Featuring: Thor
Release: October 4, 1966
Cover: December 1966
12 cents
A Stan Lee * Jack Kirby feature fantasy!
Delineation by: Vincent Colletta
Lettering by: Artie Simek
16 pages
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| Thor #134, Story B | Reading order | Thor #135, Story B |
| Thor #134, Story B | Thor | Thor #135, Story B |
“The universe is vast, beloved– and doth contain worlds without limit! One such world shall someday be home for the Knights of Wundagore! Then mayhap a new star shall burn more brightly!”
“And when it does, we two will know the reason why!”
It will be later in the issue before anybody names this new villain. The title and cover suggest his name is the Super-Beast. So that is what we will call him. Though the next issue blurb last issue had referred to him as the Man-Beast.
Super-Beast’s thing is that he has undergone a million years of evolution. He’s a mix not just of man and wolf, but of where man and wolf will be in a million years.
So he knows future karate and generally has knowledge of future combat. He knows science that won’t be discovered by humanity for tens of thousands of years.
But does any of that make sense? Is knowledge an evolutionary or genetic trait?
This makes me question how the evolution machine works at all. Evolution is born of adaptation to a particular environment. How can you evolve something to adapt to a future environment in the present environment? How can you evolve someone to apparently know the future?
Also is it possible he spends too much time explaining his powers when she should be getting on with the murdering?
I’ll note these problems all lie with Lee’s dialogue, not the story Kirby drew. We’ll see a few points of dichotomy.
For example, Lee’s dialogue tells us Thor has been frozen. The art does not show us that. If Kirby wanted to depict a Thor frozen in place, he would have drawn at least two panels of Thor in the same position before breaking free.
High Evolutionary christens him the Man-Beast, so that’s what we’ll call him starting… … Now.
I will say I do not love the design of this Man-Beast. I think he’s one of Kirby’s weaker drawings. Just kind of boring, evocative of nothing. He did a better job with several of the New-Men.
Do we recognize any of these Knights from last issue? A couple. I think that’s Sir Liyan at the very least.
High Evolutionary is ready to accept responsibility for his mistakes, rather than blaming Thor. He’d been trying to create the “best of all possible worlds”. He is drawing on a phrase coined by Gottfried Liebniz, which argued that–despite appearances–we are in the best possible world, because that is what God would create. And High Evolutionary has tried to make himself like a god. Battling would-be gods is quite the theme of late in these stories.
If you compare Kirby’s art of this period with Gene Colan’s, you will find Colan uses a lot of splash pages. Whereas Kirby saves the splash pages for when he wants to show something big and special.
Jane gets some good lines in here that I considered for the pull quote. “Whatever you do, my darling– take me with you! Whether you find triumph or tragedy, let us share it together!”
Thor’s precise relationship with Jane at this point is a source of some confusion for me. But she knows that Thor is Don and Don is Thor and is in love with both. I don’t even know that Thor is Don. Don is a guy who found a magic hammer in a cave. Thor appears to be much older than Don. So the connections and relationships are confusing here.
We’ll reflect on it more next issue.
Here’s another script/art dichotomy. The dialogue claims Man-Beast is controlling his minions with mental powers from afar. But he’s not afar. He’s right there.
Of course, despite all Man-Beast’s future powers, Thor is Thor, and wins the day. The point is that Man-Beast is mortal. And mortals suck.
Plus Thor has his really powerful hammer without a name.
Man-Beast and his New-Men are exiled to the galaxy Dromisana. That’s not a real galaxy.
High Evolutionary looks oddly normal under the helmet. His origin is familiar. His scientific ideas were scoffed by his colleagues. See also the origin of Human Torch or Ant-Man. Like all great origins, his is steeped in tragedy. Particularly the death of his beloved dalmatian he’d been experimenting on.
High Evolutionary also departs Earth with his New-Men, presumably off to a different galaxy than he just sent the Man-Beast. Thor and Jane get some good reflections in, from which I took this post’s pull quote above.
Rating: ★★★½, 62/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
A lot of dialogue I don’t like here, but I appreciate the origin of the High Evolutionary and the poignance of the ending.
When I updated Our cast so far last issue, nothing High Evolutionary had done had seemed particularly evil, so I didn’t list him under villains. Nothing about this issue changes my mind on that. He seems to be Thor’s ally.
I read this story in Thor Epic Collection vol. 3: The Wrath of Odin.
Characters:
- Man-Beast/Super-Beast.
- Thor
- Jane Foster
- High Evolutionary
- Sir Liyan
- Sir Ossilot
- Odin
- Balder the Brave
- Tagar
- Porga
Story notes:
- Cover and title suggest villain is named Super-Beast.
- Super-Beast reflects on who he is; a lot of the wording matches Evolutionary’s thoughts from last issue.
- Narration reminds us we are in the hidden kingdom of Wundagore where Jane Foster was working as a teacher to a class of animals whose evolution was sped up by the High Evolutionary.
- Super-Beast emerges through the wall by transposing its molecules.
- Super-Beast possesses brain of man a million years hence plus the power of a wolf a million years hence.
- Super-Beast can sense the pressure points where Thor is most vulnerable.
- Knowledge of combat a million years more advanced; Super-Beast knows future karate.
- Super-Beast can employ science which will not be discovered for 50K years.
- Super-Beast destroys Thor’s time sense, leaving him unable to move for a couple seconds.
- Super-Beast seeks to annihilate every other form of life.
- High Evolutionary seeks to destroy him using the Sub-sonic Discordian, a super-powered dog whistle.
- Discordian does not kill Super-Beast but causes him pain; he swears revenge on all mankind. Note he was already planning to exterminate mankind before this vow of vengeance.
- Uru hammer cannot penetrate field of mental repulsion.
- High Evolutionary finally calls him Man-Beast. Edit all the above. That is canon now.
- Man-Beast has created anti-matter barrier which no positive atoms can penetrate.
- High Evolutionary has Evolutionary Ray in Genetic Laboratory. Man-Beast could use it to create his own race of New-Men.
- Last issue High Evolutionary blamed Thor for interrupting his experiment, but now he accepts sole responsibility. He seems to learn he was wrong for tampering with natural evolution.
- Odin has a premonition of disaster for Thor which distracts him from appreciating Balder’s joust.
- High Evolutionary’s Induction Device will send a Vibra-Beam through the castle powerful enough to lure Man-Beast out from the Anti-Matter Barrier.
- Man-Beast created his army of evil New-Men.
- Man-Beast’s minions are not as powerful, by his choice.
- Tagar summons the Knights to battle. Porga notes he was not bred for battle.
- Though Tagar is the ambassador not trained for combat, his ancestors lived for battle.
- Tagar dons the Cathode Gloves.
- Man-Beast will disintegrate hammer with mind blast. Or will he?
- “Though you surely possess the awesome power of the distant future– The God of Thunder doth possess the powers of all eternity!”
- Man-Beast and New-Men tossed into Star Chamber; zeroed in on the galaxy Dromisana. In a far distant and uninhabited galaxy, they may form a new society.
- High Evolutionary’s first subject was pet dalmatian, who was shot by a hunter. So he retreated from society. He discovered a lode of uranium, which made him wealthy enough to create Wundagore.
- New-Men modeled after old knights and taught chivalry.
- Wundagore a giant spaceship, and High Evolutionary takes it and his New-Men away.
| Previous | #544 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Thor #134, Story B | Reading order | Thor #135, Story B |
| Thor #134, Story B | Thor | Thor #135, Story B |
