Featuring: Thor
Release: September 3, 1963
Cover: November 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Don Heck
13 pages
The issue begins with Thor throwing a temper tantrum. “It isn’t fair!” he cries. The narrator notes it may surprise us to see a superhero throw a temper tantrum. No, I’ve been reading Fantastic Four.
An ex-convict named Klaus is bitten by a radioactive cobra and gains the powers of a cobra. This is pretty well-established as what happens when radioactive creatures bite you.
Cobra’s plan is to take over a chemical manufacturing plant to make more copies of the “cobra serum”. Not exactly sure what serum he means, as his powers come from being bitten by a radioactive cobra. So if he wants more people with cobra-powers, he should be irradiating cobras.
The timeline of the issue doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Klaus releases the cobra that bites him and kills Professor Shecktor. Thor finds the Professor before he dies from that snake bite. Klaus had not yet left India. You have to imagine this wasn’t that long after the Professor was bitten that Thor found him. There’s an urgency to Thor’s flying around. Thor flies straight to the Professor’s deathbed when he hears the Professor has been bitten, and then follows Klaus’ plane to America.
So it seems like Thor is confronting Klaus pretty soon after he became the Cobra. But most of Cobra’s powers don’t come from the snakebite, but rather his special costume which has all manner of gadgets and tricks. I have no idea when he had time to design all this. He must have done it in a single day or so.
Setting aside the plot oddities, the main problem with this issue is that Cobra is clearly no match for Thor. Yet, everything about the writing implies that Cobra is a serious threat. Maybe against Spider-Man he would be. (In fact, he and Spider-Man have a rather famous encounter 15 years later; that’s a good issue.)
They do their best to make it a contest. Thor is so surprised that Cobra has a whip that he drops his hammer.
Then, when he gets it back, he misses with his throw and breaks open a vat of chemicals, which briefly blinds him. Basically, Thor trips over himself repeatedly until he finally stops doing so, and then wins easily.
Of course, Cobra has one other trick, the same one used by half the villains in the series to stymie Thor– take Jane as a hostage.
Repeatedly in this series, villains have ended up attacking the office of Dr. Blake, usually by coincidence. Not this issue. This time Cobra attacks the office of Dr. Andrews, which happens to be where Jane Foster now works.
In Dr. Andrews’ office, we see a pretty common trope. Women of the era hate cowards, so they often call men out on being cowardly. Jane is so offended by Dr. Andrews’ cowardice that she leaves him. But his actions are precisely correct. You don’t try to stand up to the crazy guy in the Cobra outfit. You give him what he wants and hope he leaves without hurting anybody.
Beyond that, why can’t Jane differentiate between a romantic relationship and a job? It made sense she was frustrated by Dr. Blake, so started dating Dr. Andrews. But why does that mean she needs to quit Dr. Blake’s office and start working for Dr. Andrews? And now that she finds Dr. Andrews to be an unsuitable romantic partner, she has to quit this job too? “We’re together again,” says Dr. Blake when she returns. He means together as employer/employee, as the king of gods has forbidden them from being together romantically.
This is a notable issue, as Cobra will become a pretty prominent villain, a regular foe of both Captain America and Daredevil. But it’s also an awful comic.
Rating: ★½, 22/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol.1. It is also available in Thor Epic Collection vol. 1: God of Thunder. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Dr. Don Blake/Thor
- Odin
- Klaus/The (Human) Cobra
- Professor Shecktor
- Jane Foster
- Dr. Andrews
Story notes:
- Jane Foster and Dr. Andrews seen in flashback to events of previous issue.
- Professor Shecktor is Dr. Blake’s old teacher; he is in India developing a cure for snakebite.
- Blake compares Shecktor to Albert Schweitzer.
- Klaus was an ex-convict Shecktor was trying to rehabilitate. Klaus was bitten by radioactive cobra, which gave him cobra powers.
- Cover and title suggest character is named the Human Cobra. Comic only ever refers to him as the Cobra. We’ve had this confusion a few other times. Thinker vs. Mad Thinker. Eraser vs. Living Eraser.
- Cobra’s gadgets: cobra darts, cobra gas, cobra-cord.
- Thor claims enchanted hammer cannot return to him except when thrown. If he drops it, he can’t summon it.
- Cobra escapes in the end.
- Cobra’s real name only given as Klaus. Last name unrevealed.
- The issue does not mention Dr. Andrews’ first name, so the Basil/Bruce confusion from last issue remains.
#115 story in reading order
Next: Journey Into Mystery #98, Story C
Previous: X-Men #2
