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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 14, 2024 18:13:57 GMT -5
.jpg) I was originally going to just dive right in and review Journey into Mystery #107. The Grey Gargoyle is not a bad villain, but he's not so great either. He's not a major part of Thor's legend. After mixing it up with Thor twice, he drifted off into other parts of the Marvel Universe where his power level made him more of a challenge to the hero, and he's just ... there. I'm having trouble remembering any of his appearances after I started reading Marvel comics in 1975. I'm pretty sure I saw him somewhere, but I just can't specifically remember where.
But then I remembered that he was actually kind of a fun character in the Silver Age. Some French chemist who is more lucky than competent, he discovered a serum that he can use to turn himself to living stone ... and it also gives him the power to turn things AND PEOPLE to stone. BECAUSE SCIENCE!
His two earliest appearances in Journey into Mystery #107 and #113 are both very entertaining, with the Kirby pencils and the Chic Stone inks and all the Silver Age Silliness that you could possibly cope with in a single story. And then he pops up in Tales of Suspense a few years later, fighting with Iron Man and Jasper Sitwell, and I've long been very fond of that storyline, so beautifully drawn by Gene Colan.
A little online research reveals that he next appeared in Captain America in the early 1970s and then showed up here and there in the Marvel Universe every so often, including an arc in Thor #257 to #259 that I really should remember because I had every issue of Thor from about #245 to #280. But I don't remember it. I haven't read those issues for a very long time. Thirty or forty years.
I can't say I've ever spent a lot of time thinking about the Grey Gargoyle and his story possibilities. But reading the story a few weeks ago, it struck me that they really missed out on a plot element that would have been a very cringey scene today but would have fit in with the stories of the time. Paul Duval, the suave Frenchman, with full respect for the story engine, should have shown up at the office in his elegant European street clothes. And Jane, still mad at Don for whatever she's mad at him about, should have been impressed with Duval's accent and his manners and his attention to her. "What a ham!" thinks Nurse Jane. "But he's very handsome and has such a great accent! I'll play up to him and make Don jealous!"
It would have been a great issue of Nurse Romance Comics!
And then when he realizes that Thor has a thing for her, Duval could turn into the Grey Gargoyle and abduct her BECAUSE REASONS! And that would be a good thing to do because it would remind everyone that the real name of this title should be GET JANE FOSTER!
But that's not what happened. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 14, 2024 18:55:22 GMT -5
Journey into Mystery #107August 1964 "When the Grey Gargoyle Strikes!" Blake is brooding in his office. Nothing ever seems to go right! Odin All-Father won't let him marry Jane Foster. And now Jane thinks he's a weakling because it looks like Blake betrayed Thor to Cobra and Hyde in the previous issue when he was just trying to get his stick back so he could turn to Thor. He turns to Thor as he prepares to take off and try to figure out a way out of his dilemma. Jane walks in right at that moment and she wonders why Thor is there. Thinking fast, he tells her he's there to find Blake! He's very angry and he wants to ... find him. But Jane sticls up for Don. He's only human, he was weak and scared and confused. He's my boyfriend and I love him so please don't kill him, Thor! Thor then flies out the window and starts doing loop-de-loops and yelling at the citizenry. "She loves me! Woo-hoo! I am so in love!" And everybody is going, "What did he say? He went by so fast. Is Thor OK?" Thor flies by a jet heading for the airport and there's one eyeball looking out the window who notices him. It's Paul Duval, musing. He has come from France to defeat Thor! And there he is! The jet lands and Paul is the only who gets off the plane. It turns out that everybody in the plane has been turned to stone! This is one of those comic-book things that I think about A LOT! Why did he turn