Featuring: Tales of Asgard
Release: January 5, 1965
Cover: March 1965
12 cents
By: Stan Lee + Jack Kirby
Inking: Vince Coletta [sic]
Lettering: Artie Simek
5 pages
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| Journey Into Mystery #114 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #115 |
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The past two issues focused on Loki and his early days. We are informed more Loki stories are coming, but this tale is an interlude.
We meet Haakun the Hunter and the goddess Iduna. Iduna is notably wearing a red hood, perhaps suitable for riding.
Fenris disguises himself as a human. I appreciate the wolf-like features Kirby gives him. Iduna does as well. “What strange hands you have,” she says. “What an odd voice you have.”
Fenris gets hit by an ax and sent to the Netherworld. That implies to me he was killed, but who knows how things work with these Norse gods. Maybe the ax literally just transported him to a shadowy realm.
Perhaps Lee and Kirby are appeasing the censors by making sure no wolves are harmed in this story.
I don’t know Norse mythology or children’s stories well enough to comment on how accurate this issues’s implications are. I’ll tell you what a bit of Wikipedia scrolling has told me. Scholars trace many classical origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story, including pieces of it to multiple Norse legends, particularly the hunt of the wolf Skoll for the sun goddess Sól. This story features a different wolf and goddess, but a similar idea.
This is our first time meeting Fenris, but we have met Skoll and his brother Hati before, in issue 101. Traditionally, they are the sons of Fenris, and Fenris is traditionally the son of Loki. We don’t know for certain the relationships in the Marvel Universe, as the tales have diverged a bit from classical Norse myths.
Fenris will return and menace Thor in the future.
Fenris made it into the Marvel movies with Thor: Ragnarok.
Iduna’s character here is basically consistent with classical mythology. She is traditionally the keeper of apples that grant immortality. She will show up in future Thor stories, often called Idunn, but not again for a long while yet.
We saw her Golden Apples back in issue 100, when Loki and Thor retrieved them from the Storm Giants. That was the first mention of Iduna, but this is her actual introduction.
Haakun seems invented for this story so that it has a hunter. Surprisingly, this is not his final appearance. He’ll show up again in about 25 years in Thor #403, referred to then as Haaken.
Honestly not sure why they didn’t just use Honir the Hunter, whom we’ve met twice before, including just last issue.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 3. It is also available on Kindle.
Characters:
- Iduna
- Haakun the Hunter
- Fenris the Wolf God
Story notes:
- Notes the biographies-in-depth features on Loki will continue next issue, after this issue’s interruption.
- Iduna bound for Asgard to give Odin the Golden Apples of Immortality, as she does every year; her path takes her through the Enchanted Forest.
- Haakun seems to slay Fenris with his magical battle-ax.
- Fenris now resides in Varinheim, the land of the lost near the Netherworlds, at the farthest reaches of the cosmos.
| Previous | #336 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Journey Into Mystery #114 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #115 |
| Journey Into Mystery #114 | Journey Into Mystery | Journey Into Mystery #115 |
