This story reminds me of a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon where, outraged that the bounty on rabbits is only two cents, he goes on a rampage, stealing the locks from the Panama Canal, filling in the Grand Canyon, etc.

Cei-U!
"You realize, of course, this means WAR!!!"

The only time Kirby and Sinnott worked on Thor together was on Journey into Mystery #83 and the first few pages of #84, unless you count the Origins of The Inhumans back-up series that ran in Thor #146-152.

Cei-U!
I summon the answer!

It seems like we’re almost to the era where it starts getting better very quickly (which for me is #97). But then I realize we still have #95 (with Don Blake, Android Master) and #96 (with the Maha Yogi) and #97 still seems so far away!

Journey into Mystery # 95



"The Demon Duplicators"



Writer Stan Lee
Scripter: R Berns
Artist: Joe Sinnott



Plot summary: Thor's alter ego, Don Blake creates an android that is indestructible and has a fellow inventor Professor Zaxton  demonstrate its power in a convention. During the exhibit ,   Thor attempts to shatter the android with his hammer and fails then  Zaxton mistakenly causes the android to short circuit starting an explosion that could  destroy the city. Thor throws the android when its about to  explode somewhere isolated with the help of his hammer and no one is harmed.

Later that day, Zaxton is waiting in Blakes office and admits he sabotaged the experiment and has abducted Jane Foster in order to force Blake to help him with an invention he has yet to perfect. It turns out he has invented a device that can duplicate anything that is inanimate and wishes for the invention to duplicate living things.

Blake agrees to help and it  duplicates an alley cat showing its effectiveness. It's revealed that living beings when duplicated have their personalities reversed. A good person will become evil, and so fourth. 

While Zaxton is distracted , Blake turns into Thor and Zaxton duplicates Thor and gives the fake Thor 2 hammers. They chase each other through the city until the real Thor is cornered and has the two hammers thrown at him. It turns out the duplicate hammers have no power because the duplicate Thor is not worthy. As Thor attempts to capture the professor, he duplicates himself to confuse Thor but falls to his death. The duplicate Zaxton survives and is allowed to live the real Zaxton's life. 

 Okay, here's where my personal tastes come into play. I liked this issue a lot. As goofy and weird as it was, I enjoyed it. The cover is great and characters fighting their doppelgängers is always fun. Blake having the skills to create an indestructible android is a stretch , but I approached this story like it was a Silver Age Superman tale and didn't get bothered by trying to compare it to what Thor will become in a few years. 


Things I liked:

 I really like the long handle on Thors hammer. It improves the awesomeness of the weapon. 



Comments:

Thor reveals that he has a code that he can't harm human beings except in self defense. Well, in the story featuring the Radio Active man, he threw him to China and he ended up exploding. Maybe he makes an exception for super powered beings?  In this issue Zaxton creates  another Thor duplicate that the real Thor vaporizes when he throws his hammer at him. Maybe he didn't expect him to explode but , it should indicate that the duplicates are not as sturdy as the real thing. It's not explained what happens to all the items that were duplicated along the way when the story ends. The professor during the story duplicated an entire office building and a dozen jet airliners.  I'm assuming those structures had people inside of them, so uh what happens to them ? Before Thor retrieves Jane he says he disposed of the dead body. Where?  Lots of goofy unanswered questions but I still liked the story. 

I mentioned this story earlier in the thread as the one with the Maha Yogi. Which might be a bit confusing to readers who have never read any X-Men between the Kirby issues and the All-New X-Men in the 1970s.

In JIM #96, he's merely called "Mad Merlin" and there's no reference to the Maha Yogi. But, you see, this character returned in the X-Men later in the 1960s. Twice. In X-Men #30 and #47. I haven't read these stories in a long time and I don't remember the details, but a little Internet research tells me that he called himself the Warlock in X-Men #30 and then re-appeared as Maga Yogi in #47. He's appeared a few times since then and it seems to have gotten a bit complicated. At some point, it was revealed that he's thousands of years old and he has a piece of the Bloodstone. And it's also been established that he was only impersonating the real Merlin. I'm guessing that somebody (without looking it up, I nominate Roy Thomas) realized that it was a dumb idea to permanently associate the Merlin of legend with "Mad Merlin" in an ancient Thor story from an era when Thor wasn't a particularly good series, and came with the "Merlin impersonator" story.

As I recall, the Maha Yogi character is not that great and it seems to me like it would have been a better idea to just ignore JIM #96.

I mean, I wish ignoring JIM #96 was an option for me right now.

Let's get this over with.