everybody to stone? And how did he do it? He must have started at the back and worked his way forward and, creeping forward, turned everyone to stone. And no one noticed. And when he was done with the passengers and the flight attendants, he got the pilot and the co-pilot and the navigator. It makes no sense. He gets into a cab and has a flashback to his time as a chemist in Paris who carelessly messed up a batch of chemicals and created a liquid that turns things to stone. That's how he became the Grey Gargoyle. While drinking an espresso and fondling his stolen jewels, he reads the newspaper and decides to go to New York and fight Thor to get his hammer and become immortal. Which brings us back to the present where he turns the cab driver to stone, hoping that this will lure Thor into his clutches. And, lucky for the Gargoyle, it is indeed Thor and not Mr. Fantastic or Ant-Man or Iron Man or Daredevil or Spider-Man who shows up. He tells the cops to take the stone cab driver to the nearby office of his friend Dr. Don Blake. While Dr. Blake is examining the stone cab driver, Paul has gone to a hotel where he's checking out the cable while he tries on his new Grey Gargoyle costume. He hears over the radio that the cab driver was taken to Blake's office, and so off he goes, eager to tackle Thor and steal his hammer, which sounds like a lead-pipe cinch! The Grey Gargoyle crashes into the office and nearly kills Dr. Blake with a paper airplane that he turns to stone! Blake runs away but the Grey Gargoyle gives chase. Blake gets to the rook and turns to Thor unseen and then he mixes it up with the Grey Gargoyle for a few pages before the villain gets a good grip on him and turns him to stone! The Grey Gargoyle runs off because the cops have shown up with a flame-thrower and, in the tumult and confusion, the stone figure of Thor tips over! Is this the end of Thor? Is he going to break into a million pieces? No, he falls in such a way that the hammer strikes the sidewalk first ... and he turns to Don Blake and he isn't stone anymore! Whew! Well, what's a Don Blake to do? He'll probably turn back to stone if he tries to turn to Thor. And that means he'll have to stay as Don Blake for 24 hours! (Even though up until this panel, the period of time that a victim of the Grey Gargoyle was turned to stone is one hour.) Well, Don's not one to just sit around and wait until he can become Thor without turning to stone! He calls his friend who works at a newsreel projection company and borrows a motorcycle with a 3-D holographic projector mounted on the handlebars. And then he drives around the city and tricks the Grey Gargoyle into thinking that Thor is OK by flashing a holographic image of Thor up in the sky. So the Grey Gargoyle is chasing the hologram around and throwing things at it. He finally realizes he's been tricked and starts chasing Don Blake around. Oh, that crazy Don Blake! That whacko Don Blake with the bad leg and the hot nurse girlfriend and is friends with Thor and creates androids and faces off Cobra and Hyde and pranks the Grey Gargoyle with a holographic motorcycle! Does he even really need Thor? The Grey Gargoyle steals a milk truck and keeps chasing Don around. Blake leads him to the waterfront and drives off a pier and the Gargoyle, impetuous and heedless of the danger, follows him right off the pier! The Gargoyle is made of stone and sinks to the bottom of the harbor while Dr. Blake swims to safety. The next day, Thor shows up at the office and asks about Blake. Foster says Blake is home resting after his big adventure and shows Thor the newspaper. "See, Thor? Even a mere human can be a hero!" The End Commentary: I consider this another winner for Lee, Kirby and Stone! I love the way the tables are turned and Thor gets to be heroic in his Don Blake guise in this one. And I also love what a bad-ass Blake is! I feel like it would have been great if they had found a way to separate Blake from Thor as a separate character and given him his own series! I feel like Blake should have been a major New York celebrity. Jameson at the Bugle would have been all over it! "This city doesn't need super-heroes! Look at what this lame doctor can do! He has no powers, yet he took out the Grey Gargoyle without the help of any stupid suer-heroes!" Tales of Asgard: "Balder Must Die!"
