Journey Into Mystery #98





"Challenged by the human Cobra"


Writer Stan Lee
Artist: Don Heck



Plot summary:

We open the issue with Thor unleashing his anger on his alter ego’s office over Jane Foster leaving his employ to work for another doctor. Blake decides to take a trip to India to try to forget his sadness. Meanwhile in another part of India, a friend of Blakes Dr. Shecktor, is working on an antidote for Snake venom. His lab assistant named Klaus, has a Cobra bite both him and the doctor but withholds the cure from his boss to murder him and take credit for the discovery. It turns out that the Cobra that bit them both was radioactive giving Klaus powers like a snake. Blake learns of his friend being at his death bed and is told by Shecktor , himself what had transpired. Thor pursues the Cobra to America where he is trying to extort control in a chemical factory. After a brief battle , the Cobra escapes and goes to a doctors office to find chemicals in which to create more weapons. It turns out to be the office where Jane Foster is currently working . When confronted, Dr. Andrews shows fear and doesn’t resist the Cobra’s demands, which makes Foster angry. She signals Thor by throwing an object out of a nearby window and he arrives to battle Klaus. The Cobra escapes while Thor is rescuing Foster.
The artwork by Don Heck was well done. I never knew why people didn’t regard him higher for his craft. I don’t see anything wrong with his layouts.

Tales of Asgard

Lee/ Kirby/Heck

This 5 page story tells of the battle between Odin and Ymir , the ice giant. At the end, Ymir is trapped in the middle of the Earth surrounded by a wall of flames. I have to admit, I have never found any of the TOA stories to be interesting. I always just skipped them in past readings.





Comments:

This plot is all over the place with wild coincidences. Blake happens to vacation in India where Shecktor is being murdered. The Cobra just happens to break into the office where Jane is working. Thor finds the Cobra without searching too much in the city. He also finds out that the Cobra was at the airport going to America based on a description, but he has never seen him.

Blake appears to love to leave his luggage behind everywhere he goes as he travels back to America as Thor. Once there, he fights the Cobra in a factory where suddenly the antagonist has all types of weapons. Klaus was described as a no talent assistant but he has the capability to fashion intricate weapons and mix chemicals with expert skill. The Cobra is only referred to as “ Klaus “ in the story, maybe he gains a full name in his next appearance. Jane Foster is angry at her new boss's reluctance to resist the Cobra, I guess she’s expecting everyone to risk their lives like Thor does, which is strange. Because of this, she returns to work for Blake.


Cool Moment:

I liked seeing Thor going crazy and trashing Blakes office with his hammer at the beginning of the story.




Thor uses his hammer to create a typhon to get him to America quickly.I wonder if this ability is ever seen again.





Silly moment

To free Jane, Thor sneaks up on the Cobra and gives him a Spider-man kick.

Thanks man. I believe this is the first Thor villain to get away at the end creating a recurring foe. The Radioactive man supposedly dies in his appearance.

The title for the Epic Collection of the first three years of the Thor series should be “Get Jane Foster!”

Normally, I should be commenting on Mr. Trombone's review of the previous issue, but I don't have much to add. It's not such a great story, but I think it's a step in the right direction after what we saw in a lot of the issues leading up to #97. I like the Don Heck art. The Cobra sure has a nice costume design. And the most important part of his mission is ... GET JANE FOSTER!

Journey into Mystery #99
December 1963
"The Mysterious Mister Hyde"

Wow! They sure do spend a lot of time setting this one up!

Thor is swinging his hammer, preparing to hurl himself into the sky, and the onlookers are gazing in wonder as this legendary figure wields Mjolnir with the mighty thews in his arms and rockets into the Manhattan sky. We have a couple of panels set aside for the New Yorkers to chat amongst themselves about what a great moment it was, something to tell the grandchildren, and also how dreamy Thor is!

But one there is among them who has different, darker thoughts. One observant woman backs away from this brooding figure, sensing his evil, threatening aura. "I've never seen anyone so repulsive -- so frightening!"

It's Mr. Hyde! He is glad that Thor is leaving the city. With Thor gone, he can put his evil plans into action. And of course, in the last panel on page two, he reveals that his next stop is ... the magic story engine known as Dr. Blake's office!

