The hits just keep on coming!

In the previous issue, Thor was on his way to Rigel but he beat up all the Rigellians on the spaceship so now he's just gliding along in space and looking out the window and admiring the interstellar scenery. Then he meets some more Rigellians and beats them up too. He is going to Rigel to talk to the manager. Something about a "spacelock" on the Earth and he wants to pay the fine or whatever and have it removed.

Meanwhile, back on Earth ... Tana Nile is enjoying being the Empress Tana the First and ordering everybody around as she tries to find someone important enough to talk to so they can discuss handing over all the world's governments to her personal direction.

It's her we get such lines as ...

"Why do I get all the kooks and oddballs on MY beat??!"

"It is time for me to ABOLISH all Earth's governments ... and assume command MYSELF!"

"of course, some may not BELIEVE that Earth is now in my control ..."

And that final panel, showing Earth trapped in the glowing space lock, with the word balloons pointing at the vicinity of North America ...

"For, even as we speak, my unbreakable SPACE LOCK is slowly pulling Earth OUT OF ITS NATURAL ORBIT ... and only I can bring it BACK again!"

"HOO BOY! What makes you think anyone'll DOUBT a nice sensible story like that!"

Mr. Trombone has provided the entire page above if you want to read the whole thing. Or better yet, get it from the library or check it out online somewhere and read the whole story!

But this page ... the Tana Nile page in Thor #132 ... it's one of my favorite pages in all comic book-dom. Tana Nile is so great here! What a kook! Just because she has the power to do this and is backed by the Rigellians doesn't mean she isn't a KOOK!

Honestly, I wish there could have been a few more pages devoted to Tana Nile pressing her claim to overlordship over all the Earth! This is such a great run and one of my favorite segments is Tana Nile among the sarcastic New Yorkers.

Meanwhile, somewhere in space, Thor destroys everything that the Rigellians send after him at the same time as mysterious rays from the Black Galaxy are destroying Rigellian space cruisers. The Grand Commissioner has to deal with Thor on one hand and the Black Galaxy on the other, so he makes a decision and sends for Thor. "Here, Thor, why don't you take this Recorder robot with you and go defeat the menace in the Black Galaxy and we'll just waive the SPACE LOCK fee and you and Earth can go on your way."

Thor is like .. OK!

Meanwhile, back on Earth, GET JANE FOSTER seem to have turned into a children's book called LEARN ABOUT TRAVEL WITH JANE FOSTER! Last issue it was a bus. I guess she got off somewhere and flew out of the Philadelphia airport. We won't learn where she's going until next issue, but I'm going to guess she's flying to Logan airport for an international flight. She's sitting next to a bald guy who face seems very low on his head. Like Vinnie inked this figure with his eyes closed. He's almost a Dick Tracy villain. He asks Jane if she's OK. She tells him she doesn't know if she's OK. She felt COMPELLED to get on this flight. The bald guy knows just how she feels! He had no other choice either! 

And then he goes back to his book.

Somewhere in space, the Recorder is introduced in the next panel as he and Thor approach the Black Galaxy. The Recorder is known for his robotic speech patterns, beginning every word balloon by saying OBSERVATION or ANALYSIS or DECLARATION. He doesn't do any of that here. He's just talking normally. The robotic speech doesn't start until a few pages into the next issue. 

They encounter some darkness and some turbulence and some shapes. And then you turn the page and ... EGO THE LIVING PLANET!

OMG! Another one of the greatest panels in comic-book history. I saw it in a reprint in the late 1970s and suddenly, I felt like I was missing something because I knew so little about Thor in the mid-1960s. I had some of the JIM issues from #103 to #111 and I had been reading Thor the then-current series from about #245, but I hadn't seen anything quite like this!

The Tales of Asgard story is pretty good too. The Black Horsie of Death has come for SOMEBODY. Probably Harokin. He's not doing so well. I guess we'll find out for sure next issue!