Loki is brooding over how everybody loves Balder. "He's not that great! Look at that sissy, playing his harp and singing to the birds! He makes me puke!" Loki knows that all the people and the birds and the plants and all the THINGS have pledged not to harm Balder. He goes to the Norn Queen (not otherwise named in this story) and harasses her until she tells him that, yes, there is one thing that was overlooked when Odin collected the pledges from all the things. Mistletoe! (I've always had one problem with this old Norse fable. Why couldn't Mistletoe just decide not to harm Balder despite not taking the pledge? All the other things seem to be able to make such a decision. Maybe Mistletoe was OK with Balder and could just decide not to harm him? Do you suppose Mistletoe maybe had a chip on its soldier because it wasn't asked? But that wouldn't have been Balder's fault. Chill out, mistletoe!) So Loki harvests some mistletoe and goes to the dwarfs and they craft a blowgun and a dart out of the mistletoe. Ha Ha! Soon Loki will have his revenge on Balder for being too nice! But just as Loki is about to use the blowgun and kill Loki, the whole kit bursts into flames! It's the Norn Queen! You see, stupid Loki, the Norn Queen took that oath too! So she has also pledged to protect Balder! NEENER NEENER NEENER! The Norn Queen consults with one of her witchy companions to have more protection against Loki while the god mischief continues to plot against Balder. He's just too happy! And Loki hates that! This is the Norn Queen's first appearance. The Norn Queen and Balder don't exactly meet in this story, but it's the first time their paths almost crossed.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 15, 2024 3:12:49 GMT -5
Commentary:I found this issue solid in a SA sort of way. Lots of stuff , like Blake transforming into James Bond and handling the Grey Gargoyle the way he did. It seems in the first 20 years, Stark was the plot device whenever a Marvel Hero needed a contraption to turn the tide. And he's so generous to hand the Image projector to Blake in 10 minutes. Reed Richards never seemed to share his tech the way Stark did. As for the Gargoyle, I always viewed him as a grade A threat. He got the drop on Thor without a problem. You mentioned in your previous post about some of his history, he also took on the entire Avengers in issues #190, 191 and they had a fight on their hands. It would be interesting to follow his career from then on to see why writers stayed away from him. Maybe he was too powerful or too Silver agey ? His power set is interesting and scary. He turns people to stone and their internal organs are undamaged? Maybe it's not wise to pull on that thread and just hand wave away any implications of permanent injury. It does provides great visuals of the stone people left behind in the wake of his attacks. The way he's defeated is goofy , and they use the comic trope of not recovering a body, or maybe the police didn't even look.  Goofy but cool Moment:When Thor hears from Jane that she loves him , his reaction flying around the city is funny.  It reminds me of the Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer animated cartoon when Clarese tells Rudolph she thought he was cute and he starts flying around for the first time as a result.  Tales of AsgardInteresting debut of the Norn Queen and cool tale. If I remember correctly, she falls for Balder in a big way later on. I love the Colletta inks.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Mar 15, 2024 9:08:17 GMT -5
I was SO thinking of that Rudolph moment when I saw the Thor panel. Hilarious.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 18, 2024 5:21:21 GMT -5
Journey into Mystery # 108 "At the mercy of Loki, Prince of evil "Writer Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Artist Inks:Chic Stone
Plot summary: We open with a scene where Thor is striking the ground in the heart of the city in order to create Vibrations on the ground powerful enough to make a truck miss a boy in the street, thus saving his life. Boy, Tony Stark must be tired of footing the bill for all the damage done by the Avengers.  