I have received plaudits and accolades from the highest and mightiest of mortals, yet, the words you have spoken shall gladden my heart for as long as memory endures!
Thor and Hercules have beaten back Pluto in Los Angeles, but Pluto escaped, and still has Hercules’ signed contract, which will condemn Hercules to rule the Netherworld in his place. Thor has returned to New York.
People usually credit the turnaround in the Thor stories to Kirby taking more control and bringing in his interest in mythology. But Stan also pulls his weight. I actually have to make a hard choice to get a pull quote out of the issue. I found at least four good options. The first I considered was the most humorous, where Thor shouts to the New York crowd: “The endless prattle of thy voices proves wearisome to mine ears!” Stan seems to have Thor’s Shakespeare-lite dialogue down now.
This unnamed taxi driver is a favorite character of mine. Thor’s sentimental words to him are what I chose for the pull quote above. The cabbie had been a soldier, and thus Thor finds a kindred spirit. He’d fought in World War II, and been wounded in Anzio, Italy, which would have been in 1944.
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
“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.
Featuring: Marvels Release: December 14, 1993 Cover: February 1994 $5.95 Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alex Ross Letterers: Starkings w/ John Gaushell Editor: Marcus McLaurin Assitant editor: Spencer Lamm Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman Interior design: Comicraft 45 pages
The real story was the people who’d been scared too long. Who’d been wound tight by talk of mutant menaces and hidden conspiracies and shadows under the bed.
I’ve mentioned before I want to frame our reading around the Marvels miniseries from the 1990s. That hasn’t really been obvious yet. We read Marvels #0, which retold a few pages from Marvel Comics #1. And we read Marvels #1, which paralleled 1940s Marvel comics. But our reading is concentrated in the 1960s. Finally, we get to Marvels #2, which parallels the 1960s Marvel stories, ranging from Avengers #6 (May 1964), the 191st entry in our reading, through Tales of Suspense #69 (June 1965), the 404th entry in our reading. Quite the range. We are reading it after completing the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #72, because we’d first needed to tie up some continuity ends.
We’ve hinted before at the theme of this comic, and I’d like to just discuss it up front. The two centerpiece stories are the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual 3, and the attack on the X-Men by the Sentinels in X-Men #14. The writer Kurt Busiek had noted in his own Marvel Universe research what we also found in our reading here, that these events must occur on nearly consecutive days. That’s not obvious from any comic, but does follow from a close reading of the many interconnected comics. And the two stories make for quite the juxtaposition.
The contrast between these two arcs becomes the central tension of this issue. The Fantastic Four wedding is the celebrity event of the century. The press covered it, crowds of fans gathered, famous people like Tony Stark and Millie the Model attended. The Fantastic Four are super-powered heroes and beloved by the public.
The X-Men are also super-powered heroes. But where the Fantastic Four gained their powers from cosmic radiation, the powers of the X-Men are innate, based on an accident of birth, perhaps from radiation their parents had been exposed to. The “Children of the Atom”. And that difference is big enough that the same public who cheered on the wedding of the FF members would listen with interest and nods of approval as Bolivar Trask went on the airwaves to declare mutants a menace and announce he’d created robot-hunting Sentinels to hunt and kill the X-Men.
We read the Heroes & Legends retelling of the wedding, which focused on this very tension in the form of a child, who was a huge fan of the Fantastic Four, but afraid of the X-Men. He learned better by issue’s end.
Here, the arc will play out within Phil Sheldon, the photojournalist who specialises in shots of the people he’s dubbed the Marvels. A person who idolizes heroes like the Fantastic Four and Avengers, but fears mutants like the X-Men.
It’s entirely irrational, just like all forms of bigotry.
That’s enough belaboring of themes. Let’s dive into the story. As we do, we’ll try to draw the parallels between what’s happening on the page and our reading.
I’ll note that the title is called “Monsters”, which brings to my mind Thing and Hulk. The latter doesn’t appear, and the former is a minor player at best.
It’s 20 years after the events of Marvels #1. Phil Sheldon is now an established freelance photojournalist happily married with two kids. We see hm doing freelance work for Barney Bushkin at the Daily Globe. The shadows on the page somewhat obscure Phil’s eyepatch, a lifelong injury sustained last issue by getting too close to a superhero battle.
We remember meeting Barney in Amazing Spider-Man #27. He’s nicer than Jonah, but asked too many questions for Peter’s tastes.
