout. In the new version, it’s after the Thor/Hulk fight. It’s possible he just moaned about his transistors more than once. He does it a lot, after all.
The dialogue change below seems intentional in the name of consistency. They’ve better established Thor’s vocabulary at this point, and he’s more likely to refer to his weapon as an uru hammer than an enchanted club. (Note it was established the hammer was made of uru before Avengers #3.)
In the new story, Thor notes that Hulk seemed to vanish after their fight. From the original, we know he had changed into Banner in the middle of the fight and run away.
It’s November! Let’s take a glance at what other publishers were releasing in November 1964. Superheroes now dominate Marvel. They are DC’s top genre, but less so, with plenty of war and romance books. Other companies are focused on humor and TV adaptations, with some western and horror books still to be found.
Most notably, Warren just launched Creepy, a black and white magazine format without the Comics Code seal of approval, the start of an acclaimed 20 year run, which will feature a cavalcade of legendary artists.
Rating: ★★★½, 60/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Bonus points for the kids’ Thor & Hulk signs. The #3 rated Thor story so far, after the introductions of Thor and Loki respectively.
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 3. It is also available in Thor Epic Collection vol. 1: God of Thunder. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Thor
- Iron Man
- Giant-Man
- Wasp
- Sub-Mariner
- Hulk
- Odin
Story notes:
- Story adds details to Avengers #3.
- Note at end reminds reader to read Hulk stories in Tales to Astonish.
| Previous | #292 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #11 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #112, Story B |
| Journey Into Mystery #111, Story B | Journey Into Mystery | Journey Into Mystery #112, Story B |