Thor while flying around the city, receives a mystic call from an injured Dr. Strange. Thor arrives on the scene and calls for an ambulance to transport Strange to the hospital. He changes to Dr. Blake and arrives at the hospital and swiftly operates drawing on his knowledge as an Asgardian to combat the spell afflicting Strange. At that moment Odin is calling on Thor to aid in some conflict but Blake ignores him to save Strange's life. Once Strange is saved and awake, he pledges to aid Blake whenever he needs it. Loki, seeing that Odin is busy fighting against enemy forces, turns him self into a bee in order to go past Heimdal and go to earth. Boy, Heimdal has ONE JOB. And he seems to fail at it often. Once Loki reaches Midgard, he disguises himself as an old man with a cane and seeks the aid of Blake in his office. He falls to the ground and switches his cane for Blakes and tosses it out the window, preventing Blake from making his transformation. He abducts Jane and escapes. Blake goes to the street level to find the cane, but when he can't , he contacts Dr. Strange to find it. Blake finds the cane and pursues Loki as Thor. Before he engages his brother, he calls on Strange once more to do a favor for him. During his fight with Loki, Thor learns that Jane is trapped in limbo and when Loki is defeated in battle, he sends a spell to kill her. It turns out that Strange has some type of spell protecting her , but he is not powerful enough to go head to head with the trickster. The stalemate ends when Thor knocks out Loki with a thunderous right hand. Comments: This is a Standard Loki attacks Thor story, but we learn a few interesting facts. Blake can call upon his knowledge of life as an Asgardian , he does this to save Strange's life. This seems to suggest that Blake finding the cane in the cave is not the entire story. It isn't until years later that his true origin is revealed , his actually being Thor , and Blake being the fake identity. To locate Loki, Thor uses his hammer in order to track his free flowing electrons. It seems that all Asgardians can track each other this way. The scene indicates that his Hammer does this , although he said ALL Asgardians can do it. I wonder if others need a device like his hammer to do it. It's a cool plot device but something that's never used again, I think. Dr. Strange seems to be no match for Loki in the mystic department, but maybe it's because he's recovering from his illness ? Strange comments that he's never encountered an opponent as powerful as Loki. So Strange rates Loki as being more powerful than Dormamu ? This issue highlights that Jane is trapped in Limbo. This issue happens after Avengers # 2 , where they fight the Space Phantom and Limbo is featured. Is Limbo a big place or is to the domain of the space Phantom ? It seems that whenever Stan wanted to imprison someone at an impossible place to escape, he used limbo. There is a conflict between Thor and Odin throughout this issue. Odin asks Thor to help against enemy forces in Asgard and is ignored because Thor is operating on Strange at the time. After not getting help from his son , Odin creates a storm that blacks out the city temporarily almost causing Strange's death on the operating table. Thor as Blake, contacts Odin mentally for help against Loki but the Asgardians are not present in Asgard and the message is not answered. Of course Thor thinks he's being snubbed by the all father. Afterward, Odin contacts Thor while he's pursuing his brother, and HE snubs Odin. I didn't know that Odin had to be IN Asgard for Thor to mentally contact him. In the early JIM issues, Thor or Blake contacted or prayed to Odin more than a few times and no such limitation existed. As the series progresses , you will see Odin punish Thor for these types of offenses by taking half his power away. Cool Moment:The appearance of the Avengers in this book is always a treat for me. They did this a few issues back and again, no Captain America. I find it amusing that they run into him and ask to participate in whatever fight he's going to. His reasoning for rebuffing them is that they are no match for Loki. Uh, they fought Loki in their premiere issue, at least for a few panels.  Silly moment : When Strange finds Blakes missing cane, it has been turned into a fishing rod by a couple of hobos. 
Tales of Asgard:
" Trapped by the Trolls"
This is a simple story about a rescue mission. A stranger finds himself lost in the land of the Trolls. He asks for shelter , but is quickly thrown into a prison with other men that are working as slaves. It turns out the stranger has a sack and it contains the mystic hammer of Thor. Thor uses the hammer to route the trolls and free's the other Asgardians. Nothing special about this tale but it's cool to see Thor without his usual uniform. 
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 18, 2024 5:33:23 GMT -5
I forgot to add that to Hoosier X chagrin, JIM # 108 is yet another episode of GET JANE FOSTER.  |
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 18, 2024 7:25:59 GMT -5
Stan is really demonstrating the pitfalls of being your own editor with this story. Strange had already battled Loki in the previous month's Strange Tales (#123), where he was able to hold the God of Mischief at bay long enough to free Thor from Loki's trap (though Thor didn't know of Strange's involvement). You'd think Stan would've had Doc say, "This is Loki's magic I'm countering! I recognize it from our clash last month!" or otherwise acknowledged their previous encounter.
Cei-U!
I summon the MIA footnote!
