Thor #131

Featuring: Thor
Release: June 2, 1966
Cover: August 1966
12 cents
Script: Smilin’ Stan Lee
Art: Jolly Jack Kirby
Inks: Vivacious V. Colletta
Lettering: Affable Artie Simek
Celestial guided tours: Honest Irving Forbush
16 pages

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Sgt. Fury #32	Reading order	Thor #131, Story B
Thor #130, Story B	Thor	Thor #131, Story B

Ay! The gladness in his heart doth make mine own regal soul rejoice! Too long hath he been brother to sorrow! Too long hath grim duty o’ershadowed his days! Yet, a feeling of unease lies within my heart! I fear that happiness may still be denied to the so-richly-deserving, most noble Thor!

Thor’s comic has become one ongoing saga to the point where it’s hard to figure out where to cut. We obviously did cut after the last issue, which basically ended the Hercules/Pluto saga. But here we are picking up right where that left off, with Thor and Hercules returning from the Netherworld to Olympus.

We’re just going to plow through the next 6 issues of Thor, getting a bit ahead in time of the rest of the Marvel Universe. There are probably 3 distinct arcs among them, but they all just flow together. Really, the main plot of this issue has been building for a bit now. Jane has had a strange roommate named Tana Nile, who’s up to some stuff. It’s been in the background, but now comes to the foreground. And Jane’s encounter with Tana Nile will be the springboard for the next two arcs.

Of course the other springboard is Thor’s decision to marry Jane, even though a god and a mortal may not marry. Thor is ready to surrender his immortality for this.

It won’t pay off immediately or even soon, but Hercules and Ares get into a tiff. Ares declares both Thor and Hercules to be his enemies. And, well, this won’t be the last we see of the God of War.

We can see two other unnamed Olympians in that first panel. One appears to be Dionysius, who we saw with Zeus in issue 129. The guy to Ares’ left kind of resembles the guy standing in the background in that same panels of issue 129, moreso than he does the guy sitting next to Dionysius in that panel. General consensus is that one of those people will turn out to be Hephaestus, god of fire and craft. We’ll reflect more when such a character gets named. For now, we’ll not include him in the character listing.

Jane has left New York under the mental command of Tana Nile. Which will be the next impediment to Thor marrying her.

At last we learn the secret of Tana Nile. She’s an alien. Her people are into colonizing. She has come to colonize the Earth with herself as its regent slash empress.

Her people are from the constellation Rigel. We will come to know them as Rigellians. Are they named after the group of stars?

Here we get a cool depiction of the Rigellian Command Planet from Jack.

These Colonizers are mostly convinced of their own invincibility. The one thing they fear is that which lives in the Black Galaxy. An ominous portent for the adventure to come.

Plus another great Kirby machine.

Thor is ready to ask his father for permission to marry, but Odin is playing chess. He considers his game more important than his son’s marriage.

Odin agrees to the wedding and to letting Thor keep his godhood. But of course there are conditions.

Thor is eager to tell Jane the news. But, well, she’s missing. And her roommate is on the verge of conquering Earth.

They refer to the 24th Quadrant. Man. I was annoyed when the Skrulls kept claiming they were from the Fifth Quadrant. 24 is way too many. Quad means four, people! A quadrant is a fourth of something!

Thor is captured and taken back to Rigel, in the hopes his power may give them the secret of defeating whatever lurks in the Black Galaxy.

The second time they’ve referred to the Black Galaxy. I’d be tempted to refer to this arc as “The Black Galaxy Saga”, but a much later Thor story stole that name.

We get one of Kirby’s cool collages, but it only comes out so well on the printed page. Again, we see technology had not yet caught up to his vision.

Here’s the digital version for comparison.

I find it interesting that Thor identifies as an Avenger. I would think more fundamentally he’s an Asgardian.

They seem to be headed to a planet named Rigel. Perhaps the planet and the constellation share a name.