THOR ANNUAL #2
1966
"If Asgard Falls ...!"

Co-written and penciled by Jack Kirby
Co-written by Stan Lee
Inked by Vince Colletta
Lettered by Sam Rosen
Edited by Stan Lee
Unaffected by the Unabashed Utterances of Irving Forbush

Well.

It starts with Odin announcing The Tournament of Titans! And Warriors are coming from all over! Odin says the invitation is extend to "every warrior from every land!" That sounds like a lot of real estate! Like Gymirsgard! And the Nameless Land of the Wind Giants! They are famous for their wind, I guess! And a mighty wind it is, I suppose! Also, the Land of the Thousand Galaxies! (Which will be mentioned a few pages from now.)

Soon, out in some of the most unreachable reaches of interstellar space, the beacon announcing the tournament catches up with Loki and Crusher Creel, each encased in his own gross green crust as they fly through space. Crusher wants to know what it means. Loki yells at him and berates him and started thinking about how he can mess with Odin by mucking things up a bit. He thinks of the Destroyer, under the rubble of the wrecked temple in Southeast Asia. With the power of thought, he activates the Destroyer and sends it to Asgard.

Thor, Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun are walking around Asgard, excited about the coming tournament, when a dude comes flying through a window. This is how Thor and the Warriors Three meet the four brothers from the World of a Thousand Galaxies. They are Brok, Tyr, Galp and Drom. They are eager to fight Thor and his comrades in the coming tournament, and each brother pairs up with Thor or one of his friends.

My favorite is Drom, known as the Spirit-Weaver. He's about eighteen inches tall. So Volstagg is eager to fight him.

Drom says, "Think TWICE, buffoon! Perhaps there be one yet SMALLER than I!"

That would be a top-rank burn if Volstagg was not famously impervious to burns.

The Tournament of Titans begins! Everybody rides around in the big stadium and crashes into each other for a few pages. It's pretty awesome! Everybody is knocked off their horses and Thor and his buddies must fight one-on-one with the four brothers from the World of a Thousand Galaxies!

We find out that Drom is called the Spirit-Weaver because he can cast illusions! Volstagg is frightened at first, but he figures out that the illusions can't hurt him.

And then the Destroyer shows up! Volstagg thinks that the Destroyer is one of Drom's illusions! Fortunately, the Destroyer is merciful. He blasts a whole under Volstagg instead of annihilating him. So Volstagg is stuck in a hole, yelling that the Destroyer is among them!

The warriors realize that the Destroyer is a MAJOR THREAT, so they all stop fighting each other and attack the Destoyer. 

Eventually it devolves into a fight between Thor and the Destroyer. ZAK! STIZZZK! FTAK! 

Odin figures out that Loki must be behind it, so he uses his Loki-Punishing power to zap the god of mischief even though he's many millions of miles away in space. 

The Destroyer stops and falls flat on his face.

Odin decrees that EVERYBODY IS A WINNER at the Tournament of Titans, so all the participants get golden suits of armor.

And it ends with Volstagg still stuck in the hole, complaining about the shabby treatment he gets despite being the LION OF ASGARD!!

This is not one of the stories I've read over and over, but I've read it a few times over the years. It certainly has its moments and its grown on me over the years. Drom is hilarious! It's a tragedy that the four brothers from the World of a Thousand Galaxies have never returned. (Or maybe they have. Maybe I missed it.) I would especially love to see Drom return periodically to be a nemesis for Volstagg.

I’m pretty sure they never did refer to the golden armor again. Between that and Drom and the world of 1000 galaxies, you could almost say that Thor Annual #2 exists in its own universe.

YES!! It does have that!

BTW, the full art to Annual #2 is one of the full issues in the Kirby Thor Artist Edition.



The notes at the top of this are interesting.


aeindex.org/reviews/jack-kirbys-the-mighty-thor-artists-edition/