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 18, 2024 7:27:57 GMT -5
Stan is really demonstrating the pitfalls of being your own editor with this story. Strange had already battled Loki in the previous month's Strange Tales (#123), where he was able to hold the God of Mischief at bay long enough to free Thor from Loki's trap (though Thor didn't know of Strange's involvement). You'd think Stan would've had Doc say, "This is Loki's magic I'm countering! I recognize it from our clash last month!" or otherwise acknowledged their previous encounter. Cei-U! I summon the MIA footnote! What is your opinion about the Dr. Strange comment that Loki was the most powerful person he'd battled ? |
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Mar 18, 2024 10:29:55 GMT -5
Stan is really demonstrating the pitfalls of being your own editor with this story. Strange had already battled Loki in the previous month's Strange Tales (#123), where he was able to hold the God of Mischief at bay long enough to free Thor from Loki's trap (though Thor didn't know of Strange's involvement). You'd think Stan would've had Doc say, "This is Loki's magic I'm countering! I recognize it from our clash last month!" or otherwise acknowledged their previous encounter. Cei-U! I summon the MIA footnote! What is your opinion about the Dr. Strange comment that Loki was the most powerful person he'd battled ? Dormammu's first appearance was a couple months after this issue, but he had faced Nightmare. Of course, Stan wasn't mentally ranking the power of Strange's foes before writing that line, he just thought it sounded good |
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Post by MDG on Mar 18, 2024 10:58:12 GMT -5
Silly moment : When Strange finds Blakes missing cane, it has been turned into a fishing rod by a couple of hobos. F'r crissake, Blake, you're a doctor! Toss the poor guys 20 bucks instead of just demanding it! |
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 18, 2024 14:05:12 GMT -5
Stan is really demonstrating the pitfalls of being your own editor with this story. Strange had already battled Loki in the previous month's Strange Tales (#123), where he was able to hold the God of Mischief at bay long enough to free Thor from Loki's trap (though Thor didn't know of Strange's involvement). You'd think Stan would've had Doc say, "This is Loki's magic I'm countering! I recognize it from our clash last month!" or otherwise acknowledged their previous encounter. Cei-U! I summon the MIA footnote! By this point Ditko was doing all the writing on Strange, with dialog notes. Stan might even had been using a ghost for the script. So not surprising he didn't remember the Strang Loki story. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 22, 2024 18:58:16 GMT -5
Journey into Mystery #109October 1964 "When Magneto Strikes!" WOW! It looks like Magneto didn't get the "GET JANE FOSTER!" memo or the directions to Don Blake's office. This story engine is not always maintained to operate at the highest capacity. It looks like we'll have to find some other way for the hero and the bad guy to meet. It starts with Thor looking at statues of super-heroes for an exhibition. I assumed they are statues by Alicia Masters, but it doesn't explicitly say so. Thor tells his hosts that he will try to attend the exhibit when the fair opens. Then he takes off on Thor business of some kind. Meanwhile, the evil mutants are lurking nearby, in the harbor, in a submarine disguised as a derelict tree floating in the water. Magneto is trying to find the X-Men. He is pretty sure they live in the New York metropolitan area. Mastermind is tormenting the Toad. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are just standing around. Magneto send them to the city to find the X-Men. While the rest of the evil mutants are on this mission, Magneto takes advantage of his "me" time to experiment with his magnetism powers. This wreaks havoc in the city. All the metallic objects are floating! Doctor Blake and Nurse Foster are tending to a boy who hurt his arm playing football ... when suddenly ... all the metal objects in the office are floating in the air! They look outside ... cars, motorcycles, metal railings, all sorts of metal junk ... all floating in the air! It ends as quickly as it began. Jane is like, Oh well. Maybe we all imagined it. Maybe it was just weird Marvel Universe New York stuff. Ho hum. Anyway, it's closing time, and Don wants to investigate the weird phenomenon of the floating metal objects ... but he has forgotten that he has arranged a dinner date with Jane! He tells her he's too upset by all the metal objects floating around. Jane is used to this crap. It's not easy being the star of NURSE ROMANCE COMICS. Things don't ever work out for you. She presumably