Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials) [Paperback]

Stan Lee (Author), Jack Kirby (Illustrator)

Book Description

Grade Level: P and up

Trolls, giants, aliens and clowns await in the third thunderous anthology of Thor! The Mighty One faces a god of death! A living planet! Ragnarok itself and...a jail term!? Kang the Conqueror, the Super-Skrull and more! Featuring the first appearance of the scintillating Sif! Plus: the origin of that perennial perilous party crasher, the Wrecker! Guest-starring Adam Warlock and Galactus!

Collecting:

Thor #137-166

Product Details

• Paperback: 616 pages
• Publisher: Marvel; Direct Ed edition (March 2, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785121498
• ISBN-13: 978-0785121497
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.5 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > Children's Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Superheroes

More About the Author

Stan Lee is a man who needs no introduction. Nevertheless: Having begun his career with wartime Timely Comics and staying the course throughout the Atlas era, Stan the Man made comic-book history with Fantastic Four #1, harbinger of a bold new perspective in story writing that endures to this day. With some of the industry's greatest artists, he introduced hero after hero in Incredible Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men and more -- forming a shared universe for rival publishers to measure themselves against. After an almost literal lifetime of writing and editing, Lee entered new entertainment fields and earned Marvel one opportunity after another. He remains one of Marvel's best-known public representatives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stan Lee and Jack Kirby create the glory days for the Mighty Thor, February 27, 2007

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)

Volume 3 of "The Essential Thor" provides the stories of the Thunder God that appeared in issues #137-66 of "The Mighty Thor," which includes the five-page "Tales of Asgard" stories appearing in the back of the comic through issue #145. The filler with the Inhumans that replaced "Tales of Asgard" is reprinted in this volume, but they only ran through #152, making #153 the first issue of the comic book with a 20-page story about the title character. At this point writer Stan Lee and penciler Jack Kirby are joined by inker Vince Colletta, who does all of the issues except for #143, which is actually inked by Bill Everett, with Joe Sinnot lending a hand on seven issues according to the index, even though Sinnott's name does not appear on the title pages of those comics. I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to inking the King, I like what Colletta did on "Thor" and what Sinnott did on "The Fantastic Four."

The issues collected here are part of the second stage in the history of Thor as a Marvel character. The defining point for the shift to the second stage is fairly simple, coming when Jane Foster is written out of the series and the Lady Sif emerges as the new love interest for the Thunder God. This was a long time in coming and the idea that once Odin agrees to give Jane a chance the Earth woman freaks at the splendor of Asgard, even after being turned into a goddess, was a bit forced. But the shift to Sif represented what had been the most important development during the first stage with Lee and Kirby, which was the decision to start working in the characters and stories of Norse mythology. That meant not only having Loki running around as the Thunder God's chief nemesis, but Balder emerging as Thor's best friend, and Fandral, Hogun the Grim, and Volstagg as the comic relief (in the Shakespearean sense to be sure, but comic relief none the less). True, you have to wonder why the all-seeing and all-knowing Odin does not take care of Loki once and for all, but that is only because we do not see the big picture like the big guy.

The major story-arc in this volume takes place almost entirely in Asgard (#154-57), when Ulik, the mightiest of the Trolls that Thor defeated at the start of the book (#137-39), finds the long-lost Odin-Cave and releases the Mangog, the last remaining member of a mysterious alien race that almost succeeded in destroying Asgard itself. The problem is that in Asgard's greatest hour of peril, the realm's ruler is sleeping the Odin-sleep, which is what gives him renewed life. While Odin sleeps and Thor is leading the fight against the Mangog with his power of a billion billion beings, Loki jumps on the throne and claims to be in charge. Mangog's goal is to draw the Odinsword and let Ragnarok fall (the end of the world as the Norse know it). In between Odin strips Thor of his powers (#145), and this time when Loki tries to take advantage of the situation the god of mischief loses his powers as well, which leads to a big battle with the Wrecker (#148-50), a thug with an enchanted crowbar who surprisingly turns out to be one of the better Thor villains, which leads right to another major opponent, the Destroyer (#150-52), and then Loki's attempt to take care of Thor by killing Don Blake.