We'll have to wait a few panels to find out what that's about. Thor goes to Asgard to badger Odin about this whole Jane Foster thing. It just doesn't matter how often Odin tells the thunder god that "NO" is the final word on Odin's decision to let Thor marry a mortal, even if she is a hot nurse who gets kidnapped by weird bad guys all the time.

Meanwhile, back on Midgard, while Mr. Hyde is having a flashback on the street below, unsuspecting Nurse Foster is in Blake's office, looking through some files for some reason and thinking about how frustrating it is that Don Blake can't seem to act on his romantic feelings.

So now Mr. Hyde has a few pages for his flashback. He doesn't know that Don Blake is Thor. He is mad at Dr. Blake! Hyde is secretly a con artist/embezzler/thief named Calvin Zabo who previously tried to get a job with Blake because he thought he could rip off a lame doctor at his leisure during his employment. But Blake had heard of Zabo and wouldn't hire him. So Zabo got SO MAD that he became an expert chemist and whipped up a concoction similar to the one in the famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and thus became the ruthless, powerful Mr. Hyde so now he can get his revenge on Don Blake for not hiring him.

That's what it says here! I swear!

The most amazing thing about this plot is that he doesn't seem the least bit interested in abducting Jane Foster! 

And then we go back to Asgard for a few panels, and Thor is so persistently whiny that Odin finally concedes that if Jane Foster can prove herself worthy of immortality, then ... MAYBE ... Odin will be a little more open to Thor's petition.

So Thor now has a tiny sliver of hope and he goes back to Earth, to his private office, just as Dr. Hyde busts down the door and shouts at Nurse Jane that he must see Dr. Blake right away!

So Thor turns into Blake and wonders what the commotion is and then Hyde busts down the door to his private office and throws him out the window! 

Jane faints. It was just too much to see Dr. Blake get thrown out the window. (I feel like Jane has already seen A LOT of crazy stuff since Journey into Mystery #84 and should be able to get a grip by this point. I'm not sure that she hasn't already seen Dr. Blake thrown out a window and surviving at this point, but I don't feel like going back and looking.) 

Blake has his magic stick so he slams it against the side of the building and turns into Thor. Whew!

Hyde tears open Blake's wall safe and steals his cash and all his notes from a "lifetime of research and study." I assume this is why Blake never dabbled in creating androids again. Mr. Hyde stole his notes!

Hyde leaves the scene so quickly that by the time Thor gets there, the bad guy is long gone. Thor finds Jane on the floor, recovering from her fainting spell. Thor tells her that he rescued Blake and then he flies off to find Mr. Hyde (but not before turning into Blake for a minute to call the office to tell Jane that he's safe and he'll back in the office soon). 

But Hyde has gotten away. Later, he hears that Blake isn't dead, and he vows to destroy Thor for ruining his revenge against Don Blake, who wouldn't hire him and then meekly let him steal from him. Who wouldn't be mad?

So Hyde dresses up as Thor and robs a bank and everybody thinks Thor is a bank robber and now the cops are looking for Thor and the story ends abruptly without even a single panel of Blake or Thor being mad or pissed about it or Jane Foster wondering why Thor went bad or Odin angry that Jane Foster fainted and is certainly not worthy of being immortal if she can't even watch somebody fall out of a meeting without fainting.

TO BE CONTINUED! 

Commentary: I love this stuff! Sure, it's easy to start picking it apart. Like how long did Mr. Hyde stand on the street corner having a flashback about how much he hates Dr. Donald Blake while Thor flew to Asgard and argued with Odin? And how did Hyde disappear so fast when Blake was falling out a window and turning to Thor and (presumably) hurrying back to the office to stop Mr. Hyde from destroying all his notes on android research?

And what's wrong with Mr. Hyde? He didn't even try to abduct Jane! (Oh well. It's a two-part story. Maybe he'll abduct jane in the next episode of Get Jane Foster!) 

Expanding these stories to two (or more!) parts is a great idea! Hopefully they won't be so prone to ending quickly with some dumb resolution just because there's only two or three panels left.

The smartest thing Lee and Kirby ever did on Thor was writing out Jane Foster. It's just too bad it took them so bloody long.

Cei-U!
I summon the stone cold drag!

I forgot to add that in the Tales of Asgard story Kirby was inked by Paul Reinman which reminds me that he also inked him in Avengers #3. That issue is a favorite of mine, maybe I need to pull out my copy and give it a read.