Journey Into Mystery #124

The Grandeur and the Glory!

Featuring: Thor
Release: November 4, 1965
Cover: January 1966
12 cents
Story by: Stan (The Man) Lee
Pencilling by: Jack (King) Kirby
Delineation by: Vince (the Prince) Colletta
Lettering by: Artie (Sugar Lips) Simek
16 pages

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“Those arms of his can crush concrete! And yet!–“
“He’s holdin’ that kid as gently as if she was made outta egg-shells.”

Stan has a different nickname for the creators every issue it seems. But this is not the first time he’s referred to himself as “The Man” and to Jack as “King”, and these nicknames are the ones that will stick with them across the decades. Despite its rhyming qualities, “Vince the Prince” will not stick. I have no comment on the prevalence of this nickname for Artie.

The newsstand is selling the latest issue of Strange Tales, emphasizing what I’ve noted before: just how great a month for comics this is, perhaps the best in Marvel’s history.

Thor is reading a newspaper which is reporting on the Demon. As we’ve noted, there are no really clear stopping points in Thor’s saga anymore. Most ongoing threads resolved last issue, except last issue also began this Demon story, which is still just getting started; Thor and the Demon will finally meet in this issue’s final panels. That story involves a Vietnamese Witch Doctor finding a Norn Stone, so ultimately still traces back to the Trial of the Gods from issue 116 and Thor’s battle with the Viet Cong in issue 117. Jane remains in the hospital from smoke inhalation after being kidnapped by Harris Hobbs, as we saw in issue 122. While the Demon saga will resolve itself next issue, this issue, as the cover notes, also introduces Hercules to the mix, and a story which will continue on. The last year of Thor tales have covered a very short span of time.

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Journey Into Mystery Annual 1

When Titans Clash!

Featuring: Thor
Release: June 1, 1965
Cover: 1965
25 cents
Mighty story by: Stan Lee
Majestic art by: Jack Kirby
Masterful inking by: Vince Colletta
Mostly lettered by: Sam Rosen
15 pages

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Thus, the Thunder God falls.. for time without end.. through a vast void of heavy nothingness… of shimmering energy barriers and mystic space disrupters…

This is the first Thor Annual. Your 25 cents is mostly buying you reprint stories. But you also get a 15 page new Thor story, which is perhaps more properly a Tales of Asgard story, focused as it is on an early adventure of Thor. In those tales, Loki is always scheming to kill him, but Thor seems blissfully unaware.

We’ve reviewed some early history of Hercules and Zeus. Marvel introduced a gigantic superhero named for Hercules then weeks later introduced a comedic hero named Little Hercules. A mythologically-confused version of Hercules gave his powers to Marvel Boy in 1940 and then to another Marvel Boy in 1943. Tommy Tyme witnessed the mythological Hercules’ legendary battle against Antaeus, which bore quite the resemblance to a Thor story we read where he battled Sigurd.

Jupiter was a recurring character in Venus, and the Jupiter of Roman myth is very similar to the Zeus of Greek myth. We saw Zeus unleash a Fury in a 1955 fantasy story. We know Zeus had given Pandora her box from a 1961 Tales of Suspense story. And that Pandora’s Box was later used by the Sorcerer to menace Johnny Storm. In the early days of our reading, we read a weird tale where Zeus came to Earth to prove his power, and was offered movie deals.

But those appearances of Hercules and Zeus are not necessarily part of our canon. This issue represents the proper Marvel Universe introductions of Hercules and Zeus.

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