I've never really been a big fan of Thor. Still, one cannot judge something until you have read it. So I cracked open the first volume of Thor stories from Marvel Masterworks. What we have seems to be Marvel's answer to Superman. Unlike Superman, who exploded right out of the gate, the first set of Thor stories get off to a pretty rocky start.
The concept itself seems pieced together from a variety of other comics. The Don Blake-Jane Foster-Thor relationship is straight from Superman, and indeed there are adventures that end in a panel where Jane says something like "If only Thor were here now!" *sigh*, and then Don Blake thinks to himself "If only you knew!". That exact panel will feel very familiar to any reader of Golden Age Superman stories.
The idea of transforming from weakly to superbeing and back will seem familiar to any readers of Captain Marvel, and even Thor's look seems reminiscent of previous comic book Thors.
Here is Grant Ferrel, a golden age hero who is granted the power of Thor by Odin:
The stories have plot deficiencies familiar to the first Superman stories, actually. This ultra powerful being, after dealing with some aliens (in Silver Age Marvel comics, different races of aliens took turns invading Earth every other day) he deals with some thugs and common criminals. The God of Thunder fighting some gangsters, I wonder who shall win? There's also some terribly dated battles against communists, who sort of dress like Nazis, and thus maybe earn the title of Commie-Nazis.
The artists and co-writers rotate in and out. The worst story involves some half-hearted looking art by a guy named Al Hartley. Shape shifting aliens come to Earth, and then attempt to drown the world in chaos by painting bridges with polka dots and letting cars drive on the sidewalks. Thor is captured by being stunned by the side of their space ship. Not sure how they planned to take over Earth? By tricking everyone into falling over and landing on their ships? Thor sends them packing by throwing their leader into space, and their alien fleet chases after him to catch him. Either Thor can throw many times the speed of light, or these aliens of the week have some real crappy space ships.
In another story, Loki successfully tricks Thor into giving up his hammer, and then goes around turning people's cars into ice cream. The horror! The best story is probably the one with the Radioactive Man, not coincidentally drawn by Jack Kirby. Here we have a villain worthy of Thor! There's a certain symmetry in having an ancient God fight a man imbued with radiation, who explodes like Hiroshima when defeated.
The villains start to pick up a bit. We get Sardu, who looks like the guy inside those coin operated fortune telling machines. Merlin makes an appearance, looking like a lost D&D LARPer. Other than the Radioactive Man story, the other highlights are the Lee and Kirby back up stories featuring Tales of Asgard. Only towards the end does some of the Silver Age Marvel goodness start to shine through. After cycling through 3 or 4 co-writers and different artists, we finally settle down to Lee and Kirby.
P.S. I should note that although at some point it is revealed that Don Blake is actually just Thor cast onto Earth to learn humility, the idea of a regular person literally transforming into a mythological God could be very interesting. The stories never really seem clear on what is really happening though, as Blake and Thor are clearly the same person, and Thor is shown to exist in the past before Blake would ever have been born.
P.P.S There is a particularly amusing panel where Jane imagines her life together with Thor, with her shining his hammer and ironing his cape. Way to dream big, Jane.
Rating: 5 out of 10 Damsels in Distress
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