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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hammer Time!, March 16, 2001
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
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:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Robbed of true greatness thru lack of colour, January 5, 2006
This review refers to Essential Thor Volume 2.
The problem with Thor is that he's simply so powerful, it's not only hard for the reader to empathise with him, but it's hard to create a sense of threat towards him. Thor is a Norse God and his father is Odin, even more powerful. As such, there is never any real excitement when Thor is attacked by hordes of monsters or soldiers - no matter how energetic Jack Kirny's pencils - because they are like ants to him in terms of power.
Also, it's never stated exactly how powerful Thor is, or how he can be harmed or killed. Of course, popular fictional heroes never truly die, but the enjoyment comes from the suspension of disbelief and a truly menacing opponent (be it man, monster or challenge) which truly jepordize the hero.
Throughout this entire (huge) book, I can remember few instances of Thor even been scratched, let alone genuinely opposed. The Destroyer and Loki are the only two worthy foes for the Viking deity.
As for the book's other qualities, the artwork is, as previously stated, superb. But the lack of colour in the Essential books, whilst highlighting the pencils, forces the reader to concentrate on the story more and the visuals less. With Kirby's fantastic, epic creations bestowed in vivid colour, Thor comics look wonderful and add so much granduer and epic-scale to the stories. The perfect case in point is the rainbow bridge, Bifrost. It simply is colour, therefore doesn't work without colour. Many of the Marvel Essential function well without colour, but this book truly suffers.
Stan Lee's sense-shattering, exclamation-mark packed writing is as enthusiatic and character-oriented as ever. The stories draw heavily on actual Norse mythology, and then fuse it with Superman-like superheroics. It's a delicious, unique combination unmatched anywhere in comics or movies. One wonders why, considering the popularity of both fantasy movies and superhero movies at present, why Thor is not yet even in pre-production.
As it is, Essential Thor Volume 2 is far better in every regard to the first volume, but without the colour it loses so much impact. A greater recomendation would be the Thor Legends/Visionaries volumes featuring the work of Walter Simonson. Though containing less pages, these books are full colour and contain what are considered by many the best Thor stories ever, and some of the greatest superhero comics of all time.
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