By Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr. with John Buscema, Klaus Janson & Jerry Ordway (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4632-2
In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The tale  introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!
The series grew from formulaic beginnings battling aliens, commies and cheap thugs into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming the Mighty Thor where, after years of bombastic adventuring, the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined and finally clarified to explain how the immortal godling could also be locked within frail Don Blake.
The epic saga took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…
Time passed, Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.
In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later.
In July Mighty Thor volume 2 opened with ‘In Search of the Gods’ by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, which with its ‘Deal with the Devil!’ depicted the return of the lost god and the Avengers after more than a year way from the home cosmos only to find that hallowed Asgard had been devastated and deserted.
Moreover, back on Earth the Thunderer was reinstated into the “real†world just in time to die in battle against the annihilating Asgardian artefact known as the Destroyer. Whilst the Avengers struggled on against the unstoppable creature, the godling’s spirit was snatched from the realm of death-goddess Hela by mysterious mystic powerhouse Marnot before being melded with the dying body of EMT Jake Olsen: an innocent killed during the struggle thanks to Thor’s negligence.
The resurrected Storm Lord again walked the Earth but only as the dormant-until-summoned alter-ego of another frail mortal host: duly defeating the Destroyer, battling sea-monsters of sea-goddess Sedna, sparring with Hercules and being framed for attacking and devastating Olympus…
The true architects of most of this mayhem were a pantheon of previously unknown Dark Gods – Perrikus, Adva, D’Chel, Slottoth, Tokkots and Majeston Zelia – so powerful that they managed to take possession of the fallen Fabled Realm and bar Thor’s return to Asgard…
This second compilation collects the contents of issues #9-13 and the 1999 Thor Annual and sees the end of that first extended story-arc beginning with ‘Answers’ by regular writer Dan Jurgens and guest illustrators John Buscema & Jerry Ordway as a very old robotic menace returns when a couple of young punks luck into the operating system for android bandit Replicus. Whilst the earthbound Thunder God is taking care of business in Asgard, the Dark usurpers are crowing over the ravaged, tortured bodies of his best friend Balder, betrothed Lady Sif and mighty sire Odin, all the while scheming how to destroy the last remaining free Asgardian…
Thor is just as keen on meeting his elusive tormentors and finally gains insight from the enigmatic Marnot who reveals a long ago day when the early Asgardians encountered the pantheon of cruel gods enslaving the realm of Narcisson and were propelled into a brutal all-out war.
Against all logic the Narcisson’s won and were on the verge of eradicating the Asgardians until a juvenile Thor turned the tide and enabled Odin and his surviving warriors to carry the day. With the dark gods defeated and imprisoned the All-Father then wiped the memories of the triumphant warriors to spare them the trauma and loss of so many comrades and loved ones. But now somehow the Narcisson gods were free and had at last conquered the Eternal Realm.
Armed at last with knowledge, Thor began to prepare for the invasion and liberation of Asgard…
The campaign began in the three part saga ‘The Dark Wars’ by Jurgens, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson as the human Jake Olsen frantically began to set his complex human affairs in order. The conjoined hero was blithely unaware that Dr. Jane Foster – Don Blake’s first love – had deduced his godly secret and that an unknown hand was setting him up to take the fall for selling stolen hospital drugs…
Before the exiled prince was ready, however, Perrikus attacked New York demanding a duel with the Odin-son and threatening to kill the Lady Sif if the Thunderer didn’t show. With the gateway to Asgard clear, Thor charges in to find the city as bad as ever and his loved ones broken toys of the Dark Gods. Enraged he attacks but after a blockbusting battle his magic mallet is cloven in half and he feels himself impossibly transforming back into mortal Jake Olsen…
Forced to flee into a sewer drain, Olsen discovers a horrific underworld beneath the fallen city and is captured by trolls in the very bowels of Asgard. The frail human is being worked to death as far above the black pantheon are unable to detect any trace of the vanished Thor, but feels a burst of untrammelled hope and joy when he discovers that many of his missing comrades are also enslaved in the noisome pits…
However before Olsen can attempt to rescue them the vile Tokkots appears and whisks him back to the throne-room and the waiting Narcissons, but Perrikus is furious that he cannot battle his true enemy but only a mortal shell, until the broken battered human falls on the remnant of mystic Mjolnir and is transformed into a fighting mad Storm Lord…
Unexpectedly Thor flees into inter-dimensional space, realising that pride and fury are not enough and that what he really needs are potent allies…
The fearsome finale begins as Thor convinces the deadly Destroyer and Hercules to raid the once-Golden Realm in a blistering last charge against the Dark Ones and their massed minions whilst he raids the depths to free the Asgardian survivors and activates a cleverly concealed ally. Soon Odin, Sif and Balder are free too and the fall of the Narcissons is seemingly assured – but the malignant invaders still have one last nasty card to play…
It proves not enough and eventually the brutalised Asgardians are triumphant, after which the epilogue ‘The Work of Odin’ answers many questions – such as the true identity of manipulative schemer Marnot, the ultimate fate of the human trapped within the deadly Destroyer’s shell and the fate of both light and dark gods…
This excessively action-packed, if plot light, chronicle is completed by the inclusion of the 1999 Thor Annual which at last revealed why Thor arrived back in our universe so much later than his Avenging Allies.
Written and pencilled by Jurgens with inks from Janson ‘The Tears of a God’ found Thor visiting the Fantastic Four and describing the dimensional rip which left him partially amnesiac and filled with ineffable sadness, before – for our eyes only – the story was fully disclosed…
After battling Doctor Doom in the space between worlds, Thor and the Iron Dictator were cast onto an alien planet where the wounded Thunderer was nursed to health by a mysterious outcast named Ceranda. Somehow unable to leave the desolate world, the lost scion of Asgard grew slowly closer to the beautiful hermit, whilst elsewhere Doom was taking control of the a subterranean society and co-opting their technology and resources to his selfish needs…
The last thing the Lord of Latveria needed for escape was Thor’s dimension-spanning hammer and he knew the true reason why it wasn’t working…
This tale of dark desire and selfish love ended badly all round so perhaps its best that after the battle and return to Earth Thor had no memory of the weeks spent with the bewitching Ceranda…
Whilst not to everyone’s taste, this blistering Fight’s ‘n’ Tights epic is a cosmic clash fan’s delight and the artwork is undeniably some of the best of the modern Marvel Age, so if you want your pulse to pound and your graphic senses to swim this is the ideal item for you.
© 1998, 1999, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.