There are fights against non-Asgardian villains with the Growing Man (#140), Replicus (#141), the Super-Skull (#142), and the Enchanters (#143-44). As the cover indicates, there is also a showdown between Thor and Galactus (#160-62), which is not quite as interesting as you would think (why did Odin not notice Galactus when he first showed up to consume the Earth?), followed by a conflict with the Greek god of the underworld, Pluto (#163-64), and then the strange being known as Him (#165), who would eventually become Adam Warlock (but that is another story, not yet reprinted in the Essentials series). In #158 the first appearance of Thor, when Don Blake finds the enchanted Uru Hammer in "Journey into Mystery" #83 is reprinted in part, and then in #159 we find out at last who is the real Don Blake in a much needed reconceptualization of the character's Marvel origin. Meanwhile, "Tales of Asgard" has the search for Mogul of the Mystic Mountain with Thor leading Fandral, Hogun and mighty Volstagg on their quest. The storyline is okay, but once "Tales" got away from Norse mythology to telling original stories it was no longer sufficiently different from the main storyline to justify Lee and Kirby continue doing it.

In reading these stories again I would have to say that in "The Essential Thor, Volume 3" is where you find Lee and Kirby at their best with this character. When you are the Norse god of thunder it is hard to come up with villains that will give the guy a run for his money. But in these 29 issues once we get beyond his arch-nemesis Loki we have Ulik, the Super-Skrull, Mangog, the Destroyer, the Wrecker, Galactus, Pluto, and Him. With the exception of the Super-Skrull, Lee and Kirby come up with multi-issue story lines to take advantage of these strong foes. Granted, these are not in color, which is why they are the most economical way to read these from 1967-69, and it would be nice to have those Inhuman stories just to have the complete comics as they were originally published, but for the Mighty Thor this is as good as it gets. Just look at how many times Kirby indulges in a full-page shot of Thor, Odin, Balder or some other character. I did not do the math, but I would think that his average number of panels per page is way closer to four than it is to five, which gives the King ample opportunity to have his characters strike heroic poses (and Kirby certainly loves the armor Odin wears).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Answer, at last, November 14, 2006

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mrliteral - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)

Back in the 1970s, I had a book by Stan Lee called Origins of Marvel Comics. It told the origin stories of such classic Marvel figures as the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spiderman, Dr. Strange and Thor. Each character or team had a couple featured stories, an origin story and one other. I always remembered that the non-origin story for Thor ended with a cliffhanger of sorts: it was issue 143, and the villainous Enchanters threatened both Asgard and Earth. Obviously, they were not prominent bad guys (I don't think they ever made a real comeback), but I still wanted to know how it all turned out. With the Essential Thor #3, I now know.

This volume of old Thor stories covers issues 137 to 166 of The Mighty Thor. In these stories, Thor faces some mighty foes, including some of the all-time greats of the Marvel Universe: there is Loki (of course), Kang the Conqueror, Galactus, Ego the Living Planet, and an early version of Adam Warlock known as Him. In addition, we get the troll warrior Ulik, the Wrecker, Pluto, the unstoppable Mangog and, as previously mentioned, the Enchanters.

Also significant in these stories are the first real appearances of Sif, who replaces Jane Foster as the love interest of Thor. Although a formidable warrior goddess, Sif often spends much of her time pining for Thor and being rescued by him; even when she wants to join the fight, Thor is constantly pushing her to the side for her protection. In these late `60s stories, sexism is still alive and well in Asgard, though both Sif and the Norns queen Karnilla often try and strike a blow for independence. Nonetheless, both Sif and Karnilla are guided primarily by love in their actions.

As a character, Thor is beginning to be more well-defined as a super-powerful god who nonetheless is a bit of a lunkhead. At long last, the connection between Thor and his alter-ego Don Blake is more fully explained; Blake, a relatively weak character has rather limited appearances in these issues.

For the most part, these stories show Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (who are responsible for all the issues herein) at their creative peak. While still not at the level of their best work (in my opinion, in Spiderman and the Fantastic Four), this is still really good stuff, a pleasure for fans of these early Marvel comics.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yea, Verily! This Volume Doth Rock!, January 5, 2007

By 

Tony Midyett "Star Wars Fan!" (WI, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)

Classic stories starring one of my favorite Marvel heroes. The artwork is lush, the stories are cosmic in scope, and the scripts have that whiz-bang quality that's sadly lacking from Marvel's current output.

Awesome book---buy it already!