Featuring: Thor Release: September 2, 1965 Cover: November 1965 12 cents Written with compassion by: Stan Lee Drawn with comprehension by: Jack Kirby Inked with competence by: Vince Colletta Lettered for compensation by: Artie Simek 16 pages
I gave him strength to challenge a god– but even Loki could not give him valor to match that of Thor!
Odin gets the center stage on a pretty awesome cover.
Thor had been merely stunned at the end of last issue. Absorbing Man really seems unable to best Thor, so Loki brings him to Asgard.
It is of course against the law of Odin to bring mortals to Asgard.
Three basic dangling plot threads: Absorbing Man; Jane’s kidnapping; the lost Norn Stone. Plus the general overarching plot that Loki is probably scheming. We won’t check in on the Norn Stone this issue. After all, it’s a rock. It’s just sitting there where Thor dropped it. We’ll resolve the Jane subplot.
Let’s look to that now. We saw Jane’s kidnapper last issue in a hood, his identity unrevealed.
Featuring: Thor Release: July 1, 1965 Cover: September 1965 12 cents Written in the fire of inspiration by: Stan Lee Drawn in the flame of dedication by: Jack Kirby Inked in the heat of devotion by: Vince Colletta Lettered in the other room by: Artie Simek 16 pages
There! It is done! My hammer can strike once more!
Continuity. How do these many titles all fit together? At present, Thor is the character making it the most difficult. It’s been over 6 issues since his title has given him a chance to breathe, yet we squeezed his last Avengers adventure in there somehow. We’re going to have to squeeze in a wedding somewhere. By the time of the wedding, his hammer should be intact, and he should have formally resigned from the Avengers.
At present, his hammer is broken and he is not yet aware of the new Avengers.
There will be difficulties and contradictions to come, so just remember where we are. Loki cheated in the Trial of the Gods. Thor must get the Norn Stones to Odin as proof. En route, he encountered the Destroyer, who destroyed his hammer. Loki has been punished and sentenced to serve Ularic for his role in awakening the Destroyer. Prior to the Trial of the Gods, Thor had defeated the Absorbing Man by turning him into helium and sending him drifting into space. Somewhere in all that, he also fought the Viet Cong and joined the Avengers against the Masters of Evil. He has not been in contact with the Avengers since that battle, and much has changed. He has not returned to Asgard since the Trial of the Gods.
We open with Thor at a Pittsburgh factory, repairing his hammer. I would have guessed more mystical means would be needed. With Dwarves or such. Maybe Pittsburgh is more mystical than I think. (I have at least one regular reader from Pittsburgh; perhaps he can tell me.)
We’re still spinning out of the events of issue 114, when Loki kidnapped Jane. This led directly to last issue’s Trial of the Gods, a challenge which Loki won by cheating, right as last issue closed.
We pick up precisely where we left off. For continuity’s sake, Thor is still without his cape. He’ll get another one when they get home.
This issue, Thor finds himself entangled in the Vietnam war. Marvel heroes have been fighting Communists for as long as we’ve been reading, often in Vietnam. The nature of US involvement in Vietnam was changing drastically, as this comic was published just 7 months after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Here, we see the civil war that ravages South Vietnam, as South Vietnamese farmers face the terror of the Viet Cong, guerilla forces supported by the North Vietnamese.
Before we get to Viet Nam, we have unresolved plot points from last issue. Who won the Trial of the Gods? Will Jane be rescued from Enchantress and Executioner?
Featuring: Thor Release: January 5, 1965 Cover: March 1965 12 cents Written at white heat by: Stan Lee Drawn with purple passion by: Jack Kirby Inked with golden serenity by: Chic Stone Lettered on a blue Monday by: Sam Rosen 16 pages
Well, damn. That’s maybe the most compelling title yet. It turns out to also make complete sense into the context of the story. I like it.
“souped up bucket racing car”
This is the issue Thor finally gets good.
Quality-wise, Thor’s been turning around since about a dozen issues back. It went from being the single worst title to a pretty decent one. The stories still haven’t been much to speak of, but the art and action have been excellent. There’s been great storytelling of late, even if not applied to many stories worth telling.
The great storytelling has been owed to the pairing of Kirby and Stone. We just bid farewell to Stone’s tenure on FF. Now we must bid farewell to him on Thor (recall we’ve jumped back in time, so this is a month before his final FF issue). Vince Colletta will graduate from the Tales of Asgard backups and start on the main strip. There are those who love Colletta’s work on Thor, and there are many others who… don’t. We’ll see what we think in the months to come.
