Thor Epic Collection: To Wake the Mangog


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Vince Colletta, George Klein, Bill Everett, John Romita Sr. & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9173-5

The Mighty Thor was the title in which Jack Kirby’s restless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his dazzling graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s career-defining string of power-packed signature pantheons all stemmed from a modest little fantasy/monster title called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by fledgling Marvel Comics to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This bombastic full-colour tome – also available in eFormats – offers more Asgardian exploits from Thor #154-174, collectively covering July 1968 to March 1970 as the Universe Jack built slowly began to succumb to the weight and stricture of Marvel’s abiding continuity whilst the King sought ever more challenging innovation and spectacle…

Once upon a time lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder!

Without any hesitation or preamble the reborn godling was soon defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extra-terrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. Eventually the magnificent warrior’s ever-expanding world of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for the hero’s earlier adventures, heralding a fresh era of cosmic fantasy to run almost tangentially to the company’s signature superhero sagas.

The action begins here after another calamitous clash with evil stepbrother Loki as vanquished troll warrior Ulik accidentally releases an ancient unstoppable beast in ‘…To Wake the Mangog!’

A creature imprisoned by Odin in his ancient prime, the monster – embodying the power and last remains of a billion, billion predatory warriors – emerges furious at his incarceration and brutally rampages towards the heart of Asgard to trigger Ragnarok in ‘Now Ends the Universe!’ laying waste to everything in its path. All the Golden Realm’s martial resources are unable to slow its deadly progress in ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ but the valiant delaying tactics, depicted in unimaginably powerful battles scenes from Kirby – a genius on fire – resulted in a last-minute save in #157’s ‘Behind Him… Ragnarok!’

Although short on plot development, the astounding battle to save Asgard is a masterful expression of the artist’s hunger for bigger stories and might well have underpinned his later Fourth World series at DC…

Here and then however the peculiarities of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were examined and finally clarified; beginning with ‘The Way it Was!’ – a framing sequence by regular creative team Stan Lee, Kirby & Vince Colletta- that book-ended a reprint of that very first Thor story from JiM #83, ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ (inked by Joe Sinnott).

This neatly segued into ‘The Answer at Last!’ which took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and revealed Blake to be no more than a Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion by living amongst mortals as one of them…

With his true nature re-established, Thor then answered a call from the Colonisers of Rigel, plunging into the depths of space to face a cosmic menace. ‘And Now… Galactus!’ reintroduced old companion The Recorder whilst pitting the Devourer of Worlds against living planet Ego, a clash concluded with the Thunderer’s heavy-handed aid in ‘Shall a God Prevail?’…

The cosmic wonderment then escalated in ‘Galactus is Born!’ as Asgardian magic finally reveals a tantalising fragment of the terrifying space god’s origins…

For #163 and 164 Thor was summarily returned to Earth to battle an invasion from a ghastly dystopian future. ‘Where Demons Dwell!’ finds his beloved Lady Sif investigating a bizarre energy vortex until captured by mutate monsters controlled by rogue Greek god Pluto. The Asgardians decimate the horrors from tomorrow ‘Lest Mankind Fall!’ and as valiant comrade Balder joins them in cataclysmic combat a mysterious cocoon hatches a man-made god…

‘Him!’ (Thor #165) and its conclusion ‘A God Berserk!’ sees the creature created by evil scientists to conquer mankind (and who would eventually evolve into the tragic cosmic saviour Adam Warlock) wake amidst the turmoil of the battle and, seeing Sif, decide it is time he took a mate…

Trailing the naive artificial superman across space and assorted dimensions with the outraged Thor, Balder witnesses his gentle comrade’s descent into brutal “warrior-madness”, resulting in a savage beating of Him. By the time the Thunderer regains his equilibrium, he is a shaken, penitent and guilt-ridden hero eager to pay penance for his unaccustomed savagery…

In ‘This World Renounced!’ (featuring a cover by John Romita: the first ever not drawn by Kirby) almighty Odin punishes his son for succumbing to Warrior Madness by exiling him to deep space, where he must atone by locating the enigmatic world-devourer Galactus. Just before departure, however, the Prince of Asgard clears up some outstanding old business, including another confrontation with his stepbrother Loki, Prince of Evil…

The superb George Klein came aboard as inker for ‘Galactus Found!’ with Balder and the Warriors ThreeFandral, Hogun and Volstagg – babysitting Earth whilst Thor roams the heavens on his lonely mission. As a new threat emerged in Red China, in the deep unknown Galactus came to Thor to disclose ‘The Awesome Answer!’ to his origins: a dose of pure Kirby Kosmology of truly staggering proportions…

Meanwhile back home the terrifying Thermal Man was making things too hot for both his Chinese creators and the Lands of the Free…

In Thor #170 ‘The Thunder God and the Thermal Man’ (with comics legend Bill Everett assuming the chores of inker) the starlost hero returns to Earth with mission accomplished, and discovers New York besieged by a walking atomic nightmare. Tumbling straight into cataclysmic combat beside his Asgardian comrades against the unstoppable mechanoid menace, Thor is suddenly deprived of his allies at the height of the struggle with Balder, Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg arcanely abducted to Asgard by Loki and the Norn Queen. Nevertheless, the turbulent Thunder God triumphed…

Alone on Earth Thor faced a series of single-issue situations: confronting ‘The Wrath of The Wrecker!’ to crush the Norn-empowered bandit before foiling the body-swapping plot of billionaire Kronin Krask in ‘The Immortal and the Mind-Slave!’ and the earthbound fury of ‘Ulik Unleashed!’ (with old adversaries The Circus of Crime thrown in for good measure).

This epic compilation then concludes with a strength-stealing robot running amok in ‘The Carnage of the Crypto-Man!’ before the last great epic of the Kirby-era began, but that’s a saga for another time and place…

More than any other Marvel strip Thor was the feature where Jack Kirby’s creative brilliance matched his questing exploration of an Infinite Imaginative Cosmos: dreaming, extrapolating and honing a dazzling new kind of storytelling graphics with soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe.

The Kirby Thor is a high-point in graphic fantasy and all the more impressive for its sheer timeless readability. These tales are an absolute must for all fans of the medium.
© 1968, 1969, 1970, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.