05 January 2012 - Super Powered Fiction

The Thor’s Day series of articles originally started on my Take the Helm blog back in mid-2010. I fell away from writing them regularly and never got back to them, but will now start to reprint them here in preparation of continuing the series. So for the next several weeks, enjoy these reprints of old Thor’s day articles, while new ones will appear to continue the articles through the rest of Simonson’s run right in to the DeFalco/Frenz era.

This is the first in a series of irregular reviews of various great comic series of the past, and I can think of few places better to start than with Walter Simonson’s Mighty Thor. So every Thursday you will be able to look forward to a new installment of “Thor’s Day”. We start with his first issue, Mighty Thor 337.

Like so many of Simonson’s works, his run on Thor starts with an epic scope with massive panels showing something being forged. What it is is still unclear, though the final anvil strike does come with the sound effect “DOOM!”.

Is that the Dreaded Deadline version or just the regular?

From there we go to Dr. Donald Blake (secret identity of Thor if you didn’t already know) as he walks through Grant Park. Apparently, Don was based in Chicago at the time. His time in peace is quickly interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Nick Fury, head of SHIELD. It seems that a threat from outer space is on the way and it’s up to the Mighty Thor to stop it.

Before we can reach space though we get a brief digression. In Asgard, Sif laments her loss of Thor, but moreso her loss of action.

…as long as Walt is drawing me.

Back to Thor on his way in to space. I love Simonson’s skewed angles when we go in to flight mode, especially in to space. Anyway, Thor goes to confront the offending space-craft. After an attack from the automated defenses, he smashes his way inside, only to be grabbed by a massive hand.

Back in Asgard, we focus on Loki this time. He meets a young woman named Lorelei, clearly a sign of things to come.

Back in space, Thor’s attack reveals himself, and he is a figure clearly recognizable to long time Marvel fans.

This costume is strangely similar to his later Star Masters look.

Beta Ray Bill and Thor do battle. Thor looses his hammer after a particularly mighty blow. After a minute, he reverts to his Donald Blake form and is knocked out by Bill.

Bill goes in search of Thor’s hammer, but it has reverted back in to Blake’s walking stick. Angered, Bill slames it in to a wall. In the process, he is tranformed in to the more common image we know of Beta Ray Thor. He moves to defend his ship, but his battle takes him against Fury and agents of SHIELD.

But the battle is interrupted by a message from Odin. The king of Asgard summons Thor back to his home… only he summons the wrong Thor! And Donald Blake is left powerless among the mortals as the issue comes to an end.

This article originally appeared at New Pulp.

It is nearly the end of 2011, so this reviewer thinks it is time he looks back at the best pulp work he read in the year. I have certainly read more pulp this year than any other in my life, but there is one clear work that stands out to me as the story that I enjoyed the most.

And that title is Marvel’s Mystery Men. (This is not to be confused with Airship 27’s Mystery Men (& Women), the second volume of which I just reviewed last week.)

Over the course of five issues, writer David Liss not only introduces five new pulp heroes to populate early 1930s Marvel, he also scripts a compelling adventure featuring all of them. The story starts with the mysterious Operative, easily the most normal of the bunch. He’s just a man in a trench coat, fedora and mask, but over the course of the series the reader gets a good idea of what motivates him. The Aviatrix may be the most derivative character, basically a female Rocketeer. The Revenant is a vigilante in the Shadow mold that uses tricks and gadgets to appear as an unearthly phantom. Achilles is a young man rejected by his love and left for dead who takes up mystic artifacts to become the most powerful of the loose band of heroes. Finally, the Surgeon is a character in the Spider mold; a man with a brutal history, a terrible disfigurement and an urge to kill as many villains as possible.

The five heroes all enter the series from different angles over the course of the first three chapters, but they all face the same opponent: a madman named the General and his unearthly love interest, who just happens to be an obscure Marvel villain.

David Liss is no stranger to the period, having written several prose novels set in the era. He handles character development surprisingly well for a series jam-packed with characters. The artist, Patrick Zircher, is no stranger to pulp comic fans. Zircher broke in to comics with work on Now’s Green Hornet (alongside Airship 27’s Ron Fortier) and more recently with covers on Marvel’s Noir line of titles. He seems to have a good feel for blending pulp traditions with the superhero art styling of modern comics.

Together the two men have created a really great limited series, a rare breed in today’s comic field. The five issues are now sold out, but fortunately a hardcover edition is now available at comic shops (with bookstore distribution in the next few weeks). Do yourself a favor and don’t pass this one up a second time.

Mystery Men comes Highly Recommended. Pick up your copy from Amazon!