Or what he didn’t.

November 1965
"Where Mortals Fear to Tread!"

Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man, is running around on the streets of New York, bragging that he has whupped Thor. And who could blame him? It's quite an impressive feat, and Thor is lying there unconscious, and everybody saw it happen right in front of their eyes a few minutes ago. Even a jaded New Yorker would stop for a minute and stare at a spectacle like that.

"Ain't that something,” an onlooker might say. And then he'd be off because he wants to get to the deli before it gets crowded.

But Thor is only stunned. He sits up and shakes off the dust and the brick crumbs and sees his foe's somewhat premature victory dance. And so the fight begins again.

It's very short, but I love Creel's braggadocio about beating Thor. He thinks he's finished Thor off and he wants to tell the world! This guy really knows how to be a super-villain! Beat up a good guy and then stand on a street corner and crow about it for a few minutes. (I think he might have had a better reception if he had had a chance to clean up a bit. It's been a long time since Crusher had a shower, and he's been through A LOT since then.)

Thor and Crusher pound on each other for a few panels, and Crusher's starting to lose some of his confidence. He's very powerful, but Thor is a god, and the thunder god has had several matches to get used to Crusher's power and so he's not being overwhelmed or surprised by Crusher's skill set. He's now giving Crusher a relentless god-beating, and it's taking it's toll of the Absorbing Man despite his cosmic power levels.

Meanwhile, Loki is still in Ularic's warlock den, watching the battle and working out his next scheme. It's a doozy! The first step is ... transport Crusher to Asgard!

But before we see the consequences of that move, there's an explosion in a building near the spot where Thor and Crusher had been fighting. Thor has no time to figure out what happened to Crusher before he has to rush off to investigate.

It's Nurse Foster! And suddenly we're in the CONFUSION ROUND of the latest game of GET JANE FOSTER!

Jane must have pulled the BLOW UP APARTMENT card because that's exactly what she did. She somehow caused a gas explosion to break the bulletproof glass so she could yell at Thor and get his attention. So Thor flies up to the apartment and ... well, the next few panels make so little sense, I just don't think I have the energy to go into it in any detail. I think that might warrant its own separate post in the next day or two. So for now, I'll just try to muddle through with what you see on the age and hit the high points on the really egregious dumb stuff.

So he recognizes Jane unconscious on the floor in the room that just exploded and is full of gas. So maybe he should get her out of there. He's Thor. He can fly to the street or the roof in a jiffy. But NO! She needs medical attention RIGHT NOW so he turns to Don Blake and ... FLASH! Somebody took his photo while he was changing and caught the transformation on film!

Now we find out who is the latest participant in GET JANE FOSTER! It's Harris Hobbs! The reporter from the Affiliated Press from just a few issues ago! Hobbs is the mysterious MASKED BLUEBERRY PHANTOM from the previous issue. He trapped Jane in the apartment hoping to lure Thor hither and taking his photo as he changes identities (even though there's no reason for Harris Hobbs to suspect that Thor has a secret identity, or that he will ever be fighting Crusher Creel in this part of town, or that Thor will be standing in the exact right spot, or that he won't be killed or seriously injured when Jane blows up the apartment.)

This is the page where Harris Hobbs completely changed the face of GET JANE FOSTER! The game would never be the same!

He wants this photo so he can blackmail Thor into taking him to Asgard! But more on that later. Jane is wounded and has to be removed from the field.

In Asgard, Loki confronts Crusher and tries to convince him to join him in taking over Asgard. Crusher don't like taking no orders from nobody and doesn't seem impressed by skinny little Loki after fighting Thor. Which is a mistake. Loki has no trouble putting Crusher in his place, though the reader might wonder why Crusher can't absorb Loki's magic as well as he absorbs everything else. Crusher is convinced that joining Loki is a good option and he starts running around, beating up Asgardians and creating havoc. It's pretty cool.

On Earth, Jane is recovering in the hospital, and Dr. Blake is checking on her. She's so glad to see him! You should see the big smile on her pretty face. She felt abandoned for several months when she was kidnapped and imprisoned in a New York apartment with only the BLUEBERRY PHANTOM for company. She makes him promise not to leave her again. Dr. Blake gulps and makes the promise. This seems like a good time for a big conversation. But Nurse Foster is apparently too weak to hear the truth or to get any type of an explanation for her ordeals despite the fact that she's strong enough to survive numerous super-villain abductions, BLUEBERRY PHANTOM incarcerations and more than one Asgardian roofie.

So now Thor has to deal with Harris Hobbs. Wow. I love the next few panels, even though Thor's hammer now has Tardis-like timey-wimey powers that we don't see very often (or ever again even) as he shows Hobbs what he's dealing with when he tries to blackmail a god. Thor threatens to take Harris to the time of the dinosaurs and leave him there. Then he takes him to a time far in Earth's future when the planet is about to collide with a rogue planet! It's so great!

In any case, Hobbs is made of some pretty stern stuff and ends up going to Asgard anyway. YAY! Road trip!

In Asgard, Crusher is making his way through Odin's palace, making mincemeat of Odin's guards, until he fights his way to the throne room and faces the All-Father himself.

