Classic Thor

[uberwolf]

I've been reading the old JIM which I thought would be kind of hokey like a lot of the older books, but I've enjoyed every bit of the early stories. As the New Thor Title is about to start, I can't wait after reading the old. Next issue to read Thor 131 "The Secret of Tana Nile" Muhahahah!

[dlw66]

Oh, I'll bet she has secrets!

I love the old Lee/Kirby cosmic Thor stuff. It's just great fun! The villains (Wrecker, Cobra and Mr. Hyde, etc.) often didn't match up with Thor's overall power, but it was still great fun.

I think my favorite Thor story of all time, though, remains Thor Annual #5 with Buscema art -- Asgard vs. Olympus!!

[Doctor Doom]

Does Loki demand to be a member of President Kennedy's cabinet?

[uberwolf]

docdoom said:

Does Loki demand to be a member of President Kennedy's cabinet?

Eh heh heh. I think only Doom would dare request... nay ... demand that. Loki's only use for mortals is to mess with them to piss off Thor. His only goal is to RULE ASGARD... and piss off Thor.

[Tana Nile]

dlw66 said:

Oh, I'll bet she has secrets!

Indeed I do earthling. The biggest one being, how do I support my gigantic noggin? ;D

[uberwolf]

tananile said:

dlw66 said:

Oh, I'll bet she has secrets!

Indeed I do earthling. The biggest one being, how do I support my gigantic noggin? ;D

Antigravity Helmet?

[The Night Phantom]

It does make one wonder about her species’ birth process, assuming they are viviparous.

[Tana Nile]

nightphantom said:

It does make one wonder about her species’ birth process, assuming they are viviparous.

High pain tolerance?

[Bored Yesterday]

dlw66 said:

Oh, I'll bet she has secrets!

I think my favorite Thor story of all time, though, remains Thor Annual #5 with Buscema art -- Asgard vs. Olympus!!

I knew it! I just received this book yesterday. Got it on eBay for 2.25, including shipping (good seller). As soon as I saw the credits (Englehart/Buscema), I thought to myself "d'oh DLW would like this."

And I was right. You DO like it. I liked it too. Thor on horseback is awesome. It read like mythology, the way they mixed the creation story in at the beginning, then that sort of merged into the Asgard vs. Olympus story. A Marvel masterpiece of 1976. And a Kirby cover -- or at least a good pretender.

[dlw66]

That book just typifies all that was great about Big John during that period. He was doing some epic stuff then -- give or take some months, John put out that book and perhaps had just gone off the Thor monthly, the FF Galactus/counter-Earth story came out, and of course there were his Conan and Savage Sword books.

And you're right -- I love that story for all of the elements you mention! To my knowledge it has never been reprinted; I'd encourage all who will be attending cons this summer to rummage through the longboxes and seek it out!

[uberwolf]

Holy cow! I actually have Thor Annual 5, I forgot all about it. The only Thor's I have from back then were given to me be a friend of the family.

[Bored Yesterday]

Well go read it, man. Post haste!

Back then, I was 4 years old. My mother hated reading Thor to me, because of the antiquated diction and syntax. Only now am I rediscovering how much I like Thor.

[The Night Phantom]

tananile said:

nightphantom said:

It does make one wonder about her species’ birth process, assuming they are viviparous.

High pain tolerance?

You know, I was a little disappointed when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finally started depicting Ferengi females. I was expecting them—or at least, the ones who had had children, like Quark and Rom’s mother (“moogie”) Ishka—to have much wider hips, maybe even an altogether different lower-body structure. Not necessarily to the extreme of an Ixian axolotl tank—but some sort of highly noticeable sexual dimorphism beyond that which we see within humans. (It’s been said, but not shown, that Babylon 5’s Pak’ma’ra exhibit some fairly radical sexual dimorphism.)

I’ve heard it said that the rise of surgical and other medical interventions in human childbirth may be whittling away natural selection against larger heads. Perhaps the same thing happened to Rigellians, and they have to deliver all their children artificially, e.g. via medical transporter—or even gestate them artificially, as in an axolotl tank.

[The Night Phantom]

boredyesterday said:

Back then, I was 4 years old. My mother hated reading Thor to me, because of the antiquated diction and syntax.

Because it was a challenge to you? a challenge to her?

[Van Plexico]

You know, I was a little disappointed when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finally started depicting Ferengi females. I was expecting them—or at least, the ones who had had children, like Quark and Rom’s mother (“moogie”) Ishka—to have much wider hips, maybe even an altogether different lower-body structure. Not necessarily to the extreme of an Ixian axolotl tank—but some sort of highly noticeable sexual dimorphism beyond that which we see within humans. (It’s been said, but not shown, that Babylon 5’s Pak’ma’ra exhibit some fairly radical sexual dimorphism.)

I’ve heard it said that the rise of surgical and other medical interventions in human childbirth may be whittling away natural selection against larger heads. Perhaps the same thing happened to Rigellians, and they have to deliver all their children artificially, e.g. via medical transporter—or even gestate them artificially, as in an axolotl tank.

I don't have a response here, I just wanted to say I dug seeing Night Phantom casually throwing around the classic SF TV and novels jargon and references there. It was like hearing an SF version of an old Dennis Miller monologue.

Good stuff.

[The Night Phantom]

admin said:

I don't have a response here, I just wanted to say I dug seeing Night Phantom casually throwing around the classic SF TV and novels jargon and references there. It was like hearing an SF version of an old Dennis Miller monologue.

Good stuff.

Thanks, Van—I appreciate the appreciation. When I was getting into the Marvel Universe, I liked the idea that the expected superhero genre stuff existed alongside other genres, whether more straight sci-fi, classical mythology like the Norse, classic monsters like Dracula and the monster of Frankenstein, or even a take on funny animals in the person of Howard the Duck. That “holistic” quality*, along with Marvel’s own in-universe continuity references, promotes a sort of “cross-specialty” thinking about Marvel comics—and that sort of adaptabillity, in turn, can sometimes prove useful in solving real-life actual problems, too.

I hesitated for a moment before making that post with all its SF references; but then I figured the readership here can handle it and might even savor it. And just in case the references were baffling, I decided to include some hyperlinks.


*CrossGen briefly published a wonderful series called The Crossovers, about a family whose members’ secret lives each represented a different genre: the father was a superhero, the mother was a vampire slayer, the daughter was a sword-and-sandal warrior princess, and the son was an accomplice to an invasion by extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, it disappeared in the CrossGen implosion, after only nine issues. In addition to representing the aforementioned genres, it was also a humor book, with the tag, “Four genres—one bathroom!”