goes home and gets Chinese takeout and watches The Beverly Hillbillies. It's hilarious! It's the one where Jethro is a secret agent! So Blake turns to Thor and somehow uses his hammer to track the magnetism to its source. It sounds a bit far-fetched, but it's a magic hammer that can pretty much do anything. It's like Thor is cheating every time he flies into battle. Between the hammer and Odin, Thor can do pretty much anything he can imagine. He tracks the magnetism to the derelict tree floating in the harbor and surprises Magneto in his submarine lair. (One of the captions calls it a "submersible fort.") Magneto and Thor mix it up for a couple of panels, but Magneto stops him. He gives him the "Why should we fight?" speech. He assumes Thor is a mutant and he tries to get him to join the Brotherhood. (Magneto thinks everybody is a mutant.) Magneto explains himself to Thor. He explains about Homo Superior and mutants and how the mutants should rule because regular Homo Sapiens humans are BAD! But Thor isn't having it. He's not a mutant! He's a Norse god! And he's pledged to protect mankind! And he knocks the goblet of wine out of Magneto's hand and they start fighting again. They mix it up for few pages and Magneto traps the hammer in a magnetic forcefield at the same time Thor is struggling with the walls closing in on him and squeezing him. It slows him down but he manages to smash out a tunnel to get through. And then sixty seconds pass and he turns back to Don Blake! Without his hammer! Trapped in Magneto's underwater "submersible fort" in the harbor! Gulp! I sometimes think Don Blake is the real hero. (Except when it's Nurse Romance Comics or GET JANE FOSTER!) In this era of Thor, a lot of my favorite scenes involve Thor turning to Blake at just the wrong moment. Magneto wasn't watching because he had just closed a vast metal door to slow Thor down a bit. So Blake sneaks back through the hole he made in the collapsing room while Magneto wonders why Thor has stopped pounding on the door. He waits a few seconds to see what Thor will do and notices the walking stick. What is that doing here? He waves his hand and the stick flies away. Magneto then scatters a bunch of rivets into the room where he thinks Thor is and Blake manages to dodge them somehow. Blake runs a deadly gauntlet of falling vents, murderous rays, sharp metal arms and falling drills. He does OK. His clothes are a little ripped. He's probably got a few scrapes and bruises. But he's not really making any progress. But Magneto is distracted by a cry for help from the rest of the Brotherhood. They succeeded in their mission. They found the X-Men! Or did the X-Men find them!? This has never been one of my favorite Thor issues from this period, but I'm actually kind of digging it this time through. One of the things I like is how little we see of the X-Men. But they're here! We see one of Cyclops' ruby-red blasts scattering the members of the Brotherhood. And Angel's shadow and the Beasts hairy wrists. While Magneto is distracted, Blake manages to find the stick and very soon he's Thor again! So Magneto and Thor are fighting again! But Magneto manages to evade Thor and he sets up a bomb to blow up the complex and kill Thor! But now the X-Men are here! Iceman freezes the bomb so it's inoperative. We don't see him but we see his ice powers and we hear him taunting Magneto. The master of magnetism manages to escape in a mini-sub, and he seems rather philosophical about the whole thing. Ah well. He will rejoin the Brotherhood and they will all survive to fight another day. (This issue came out between X-Men #7 and #8.) That didn't really take that long, so Blake shows up at Jane's apartment to see what she's up to. Apparently, The Beverly Hillbillies is over and Jane is reading as she eats an apple or a cupcake or something. (I guess I was wrong about the Chinese takeout.) She forgives Don and they eat ham and cheese sandwiches and they look out the window at the New York skyline and she calls him a silly goop. Jane seems to be in a very good mood since this is a very nice Nurse Romance Comics ending and not a GET JANE FOSTER! adventure, which seems to me might be rather exhausting. Commentary: I mentioned before that this one was not one of my favorites, but I have come around it. Reading the whole series like this and digging deep into each issue one by one, I find so much to like that I didn't always notice before. Like Blake holding his own in Magneto's submersible fort. Like the X-Men and their efforts to be discrete in someone else's comic book series. Like Jane Foster's relief at having some time for romance with Don that doesn't involve getting abducted by evil gods or super-villains. OR COMMIES! I think the main reason I used to have a problem with it is just how little