Featuring: Tales of Asgard Release: November 5, 1963 Cover: January 1964 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: P. Reinman 5 pages
We continue with the anniversary issue of Journey Into Mystery. There is the main Thor tale, then a prose story, a sci/fi tale, and this, a story from Thor’s childhood. We get an extra subtitle for the feature: “Tales of Asgard, Home of the Mighty Norse Gods!: The Boyhood of Thor”.
Up until this point, the series had focused on the earliest days of creation, with Odin as the main star, prior to the birth of Thor. We jump forward in time now to Thor’s childhood.
Featuring: Thor Release: November 5, 1963 Cover: January 1964 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Illustrated by: Don Heck 13 pages
Congratulations to Journey Into Mystery on reaching 100 issues. The cover doesn’t see this milestone as something worth making a big deal out of. Nor does the story. This is just another Thor story, as far as I can tell.
For contrast, check out Superman #100 from almost a decade earlier. They seemed proud to reach 100.
Let’s celebrate the milestone by briefly reviewing the history of the title and peeking into its future.
Featuring: Tales of Asgard Release: October 1, 1963 Cover: December 1963 12 cents Presented with pride by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby 5 pages
As with previous issues, this tale of Asgard is short, terse, and very plot-dense. Odin battles trolls and Surtur the fire-god. By the end, the moon has been created, the Rainbow Bridge has been created, Odin has started Earth’s rotation, and Surtur has been imprisoned in Earth’s core.
Featuring: Thor Release: October 1, 1963 Cover: December 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Illustrated by: Don Heck 13 pages
Yes, we are jumping back in time a week. This begins a two-part story, so I wanted to get #99-100 together. The CMRO actually puts the Thor stories from each issue together, and then goes back to the “Tales of Asgard” stories from 99-100. I think I’m going to treat reading a whole issue at once as the more important consideration. Of course, I will eventually break that rule. So the plan is to read the whole of Journey Into Mystery #99 followed by the whole of #100, even though that inserts a Tales of Asgard story in the middle of Thor’s battle with Mr. Hyde.
Marvel’s already had a few characters inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hulk is the most famous one, but his character arc has so far been a rambling mess. Lizard did it well, though it made the character of Curt Connors far more sympathetic than Stevenson made Dr. Jekyll.
Now, we get an explicit reference with a villain named Mr. Hyde. Calvin Zabo is written as even less sympathetic than Dr. Jekyll. He is a straightforward super-villain who transforms himself into Mr. Hyde to commit crimes.
Featuring: Tales of Asgard Release: September 3, 1963 Cover: November 1964 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Don Heck 5 pages
In this same issue, we saw Thor’s lackluster battle against Cobra. There is also a prose story taken from an old issue of Uncanny Tales, and a new Larry Lieber sci/fi tale. And then this. The second installment of the “Tales of Asgard” series.
We get more detail on a battle spoken of in the previous issue. We see Odin’s great war against Ymir and the Ice Giants. A simple enough tale, but told with a bold forcefulness. This is a better use of Kirby’s talents than a lot of what he has been doing of late.
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.
Of course I imagine Thor’s voice sounds like Tommy Wiseau as he shouts.
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.
Featuring: Tales of Asgard Release: August 1, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: G. Bell 5 pages
The inks are by George Roussos, who often used the pseudonym George Bell. This is the first work of his we’ve seen.
The Thor series has not been very good. But I know there are good Thor comics. I even know there are good Thor comics made by Lee and Kirby. We just haven’t seen them yet. There’s been no real consistent artistic voice on the series, with a variety of artists and scripters taking a hand.
Thor is at his best when the stories explore the mythological. He’s generally better in Asgard than on Earth. Indeed, the best Thor story so far introduced Loki, and told the story of how he freed himself from the tree where Odin had imprisoned him. That was the only glimmer of greatness we’ve yet seen.
Here is the next glimmer. After the main tale and a Larry Lieber-helmed sci/fi tale, we get the first installment of a new series: Tales of Asgard. These stories will give Kirby a chance to flex his mythological cred.
Featuring: Thor Release: August 1, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Don Heck 13 pages
Kirby gets main drawing credit, but the faces (excepting the Lava Man) look more like Heck’s work to my eye. The action is very Kirby though.
Beneath the surface of the Earth, Mole Man rules an army of monsters. The immortal Tyrannus rules a kingdom of underworld natives. The kingdom of Atlantis had once sunk beneath the sea, and continued sinking beneath the world; when Iron Man visited, Kala was the ruler of Atlantis. We’re about to meet our fourth kingdom beneath the surface. Fortunately, the world is big enough for all of them.
We reach the 100th story in our Marvel reading. Quite the milestone. And what a story it is. Coincidentally, the 100th Marvel Universe story, by my count, is Avengers #1. Did I plan it that way? No. Well, at least not exactly. Six different comics came out this very same day, and it was mostly up to me what order to read them in. The 100th story could just as easily have been X-Men #1 if I’d wanted. But I made that #99. Because.
[Big asterisk on the last paragraph. I have since edited my own reading order to make this story an unexciting story #94. But it was #100 when I first posted it. Now that honor goes to Journey Into Mystery #97]
And what a day for comics. The first Fantastic Four annual had Namor find his people and declare war on the surface world. That’s cool. Sgt. Fury met Reed Richards for the first time. That’s cool. The X-Men were introduced! We read the worst story yet as Thor battled Merlin. That’s… less cool. But overall an exciting day.
Including this. Really, what it’s all been building up to. Why I’ve been intermixing Thor and Iron Man stories, acting like they’re somehow connected even though they clearly haven’t been. This is the heart of it all. Five heroes we’ve been reading about team up. Also, the Fantastic Four show up for good measure.
And, as we’ve discussed, my first comic ever was an Avengers comic. So I’m excited to have reached this milestone.
Featuring: Thor Release: June 4, 1963 Cover: August 1963 12 cents Story plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Joe Sinnott 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1.
In going through the results of a recent poll on favorite Marvel/DC characters, my friend Brian Cronin talked about the idea of a “MARVEL science” degrees for his entry on Beast. He notes that Beast is a MARVEL scientist, and
Marvel Universe science is a lot more diverse than regular science. You see, Hank eventually gained a PhD (done while the rest of the X-Men were vainly trying to complete their GEDs) in biophysics and genetics. However, he achieved these PhDs in MARVEL science, so this made him an expert in engineering, medicine, time travel (yes, time travel), etc. It is like how one of the most highly-developed robots of all time, Ultron, was built by Hank Pym, a biologist. It is because Hank is a MARVEL biologist. Very different than normal biology. It’s like “How would you best describe a cell membrane? Also, how would you build a device that could negate Magneto’s powers?” All in the same class!!!! And MARVEL scientists always have multiple doctorates by the time they’re 22. It’s a rule.
Now, we’ve seen a pretty clear counterexample to that. Dr. Pym turned down a request for help from Wasp’s father because it was outside his area of specialty. He claimed he was only an expert in “molecular cell transition” (i.e. making people shrink) and “cell specialization” (i.e. making people grow wings). As of where we are in our reading, he has not yet built any robots.
Dr. Don Blake is a surgeon and a very good one. Surgery is a hard thing to master. It takes a lot of time to study. It’s a demanding job, always being on call. He’s also always on call as a superhero.
Yet somehow he built an android in his spare time.