OMG! I love the way that Crusher is not the least bit impressed with this old dude, despite his impeccable sense of fashion. Crusher be like: Get ready to get messed up, old man!

And Odin is like: What?! A mortal here, in my own throne room! And a very stinky one indeed! Begone, foul-smelling human man!

And he unleashes a bolt at him, and Crusher absorbs the bolt and starts glowing and sneers as he steps forward to mix it up with Odin himself!

TO BE CONTINUED!

COMMENTARY: That is such a great cover! 

Despite all the dumb Harris Hobbs stuff, this is such a great issue and this amazing Thor run keeps chugging along. The Absorbing Man's assault on Asgard is just one more classic Kirby scene. And Colletta is doing his best work here, as if he knows he needs to be at his best to show his appreciation for being included in the creation of one of the best comic book series ever.

TALES OF ASGARD: "The Grim Specter of Mutiny!": The discontent on the ship comes to a head as Thor, Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg fight with Loki and his mutinous crew. It seems like rather bad timing as the ship is about to be destroyed by a storm or a dragon or something. The battle is beautifully rendered by Kirby and Colletta. Suddenly, the sound of a loud horn causes them to stop and look for the source. It's Balder! He has tied himself to the figurehead and is blowing a horn for some reason.

We'll have to wait until the next issue to find out why this is significant.

I agree. I don't see the point of Thor throwing Mjolnir at Creel with such force that it breaks through a column if the thunder god is afraid of hurting him.

While Stan's dialogue makes sense in that a hammer blow to a man made of glass would certainly be lethal, a simpler interpretation of the art without the text might simply be that Creel is pretty quick on his feet. 

It reminds me of that aspect that's bandied about sometimes of 'Don't attack anyone from the back. That's a cowardly attack!' 

Thor doesn't want to kill Creel but doing so by taking advantage of the obvious tactic of using his hammer to smash Creel's glass body would seem doubly dishonorable. 

But it's the inclusion of the dialogue line of something stayed Thor's hand that throws me off. Like it was something outside of Thor's control that made him do it instead of Thor's own moral conviction not to kill a mortal. 

Journey into Mystery # 123





Writer Stan Lee Artist: Jack Kirby Artist Inks: Vince Colletta



Plot Summary:


As we open this issue, Thor is transporting Reporter Hobbs and himself to Asgard. When they arrive at the Rainbow Bridge, he sees that it is unguarded. When they make it to the imperial palace they see that Crusher Creel is attacking Odin himself. Odin uses some of his power but soon sees that Creel has the ability to absorb them. Thor tries to intervene in the conflict but is ordered to stand down by the all father.

We have an interlude where we see a war lord hiding from the Vietcong army. He is praying to his gods to provide him with the means to fight the invaders. The Norn stone that Thor dropped in the jungle back in issue # 120 makes its appearance near the warlord and he takes it and acquires power. with it, he repels the invading army.

Back in Asgard, Loki makes his appearance claiming victory and revealing that he has orchestrated the entire overthrow. Odin relinquishes the royal Scepter to his step son. Now with it in his possession, Loki believes that he has finally taken control over Asgard and has the ultimate power. 
 Creel struggles to take it away from the trickster. Finally explaining to the two antagonists that the power lies in himself and not the scepter, Odin banishes them both to endless space where  they will be trapped until Odin sees fit to release them. 

Hobbs , while hiding from the dangerous conflict, misses the opportunity to photograph and chronicle what has occurred, and soon finds out his camera has been destroyed during the battle. 

We close the issue to see that the Demon, as the warlord is to be called, is corrupted by the norm stone and begins to assume command over all of the region. This subplot is to be continued. 


Comments

Great, great issue.  Maybe the best yet. So much happens in 16 pages, one wonders whether it would have been dragged out to a 6 issue arc in today's decompressed storytelling era. Odin shows his ultimate power against the absorbing man and its a sight to see. Loki, for the first time reveals his intentions to take over Asgard and doesn't even try to lie to Odin. This is a first. Creel really shows that he's a force to be dealt with and again is not really defeated, he is banished to space like in his first appearance.  I wonder why Odin doesn't just strip him of his power?  I figure the real world answer is to have Creel as an ongoing threat. Also, a great cover evoking the Biblical Samson image. 


Cool Moments:

Jack Kirby just outdoes himself in this issue with various pages of amazing visuals. 

The Demon attacking the soldiers is an amazing page showing his newfound power



Once again, Kirby shows Creels transformations and they are magic. 





The final 3 panels of the story show how eloquent Lee's dialogue could be. I believe this book to be a synergy between amazing visuals and writing that adds a lot to them.




Tales of Asgard

We open with Odin and see images indicating danger to come in shadows. This scene is shifted to the ship under attack by the storm. Thor is taking the lead , vowing to die to save the crew, while Balder finally blows the Horn destroying the Dragons head that has emerged from the pillars of Utgard. To be continued. 

Comments

I'm not a big fan of 5 page stories. For me, they are hit and miss.

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One other thought, when you see that ad for Fantastic Four and think about the next year or so of that title and the same time on Thor, you just have to be amazed at the creativity in those two books in that period.