Thor #140

Featuring: Thor
Release: March 3, 1967
Cover: May 1967
12 cents
Conceived and created by the noblest collaborative combo in comicdom:
Stan (The Man) Lee and Jack (King) Kirby
Inking by: Vince Colletta
Lettering by: Sam Rosen
16 pages

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Tales of Suspense #86	Reading order	Thor #140, Story B
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Thanks to thy valor– thy matchless devotion– Asgard endures! But, many are the battles that lie ahead! Many are the foes we yet must face! Many the dangers to be overcome! Yet, verily I say unto thee– Whate’er may befall… we shall face it together!!!

We are pretty far ahead in Thor’s story compared to the rest of the characters. This comic is from March 1967, but we’re still in July 1966 in the other comics.

This is really because Thor attends an Avengers meeting in an August 1966 comic. And there’s just no space in Thor’s saga for that to happen in a long window of time. A lot happened at once for Thor, involving Hercules, Tana Nile, Ego, and the High Evolutionary. It was go, go, go for lots of issues. Things calmed down a few issues back. But it was clear that Thor was in Asgard chilling with his new crush, Sif. And not on Earth. And then the Troll War broke out.

So we jump ahead to this comic which at last returns Thor to Earth and gives him enough breathing room to attend an Avengers meeting. We’ll discuss as we go through the issue what clues there are as to how long he’s been away.

We open with celebrations marking the end of the Troll War.

“The Realm Eternal still doth stand,” says Odin. It would be a poor nickname otherwise.

While Odin is having his bath, Thor notes he’s supposed to guard Earth, but has been “too long absent”. First clue he hasn’t been there in a while.

Now, he actually was just briefly on Earth during the Troll War, but that was a short and very busy stop he’s presumably not counting.

Meanwhile, on Earth, a museum had found a strange creature the size of a doll. It soon grew to the size of a normal man, and then grew even bigger.

Sif wants to accompany Thor to Earth, but he notes what he has to do is man’s work. Sif hates getting told things like that. Her whole shtick is she’s a tough warrior who can hold her own against any man.

But when Thor says “man’s work”, he means he needs time alone to pout and think about his feelings for the assorted women in his life. I think that’s what men usually mean.

Sif again refers to herself as the sister of Heimdall; they’ve been consistent about that lately. It’s only once her first appearance in ancient times that she was referred to as the sister of Balder.

Odin has banished all memories of Thor from Jane’s brain. It leads one to wonder if Odin also messed with Thor’s brain to help him get over Jane. Or perhaps the beauty of Sif was enough to accomplish that.

Thor notes he needs to pick up the pieces of Don Blake’s life.

Let’s once again reflect on who Don Blake is. Lately, he acts like he just is Thor. But before he was Thor, he was Don Blake. He was a man. He had a life. He found a cane in some cave, which gave him powers. But more and more, Blake seems to be just a shell, and Thor the true self. If Thor is chilling in Asgard, then Blake isn’t on Earth.

Blake is a doctor. We’ve met no friends or family, except for his nurse and love interest Jane. Who has forgotten him thanks to Asgardian magic. He presumably still has patients. But what’s supposed to become of him when Thor is in Asgard flirting with Sif? Blake’s life seems but an afterthought.

Dr. Blake says he’s been gone “a few days”. If that’s true, it’s been an eventful few days. But then Thor seems like the type of guy eventful things happen to.

Blake does have at least one person in his life. Olson, the janitor, knows him and thinks he’s been on vacation.

Thor will later adopt another human identity, Jake Olson. Any relation to this janitor, I wonder?

The Growing Man turns out to be a creation of Kang.

Recall, the Fantastic Four met the time-travelling Rama-Tut in ancient Egypt. And there were hints that Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom may be the same man. However, Kang and Rama-Tut are the same man. Kang was born in the Year 3000, traveled to ancient Egypt to become Rama-Tut, then traveled to the year 4000 to become Kang. He then traveled back to the 20th century to conquer it, but was defeated by the Avengers. He tried again with a robot Spider-Man, and was defeated again. We last saw Kang in the future, in the one unconquered kingdom of his time, which was ruled by Kang’s true love, Princess Ravonna, who sadly died.

Dr. Blake, a surgeon frequently absent from his practice, is invited as an expert consultant on the Growing Man. Because he apparently knows Thor. Why not just have him call Thor then? Why does Blake need to come along? Better yet, why not call the Avengers? Goliath seems like a natural person with expertise in the area of growing.

The Growing Man is a Stimuloid.

I have no jokes to make at this time.

Attacks on the Growing Man only make him grow more, so Thor’s hammer makes him grow a lot.

Apparently Kang’s time machine is disguised as a rock.

Thor can make his hammer spin faster than the speed of light. We’ve seen him use it to time travel before. Now he uses it to disrupt Kang’s time travel.

He seems to knock Kang out of the timestream, so he’ll never be able to return to the future or any time. Presumably that means this is the last we’ll ever see of Kang.

Okay. I think Thor has breathing room now. There may have been space to check in with the Avengers before he was called in on the Growing Man case. But I think it makes even more sense for him to visit them now.

Kang has fought both the old and new Avengers, so it makes sense for Thor to update the current team on his encounter with Kang. So I think that Thor now not only has time to visit the Avengers, but a good reason to. We’ll see that meeting after the Tales of Asgard backup.

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆

Growing Man isn’t quite a significant enough villain to give this comic that coveted 4th star in significance. Almost.

Characters:

• Thor/Dr. Don Blake
• Odin
• Growing Man
• Sif
• Olson
• Kang

Minor characters:

• Charlie (police officer)

Story notes:

• Odin takes a Royal Bath in the Pool of Peace.
• Thor asks leave from Odin to return to Earth, which he guards but has been long absent from, for he has intuition of peril.
• A museum unearthed a sleeping man the size of a doll, but now he has grown to full size.
• Growing Man is wearing some form of bulletproof armor.
• Growing Man grows larger every time a bullet hits him.
• Growing Man seeks his master who will tell him his purpose, and causes much destruction in the meantime.
• Sif reminds us she is the sister of Heimdall.
• Thor reveals that Odin banished all memory of himself from Jane’s brain.
• Olson is the janitor where Blake’s office is.
• Kang had his Growing Man buried in the 20th Century, but he was awakened before his time. Kang reduces him to doll-size again.
• Dr. Blake is invited to consult because he’s contacted Thor before.
• Hammer blow made Growing Man double in size.
• Growing Man is a Stimuloid created by Kang.
• Growing Man growing too large.
• Thor can make hammer spin faster than the speed of light.
• Thor places Kang’s time machine in universal infinity vortex. Kang will never reach the future and instead is now beyond time and space.

Previous	#596	Next
Tales of Suspense #86	Reading order	Thor #140, Story B
Thor #139, Story B	Thor	Thor #140, Story B