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 #123

While a Universe Trembles!

Featuring: Thor
Release: October 5, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
Fantasy to dazzle thy senses, written by: Stan Lee
Drama to quicken thy pulse, illustrated by: Jack Kirby
Beauty to nourish thine eyes, embellished by: Vince Colletta
Balloons to compound thy confusion, lettered by: Artie Simek
16 pages

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…It’s like being in the center of the universe! Like being part of– eternity!

Notice the credits use “thy” and “thine” everywhere, words Thor is today famous for using, but that Stan is only slowly starting to pepper into his speech. On this very page, he refers to Hobbs as “you” and not “thee”.

Where did we leave off? Harris Hobbs kidnapped Jane to get a picture proving Thor was Donald Blake. Thor seems to have forgiven Hobbs and agreed to take him to visit Asgard. Meanwhile, Loki and the Absorbing Man have declared war on Asgard. When we left off, the Absorbing Man was confronting Odin with his own power.

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Journey Into Mystery #117

Into the Blaze of Battle!

Featuring: Thor
Release: April Fools Day, 1965
Cover: June 1965
12 cents
Regally written by: Stan Lee
Dazzlingly drawn by: Jack Kirby
Invincibly inked by: Vince Colletta
Lonesomely lettered by: Artie Simek
16 pages

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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?

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Tales of Suspense #61, Story B

The Strength of the Sumo!

Featuring: Captain America
Release: October 8, 1964
Cover: January 1965
12 cents
Stan Lee writer par excellence!
Jack Kirby illustrator without peer!
Chic Stone delineator extaordinaire!
Artie Simek letterer– what else?
10 pages

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Captain America goes to Vietnam and fights a sumo wrestler. I usually associate sumo wrestling with Japan, and suspect that Stan and Jack just haven’t thought too hard about the differences between Vietnam and Japan. However, culture does spread in our modern world, and I can’t confirm Vietnam didn’t have any sumo wrestlers in the 1960s, so I’m going to give them a pass.

Captain America is fighting the Commies. This brings to mind his very brief 1954 return as “Captain America… Commie Smasher!” Of course, those stories are hard to reconcile with the modern Marvel Age continuity in which Captain America was frozen in ice from 1945 to 1963. How could he then have been fighting Commies in 1954?

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