really happens. There's no grand plan from the Brotherhood. Magneto is just messing around with his powers. The Brotherhood isn't in it very much, and I love the Brotherhood! Pietro, Wanda, the Toad and Mastermind are so much fun! I love the team dynamic! They are all such jerks to each other! But with no affection like you get between, say, Johnny and Ben in the Fantastic Four. And then there's the way Magneto just writes off another secret base! How does he keep doing that?! But ... that stuff doesn't really bother me that much anymore. It's just more dumb comic book stuff. With great art from Jack Kirby and Chic Stone! Comic books are stupid. Tales of Asgard: "Banished from Asgard!": And then in Tales of Asgard, we get the tale of the time Odin was BIG MAD and he banished Thor! (Well, one of the times he banished Thor.) And the Asgardian named Arkin the Weak ran off to tell Knorda, the beautiful (and normal-sized) queen of the mountain giants so they could ambush Thor while he is out of favor with Odin. With Thor unable to defend Asgard, the fabled city will soon fall to the giants and the forces of evil. But ... it's a set-up. A fake banishment. Thor leads Knorda and her mountain giants into a trap. You see, Odin suspected there was a traitor among them and he set up this trap to smoke him out. One assumes that Arkin was very dreadfully punished because, as far as I know, he has never appeared again.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 22, 2024 21:39:08 GMT -5
You know, looking at the truck panel and Thor preventing it from hitting the kid; if they did that story today, that would be the truck the drops the radioactive waste that blinds and transforms Matt Murdock.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 26, 2024 19:58:14 GMT -5
Journey into Mystery #109October 1964 "When Magneto Strikes!" Commentary: I mentioned before that this one was not one of my favorites, but I have come around it. Reading the whole series like this and digging deep into each issue one by one, I find so much to like that I didn't always notice before. Like Blake holding his own in Magneto's submersible fort. Like the X-Men and their efforts to be discrete in someone else's comic book series. Like Jane Foster's relief at having some time for romance with Don that doesn't involve getting abducted by evil gods or super-villains. OR COMMIES! I think the main reason I used to have a problem with it is just how little really happens. There's no grand plan from the Brotherhood. Magneto is just messing around with his powers. The Brotherhood isn't in it very much, and I love the Brotherhood! Pietro, Wanda, the Toad and Mastermind are so much fun! I love the team dynamic! They are all such jerks to each other! But with no affection like you get between, say, Johnny and Ben in the Fantastic Four. And then there's the way Magneto just writes off another secret base! How does he keep doing that?! But ... that stuff doesn't really bother me that much anymore. It's just more dumb comic book stuff. With great art from Jack Kirby and Chic Stone! Comic books are stupid. Tales of Asgard: "Banished from Asgard!": And then in Tales of Asgard, we get the tale of the time Odin was BIG MAD and he banished Thor! (Well, one of the times he banished Thor.) And the Asgardian named Arkin the Weak ran off to tell Knorda, the beautiful (and normal-sized) queen of the mountain giants so they could ambush Thor while he is out of favor with Odin. With Thor unable to defend Asgard, the fabled city will soon fall to the giants and the forces of evil. But ... it's a set-up. A fake banishment. Thor leads Knorda and her mountain giants into a trap. You see, Odin suspected there was a traitor among them and he set up this trap to smoke him out. One assumes that Arkin was very dreadfully punished because, as far as I know, he has never appeared again. Before I give my commentary, this a picture of my copy  Commentary:
This is an interesting cross pollination of the larger Marvel universe than we've seen thus far . We have seen appearances by the Avengers but here we get Magneto and ( almost) the X-men. The contest between Magneto and Thor is not close. Thor whips his butt and has to be turned into Blake in order to give the fight some tension. This is a very nice display of the Thunder gods abilities. I've yet to see a consistent depiction of the Hammer. Why does it turn into a cane after 60 seconds ? I remember in other stories and future issues where it remains a hammer until Blake reaches it again. Cool moments:I like the display of Thors arrogance. It fits with his character and you know his opponent is gonna get it. Here he brags to Magneto about his power. It's quite cool.  Here, this panel shows off raw unbelievable power that had Magneto in fear. I love it. 
