Thor debuted in Journey Into Mystery 83, cover-dated August 1962. This was, of course, the very early days of modern Marvel. The Fantastic Four had only 5 issues under their belts, and the Incredible Hulk had just 2. JIM was a monthly title (FF and Hulk were bi-monthlies), so Thor was actually the first super-hero headliner to appear every month, beating out Ant-Man by a month. Spider-Man also debuted in Aug '62, but would have to wait 7 months to get his own magazine.
Of all the Silver Age Marvel books, JIM/Thor seems to get a lot less love and respect than other creations. That may be because Thor is not really a creation of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee as it is their adaptation of the Thor of Norse myths. There is one aspect of Marvel's Thor that is possibly borrowed from the Fawcett Captain Marvel, and in some of the early stories, Thor comes across as a poor man's Superman.
In the first year or so, Stan sometimes was credited as the writer, sometimes only the plotter. It's debatable how much he did or didn't do - it always will be, I suppose - but one thing for sure, he very obviously didn't do the dialogue every issue. Jack did the pencils on JIM 83-89, 93, and 97, and then was the regular penciller every month starting with 101. Jack also did the backup feature, Tales of Asgard, starting in JIM 97, a very significant - and excellent - strip on its own.
Inspired by the Baron, I'm going to re-read the Thor stories starting with JIM 83 and give you my thoughts. I may stop at Kirby's last issue, or I may keep going, I haven't really decided yet. Like Bob, I'm going to try to be succinct, even though it's not my strong suit - I'm sure I'll be long winded from time to time. I'm looking forward to what you guys think of these stories as well.
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Journey Into Mystery 91 (4/63)
"Sandu, Master of the Supernatural!"
Plot-Lee, Script- Lieber, Pencils & Inks - Joe Sinnott
Cover - Kirby & Ayers
Odin is musing to himself about Thor's Belt of Strength, how it would increase Thor's already awesome strength if he had need of it. Until that day arrives, Odin will keep it. Meanwhile, Thor is flying through the city when he sees a bank, floating in the air. He attempts to push it down to the ground, and it vanishes. The people who were in the bank have no memory of what happened, and Thor suspects Loki is behind these events. He asks Odin where Loki is, and Odin says Loki is still confined to Asgard. Loki is indeed still there but says there are things Odin doesn't know.
There is a flashback to a few days earlier, where Don and Jane visit a carnival. A mind-reader named Sandu is correctly guessing things like a person's social security number. Jane wonders what the trick is, but Don says Sandu may actually have mental powers to a slight degree. Loki is observing this and uses his own power to increase Sandu's mental abilities a thousandfold, hoping he can defeat Thor with them. Sandu realizes his powers have increased and decides to use them for crime, as Loki suspected he would.
Sandu is behind the floating bank and other crimes. He levitates the U.N. building with all of the world delegates inside, and demands they make him the ruler of Earth, otherwise he will send the building beyond Earth's atmosphere. Thor arrives and challenges Sandu to battle, insisting he put the building back, which he does. Sandu overwhelms Thor, binds him with chains, and drops a building over top of him. Thor cannot escape on his own and pleads for Odin's aid. Odin sends his valkyries to take the spinach Belt of Strength to Thor, and he escapes the trap. Loki mentally suggests to Sandu that his only chance is to separate Thor from his hammer, and he goads Thor into throwing it at him. He teleports himself and the hammer into another dimension. Sandu attempts to lift the hammer, first by hand, and then with his mental powers, but of course he cannot. This short circuits his powers, and Thor gets his hammer back before the time limit expires. He takes mercy on Sandu and turns him over to the police. A frustrated and bitter Loki vows he will continue to scheme, until he somehow defeats Thor.
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My rating: 7/10
A huge improvement over last issue. Sandu, once powered up by Loki, is a formidable foe for Thor. His mental powers were almost limitless; Thor needed Odin's help just to escape a death trap, and Sandu really defeated himself. Loki playing the schemer, behind Odin's back at that, is the perfect role for him. One thing of note, Thor calls him the God of Evil, not the God of Mischief. That raises the stakes; Loki is now seen as dangerous rather than irritating.