I appreciate that Kirby is leaning into science fiction and that a story could take us from Olympus to Asgard to Earth to deep space and the planet Rigel in 16 pages. This is Kirby at his best.

Rating: ★★★★☆, 72/100
Significance: ★★★★☆

Some cool sci/fi imagery marks this amongst the Best We’ve Read, unfortunately leave no space for the story of Nick Fury’s youth from Sgt. Fury #7. With that, the number of Thor stories overtakes the number of Sgt. Fury stories on the list.

Characters:

• Thor
• Hercules
• Dionysius
• Ares
• Jane Foster
• Tana Nile
• Odin
• First Inspector
• Second Inspector

Story notes:

• Hercules is angry Ares would not defend him; Ares is angry that Zeus favors Hercules over him. Ares declares Hercules and Thor his enemies.
• Winds of the Worlds transport Thor from Olympus to Asgard.
• Jane Foster has been willed to leave New York by Tana Nile and Jane cannot resist her command. She does not know where she is going, just that it is far away.
• Tana Nile is a Space Colonizer. She disguised herself as a human to learn about the world. Now it is time to colonize and rule Earth.
• Earth is considered small and unimportant by most Colonizers, but Tana Nile hopes to use it as a stepping stone.
• Tana Nile contacts the Command Planet at the Constellation Rigel, and stakes a claim on Earth.
• System of Sol on perimeter of Sector Five. The third planet from the sun is unregistered by Rigellians. Command Planet checks file of Fringe Area Galaxies and dispatches Inspection Team to approve Tana Nile’s claim.
• Tana Nile prefers the Inspection Team not come for fear of battle.
• The Command Planet claims the Colonizers are invincible, that nothing can affect them except the menace of the Black Galaxy.
• None may interrupt Odin when he is engaged in Celestial Chess. Odin wins his game.
• Odin gives Thor permission to wed. Thor need not renounce his godhood.
• Member of Inspection Team attacks Thor; he is confident he is more powerful than Thor, but Tana Nile is not so certain.
• Tana Nile’s Mind Thrust causes Thor to kneel.
• Tana Nile claims her new title will be Tana the First, Colonial Empress of the Captive Planet Earth.
• Tana Nile explains her plans. Step 1 is approval from the Inspection Team. Step 2 is an announcement at the UN. Step 3 is to silence resistance with the Space Lock, an irresistible ray that can remove a planet from its orbit, even taking it out of the solar system.
• With the Space Lock, Earth may be taken to the heat of the 24th Quadrant, or sent beyond the rays of any sun, causing a new ice age.
• Thor may be able to rise, a feat no living being has accomplished, breaking the Mind Thrust.
• The Inspection Team member fires a Proton Coagulant Ray at maximum intensity. An unshatterable cage of Proton Particles forms.
• The Inspection Team will take Thor back for study; only the creature in the Black Galaxy has shown more power.
• The Inspection Team grants Tana Nile her claim and adjusts her wrist control to activate the Space Lock.
• Jane’s neighbor with dog thinks she meets such nice people in the apartment, even though it’s expensive.
• Inspectors user Gravity Nullifier to transport Proton Cage.
• We meet Jane’s elderly neighbor and her dog.
• Visi-rod reveals spacecraft.
• Visi-rod operates by removing and then restoring any object from the normal visual spectrum range
• Inspectors receive no additional compensation for overtime inspecting.
• Since Thor can resist a mind thrust, study of him may give a clue as to how to defeat the being in the Black Galaxy.
• They take Thor to the Constellation Rigel, home of the Colonizers.
• Tana Nile calls Power Planet 4 in Constellation Rigel to energize the Space Lock.
• Rigellians can change physical density with speed of thought, to make a body able to resist any force.
• At maximum density, a blow from an inspector is equal to the force of a cosmic tornado.
• Thor continues to planet Rigel to save the Earth.

Previous	#536	Next
Sgt. Fury #32	Reading order	Thor #131, Story B
Thor #130, Story B	Thor	Thor #131, Story B