25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hammer Time!, March 16, 2001
This review is from: Essential Thor Vol. 1 (Paperback)
These "Essential" collections are a welcome change from those fancy archival-type reprints that often contained poor reproductions and errors. These black & white paperbacks have at least as many problems, but not enough to keep them from being enjoyable light reading, which is exactly what they're supposed to be.
Take Thor. I wouldn't buy an expensive hardback collection of Early Thor stuff; the character isn't a favorite of mine, and he had a pretty weak start to boot. But for this price, why not?
And I had a lot of fun immersing myself in early/mid-'60s Marvel, one of my favorite eras. Thor's look and powers were pretty much set from the start, but the book's theme, supporting players, and villains had a way to go.
The Carbon Copy man? Communist Agents? Petty thugs? The only stellar villain who shows up in the early issues is Loki, The Norse God of mischief, and even he initially pulls silly stunts like turning all the cars in New York into candy.
But Loki was the start of the series' emphasis on Thor's Norse heritage, which would become a mix of myth and Jack Kirby's psychedelic imagination. After awhile, "Tales of Asgard" becomes the book's back-up series and Thor's strained relations with his father Odin (who resents his son's earth-bound love interest) becomes the primary emphasis of the main feature.
Even Thor's earthly villains seem to improve. Mr. Hyde and Cobra, two unremarkable villains, show up several times, but each story is noticably better than the last.
Anybody who likes the Marvel Thor or just likes old Marvels should enjoy this.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lee and Kirby take a while to get the god of thunder right, October 25, 2003
This review is from: Essential Thor Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Volume 1 of "The Essential Thor" provides the stories of the Thunder God that appeared in "Journey Into Mystery" #83-112, including the five-page "Tales of Asgard" that started appearing in issue #97. In the Sixties I did not start reading Thor until the comic had taken on his name, so this was the first time I had read most of these stories, although I did pick up the "Tales of Asgard" collection that Marvel put out way back when. In retrospect it is hard to ignore that the original conception of this particular superhero was rather lame. However, once Stan Lee, Larry Leiber and Jack Kirby began to take the Norse mythology aspects of the character more seriously, the dynamic of these stories changed considerably.
The initial story is that Dr. Don Blake, an American physician vactioning in Europe, is fleeing from Stone Men from Saturn who have landed in their spaceship when he stumbles into a cave and discovers an ancient cane. When he strikes the cane against an immoveable boulder it transforms into a hammer and Blake becomes the legendary god of Thunder. The hammer has an inscription, in English no less, proclaiming "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of...THOR (yes, the inscription even includes the elipses).
Don Blake, with his bum leg, and his secret affection for his pretty young nurse, Jane Nelson (who ended up being renamed Jane Foster), is set up in the mold of mild mannered Clark Kent and bookworm Peter Parker, where he is two-thirds of a love triangle all by himself (and his alter-ego). On the one hand the first couple of issues clearly give Thor the powers of the Norse thunder god--he not only calls forth rain and thunderstorms, but makes a volcano erupts--but the stories do not deal explicitly with whether he is indeed a deity. However, all of that begins to change in the third story when Loki, god of mischief, shows up and starts living up to his name.
Loki's arrival is crucial in Thor's transformation, not only because it is the beginning of taking the Norse mythology angle seriously (and the Thor comics would provide a scholarly fidelity to the subject), but also because the god of mischief became Thor's major foe. The opposition was ideal because unlike Thor's human opponents, such as the Cobra and Mr. Hyde, Loki could keep coming back for more issue after issue, either directly or through a proxy. Loki only arrived on earth after sneaking by Heimdall, the warder of the rainbow bridge called Bifrost, and once that door was open Odin, Balder and the rest of the Norse gods and goddesses were close behind.
Unfortunately the Tales of Asgard fillers are uniformly superior to the main adventures in "Journey of Mystery." Part of it is that they were written by Lee and drawn by Kirby, unlike the other stories (Lee and Kirby actually do less than half of the actual writing and drawing in this collection), and part of it was that they stuck to the ancient Norse legends about the gods. The other flaw was that they stuck with Don Blake and his romance with Nurse Jane, even while Odin went off on his "no son of mine is going to marry a mortal" rant. Eventually we will get around to the Lady Sif, but that is still a long ways off. For now, the more these early issues focus on Thor, Loki and the rest of the Asgardians, the better the stories. The rest require us to believe mere mortals and various meta-humans have a chance against an actual thunder god. But we still are not up to the glory days of the charcter, which is why the next volume of "The Essential Thor" is way past due.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's about time!!!, July 22, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Essential Thor Vol. 1 (Paperback)
I would first like to say that Marvel Comics should have done these reprints a long time ago. But better late than never. These inexpensive reprints are very good to own as you can read them without worrying about the condition of the comic book. And while the Marvel Masterworks are cool to own as hardbacks, they are a bit pricey for someone who just wants to read the comic books reprinted. This review really goes for all of the Essential paperbacks that marvel is putting out but this is one I have waited a long time to read because Thor has always been one of my favorite characters. If you enjoy this one then please check out the others. One more thing. For those complaining about the paper quality I would say that you can spend a few thousand dollars for the originals if you want. If so go ahead. But as for me I will enjoy these cool reading copies.
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