The art is a mixed bag. Sinnott supplying both pencils and inks was a rarity. I'm a huge fan of his inking. Some panels look great, others look too slick, and there are many panels that just looked rushed, possibly not inked (or ghost artists were used). But overall it gets a thumbs up from me, and it is certainly light years ahead of the Hartley work from last issue.
Joe Sinnott was, in my estimation, one of Kirby's two best inkers (if not the best). I have seen later example of his pencils and inks I have liked more than here, but the reproduction in the early MMW I am reading is not very good.
Don Blake comes to the same realization I pointed out in #90, namely that Odin did not forbid Don Blake to have a romantic relationship with Jane Foster, only not to reveal his secret identity. So why doesn't he? He says that if he fell in love with her, he wouldn't be able to keep any secrets from her. What a wimp.
Every relationship at Marvel had to have an artificial roadblock to generate drama. Some of these were more believable than others. Tony Stark knew that in any batte the magnetized shrapnel could reach his heart. Hank Pym thought he was robbing the cradle with Jan. Even the Fantastic Four early on had Sue torn between Reed and Namor.
An earlier comment said that Marvel at first seemed to fall back on its earlier monster stories. The cover of FF #1 is a perfect example. They were taking baby steps into the superhero genre and weren’t sure how it would work out. They were trying to hang on to existing readers while gaining new ones.
Sinnott had done a lot of pencilling for Marvel in the 50s. I notice Sandu's origin is the same as the Absorbing Man's later. The belt is from mythology.
I forgot to add that about the belt. There were footnotes for that and the valkyries being from the myths, so they were playing fair in my opinion.
As I recall, Sinnott drew Mjolnir with what looked to be a 3 foot handle.
When I was reading the myths and got to the part about the handle being too short, I imagined war hammers as being as long as halberds with a big poundy thing on the end -- perfect for reach against guys with swords, or for tripping horses. How else would you fight successfully with a hammer? So I thought a short handle would still be kinda long. I still don't know if I was right or wrong about that. In the comics, of course, the handle was as you say, Randy.
One of the things I like about this sort of approach is that ganging all these stories helps illuminate elements that were repeated that aren't necessarily obvious in a single story. For example, it seems like Thor is asking Daddy for help a LOT, and I hadn't remembered it that way.
John, you're only five issues away from Avengers #1 (which is dated the same month as Journey into Mystery #96). Are you going to do the first 14-15 issues of Avengers as well, in which Thor and his hammer also did new stuff and showed new powers? That would be awesome.
OTOH, if that's too much, I could start another "Re-reading Avengers" thread myself. I sure couldn't post as often as you do, but it would be fun.
I was reading about both Greek & Norse mythology when I was 9 years old, in Bullfinch's Mythology and other books. And considering that Marvel's version of Thor was not even the first ongoing comic series to feature a character named Thor (there was a very brief Golden Age series featuring a character called Dynamite Thor) and was actually the third time Jack Kirby depicted a character with the powers of Thor, most recently, prior to 1962, in a 1958 short story for DC about a guy who finds Thor's hammer and is transformed into a doppleganger of the god and causes mischief before the real Thor comes around to reclaim his weapon. Hercules was by far the most famous of any of the Greek gods or demi-gods, but there was never a comic series featuring Hercules that lasted more than a few years, never mind several decades as with Thor. And I have no way of knowing but I'd suspect among those kids who read about mythology at all for entertainment Thor was at least as popular as Hercules even prior to that date in 1962 when comics readers first saw Donald Blake transform into a fair-haired version of the thunder god.
Philip Portelli said:
Aliens or monsters inspired by the Easter Island statues had been used in several Marvel monster/alien yarns prior to the introduction of Thor. I think Kirby had drawn at least two previous stories featuring them, one maybe just a few months before using them again in Journey Into Mystery #83.
Captain Comics said:
It's interesting how many characters Kirby created or co-created who had long blonde hair. He must have liked that look, even if he never let his own hair grow out much at all, unlike his near contemporary William Gaines.
Philip Portelli said:
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