Journey into Mystery #96
September 1963
"Mad Merlin!"

Have you ever heard of a story engine? It's the way that the adventures are generated for a series. Like, Professor X using Cerebro to search for mutants. That was part of the X-Men's story engine. Batman patrols the city and looks for crime, he has connections with the police to be warned of burglaries and robberies, he has an array of vengeance-seeking villains who are always out to get him. That's the basis of Batman's multi-pronged story engine.

Early in the series, Thor has a doctor's office. Sheesh. And he flies around New York City and throws himself in front of out-of-control buses that are about to ram into baby carriages. Also, he listens to the radio.

Later on, Asgard will be a much bigger part of the Thor story engine. In 1963, it was still just Loki, chained to a rock, observing Thor and using his amazing powers to turn bicycles to candy and mess with Thor's chromosomatic gland.

But they're still relying on the doctor's office and the radio. The dcotor's office will be part of the story engine for some time to come.

So JIM #96 starts with Thor flying into his lab. He turns into Don Blake and unbolts the door and walks into the reception area and Jane Foster just really gives him quite a scolding! He had appointments and he went into his lab and locked the door for thirty minutes. When Jane was hammering on the door, he wouldn't even answer! All the patients left.

He tells her he was working on an important experiment (improving his android-making skills, I presume) but Jane accuses him of taking a nap.

So Dr. Blake segways into a flashback about how he heard on the radio that a bus has driven off the bridge and he locked himself in the lab so he could turn to Thor and go save the people in the submerged bus. But he can't tell Jane that!

So there's a few more panels where Jane is still scolding Dr. Blake and they're hanging around in the office (presumably waiting for the patients with afternoon appointments, if Dr. Blake has any clients left) and Dr. Blake is all mopey and sulky about how he is in love with Jane but he can't tell her he's Thor and so on and so on.

This cannot go on forever. It might seem like it goes on forever before they start reconsidering the limits of using a doctor's office as part of the story engine, but they get it eventually.

Thank god for the radio! (Whichever god you want. Maybe Odin? If he's so powerful, why doesn't he do something about all these scenes set in the doctor's office!) While listening to the radio, Dr. Blake and Jane find out that the stone crypt of Merlin has just been delivered to a museum in New York City, and they discuss whether or not Merlin was good or evil. They are about to find out!

The narrative moves to the museum and the crypt is opened and the scientists are amazed that Merlin's body is so well-preserved. They leave the room and Merlin wakes up and starts gloating about how well his plan worked and he starts reminiscing about the old days, in King Arthur's court. He was a mutant, you see! He used sorcery as a cover for his mutant powers! BECAUSE REASONS!

I have to admit that I really love the flashbacks to King Arthur's time. Sinnott had a certain flair for this kind of material. Knights and kings and pageantry and cauldrons. We could have had a story where "Merlin" transports Thor back to the Dark Ages, thinking maybe he could defeat Thor more easily on his home ground. 

But no. We get another story where the villain causes chaos by taking control of a missile and making it go haywire. And then when Thor ruins his scheme, he goes to get the president (when he sees the president at the White House, he thinks, no, that man's too young to be president, and he moves on). Then he uses the Washington Monument as a javelin to try and skewer Thor. Then he animates the statue of Lincoln!

Finally, Thor defeats Mad Merlin by changing into Don Blake and convincing Merlin that he has shape-shifting powers and is thus a great wizard. And he threatens to destroy Merlin if he doesn't go into a coma again to be placed into his crypt. Merlin agrees and the menace is past.

"MAD Merlin!" They should call him "DUMB Merlin!"   

And then there's one final panel where Dr. Blake and Nurse Jane are walking out of surgery and Jane is complimenting him because even though he might lose patients at the office, he's never lost one on the operating table. So, um, there's that.

Commentary: The more I think about it, the more I find this story very frustrating. It has some pretty interesting elements. The idea of a mutant disguising his powers by pretending to be a sorcerer is actually very intriguing. And those flashback panels to Arthur's time! Those are great! I think about what this story could have been. But instead, we get Jane scolding Blake and another super-powerful bad guy taking control of a missile, and a dumb ending like something from a mediocre five-page story in the back of one of the monster comics.   

Although I must admit. I was laughing out loud at Mad Merlin using the Washington Monument like a spear and then animating the statue of Lincoln to beat up Thor.

I'm enjoying reading this thread, guys, even though I am not a Thor fan. In particular, I especially find these early stories to be dire to the point of being basically unreadable. But nevertheless, it's fun seeing these comics through your eyes and reading your comments. Good work!