We are jumping back in time a couple months. Thor is changing. It has so far mostly consisted of identifiable discrete stories, usually one or two issues long. No more. Stories will flow into each other; it will be hard to tell where one begins and ends. It will be hard to identify where Thor gets enough of a breather to go be an Avenger. (Though we know that soon won’t be an issue.) We’re already behind on our Dr. Strange and Hulk reading because they’ve started the “saga” approach to storytelling.
To that end, the plan is to read the next 6 issues of Thor basically together, pausing only to check in on Daredevil, because it’s relevant to the happenings in Thor.
Most of the issue is dedicated to Thor’s battle against the Absorbing Man, but it ends indecisively. It’s over for the moment, but Thor’s foe remains at large. Meanwhile, we get a second conflict in the final pages. Loki has kidnapped Jane and holds her in his stronghold. Thor must go battle Loki and rescue Jane. Next issue will pick up both of these plots, but the Absorbing Man story still won’t conclude, and it will bleed into the Trial of the Gods” arc, which has already been hinted at in our Avengers reading because we got 2 months ahead.
We’ll talk in more detail about chronology next issue, but my loose idea is that this story takes place between the pages of Avengers #15. After the first Thor scene but before the second. The MCP disagrees, placing this squarely after Avengers #16.
Featuring: Avengers Release: February 11, 1965 Cover: April 1965 12 cents Script: Stan Lee Layouts: Jack Kirby Pencilling: Don Heck Inking: Mickey Demeo Lettering: Artie Simek 20 pages
For several issues, Avengers had become a Lee/Heck production and was much the worse for it. Last issue had everybody working at Marvel pitch in. Now, Kirby is on hand with the layouts. Recall, we’re basically talking positioning of characters, but with that comes the storytelling, and this story is a cut above the last several issues. That’s likely Kirby’s hand. He’s been the missing ingredient. He’s back to do layouts for two issues, and they’ll be two of the best Avengers stories of the era.
Ordering is funny, as continuity is getting tight. Everybody is embroiled in multi-issue arcs, stories are flowing into each other; Avengers is always tricky continuity because it needs to be fit around the solo titles; and there’s a wedding any day now.
That’s why we already skipped ahead 5 months in our X-Men reading and are so far behind in our Dr. Strange and Hulk reading. Trying to fit it all together. This is the February issue of Avengers. We’re already mostly on to March, but about to read the January Thor. I think it all makes sense. This issue for significant reasons plainly takes place after the July issue of X-Men.
Featuring: Thor Release: December 3, 1964 Cover: February 1965 12 cents A tale told with gusto by: Stan Lee A drama drawn with grandeur by: Jack Kirby An idyll inked with gallantry by: Chic Stone A legend lettered with glee by: Artie Simek 16 pages
Jack opens the story with Odin and Thor leading Asgardian soldiers aboard a giant sky ship into battle against the “demon men” of Jotunheim.
And Stan basically apologizes for that, assuring readers that Thor will soon be on Earth fighting a super-villain that’s no match for him and pining over Jane.
Stan and Jack are not on the same page with the direction Thor stories should take. I’m with Jack.
While it’s true that Stan is basically joking, he carries on with it for two pages while neglecting to actually script or provide real narration for the epic battle he seems somewhat embarrassed by. He offers us only, “For Asgard– and freedom!”
Nice sentiments, but I’m not convinced that “freedom” is a key value in Asgard, where an absolute monarch has ruled for millennia according fickle whims that must be obeyed without question, while seeming to exist in a state of perpetual war with all their neighboring realms.
Featuring: Thor Release: September 1, 1964 Cover: November 1964 12 cents Spectacularly written by: Stan Lee Magnificently drawn by: Jack Kirby Powerfully inked by: Chic Stone Eventually lettered by: Art Simek 16 pages
This image of Thor holding the wounded Jane resembles an extremely common trope in superhero comics. It’s a standard way to depict a character as dead while another mourns them. This is the first time we’ve seen it in our Marvel reading. The Distinguished Competition had a cover with a similar pose a year earlier to depict the death of Robin.
Generally, these are described as “pieta covers”, referring to the resemblance to La Pieta by Michelangelo, in which Mary holds the body of her dead son, Jesus.
This blog post on metropolisplus gives an overview of the trope. Depending on how much of a purist you are, this Thor cover might not quite fit the pieta trope. As Jane is wounded, not dead; and Thor is protecting her, not mourning her. But it’s pretty close.