Tales of Asgard:The reader can guess that Thor;s banishment is some type of ruse and we see someone that is called Loki's cousin in this tale. How does that work, exactly ? If he was adopted , then this person should be another frost giant . If he's related through Odin's blood , doesn't that mean he's Thors cousin as well ? Maybe Cei-U! has answers. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 26, 2024 20:20:04 GMT -5
Journey into Mystery #109October 1964 "When Magneto Strikes!" Commentary: I mentioned before that this one was not one of my favorites, but I have come around it. Reading the whole series like this and digging deep into each issue one by one, I find so much to like that I didn't always notice before. Like Blake holding his own in Magneto's submersible fort. Like the X-Men and their efforts to be discrete in someone else's comic book series. Like Jane Foster's relief at having some time for romance with Don that doesn't involve getting abducted by evil gods or super-villains. OR COMMIES! I think the main reason I used to have a problem with it is just how little really happens. There's no grand plan from the Brotherhood. Magneto is just messing around with his powers. The Brotherhood isn't in it very much, and I love the Brotherhood! Pietro, Wanda, the Toad and Mastermind are so much fun! I love the team dynamic! They are all such jerks to each other! But with no affection like you get between, say, Johnny and Ben in the Fantastic Four. And then there's the way Magneto just writes off another secret base! How does he keep doing that?! But ... that stuff doesn't really bother me that much anymore. It's just more dumb comic book stuff. With great art from Jack Kirby and Chic Stone! Comic books are stupid. Tales of Asgard: "Banished from Asgard!": And then in Tales of Asgard, we get the tale of the time Odin was BIG MAD and he banished Thor! (Well, one of the times he banished Thor.) And the Asgardian named Arkin the Weak ran off to tell Knorda, the beautiful (and normal-sized) queen of the mountain giants so they could ambush Thor while he is out of favor with Odin. With Thor unable to defend Asgard, the fabled city will soon fall to the giants and the forces of evil. But ... it's a set-up. A fake banishment. Thor leads Knorda and her mountain giants into a trap. You see, Odin suspected there was a traitor among them and he set up this trap to smoke him out. One assumes that Arkin was very dreadfully punished because, as far as I know, he has never appeared again. Before I give my commentary, this a picture of my copy Commentary:
This is an interesting cross pollination of the larger Marvel universe than we've seen thus far . We have seen appearances by the Avengers but here we get Magneto and ( almost) the X-men. The contest between Magneto and Thor is not close. Thor whips his butt and has to be turned into Blake in order to give the fight some tension. This is a very nice display of the Thunder gods abilities. I've yet to see a consistent depiction of the Hammer. Why does it turn into a cane after 60 seconds ? I remember in other stories and future issues where it remains a hammer until Blake reaches it again. Cool moments:I like the display of Thors arrogance. It fits with his character and you know his opponent is gonna get it. Here he brags to Magneto about his power. It's quite cool. Here, this panel shows off raw unbelievable power that had Magneto in fear. I love it.
Tales of Asgard:The reader can guess that Thor;s banishment is some type of ruse and we see someone that is called Loki's cousin in this tale. How does that work, exactly ? If he was adopted , then this person should be another frost giant . If he's related through Odin's blood , doesn't that mean he's Thors cousin as well ? Maybe Cei-U! has answers. I haven’t commented on it yet, but it’s true that you never can tell what’s going to happen with the hammer. Does it stay a stick? Does it stay a hammer? Does it change whenever Thor (or Blake) transforms? The answer is … YES! I don’t remember ever noticing this when I was a kid. I think that’s probably because I read them as I bought them and never made any attempt to read it as a run. |
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