World Famous Comics: Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Volume 5
Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Volume 5
By: Stan Lee Publisher: Marvel Comics Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Format: Import Label: Marvel Comics Number of Pages: 200 Publication Date: 2006
Product Description: Written by STAN LEE Penciled by JACK KIRBY Cover by JACK KIRBY We've been ordered from on high, True Believers, and Marvel doesn't say "Nay" to our ol' buddy Odin! That's right, it's time for another captivating Masterworks collection of the one and only Mighty Thor! A masterpiece of immortal action, cosmic scope, and boundless drama, Stan and Jack's Thor collaborations mark a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe, and that's no small accomplishment coming from the imaginations of the most celebrated creators in comics! And boy, oh boy, bunky, do they knock it up a notch, a cosmic notch, with the tales we'll be bringing you here! It all begins when the Thunder God is captured by Rigellian colonizers and taken on a trip to the Black Galaxy to confront the one and only Ego, the Living Planet! It's non-stop action, action, action from there as he journeys to Wundagore Mountain to meet the matchless High Evolutionary and his menagerie of man-beasts! It all wraps up with a trio of titanic tussles between Odin's Son and Ulik the Troll, the Growing Man, and the Destroyer! There's a soft spot to these tales too, so don't forget your hanky as Thor struggles to reconcile his love for the mortal Jane Foster, and then there's the return of a certain Lady Sif...The cup runneth over with drama and delight! Collecting THOR (Vol. 1) #131-140 & ANNUAL #2. 256 PGS./All Ages
Jack Kirby's best work...ever! Once upon a time I had a complete run of Silver age "Thor" books, and I have to confess that the series did get rather dull, starting around... hmmmm... let's see... maybe in the issue numbers 160-something? By the 180's it was so totally over. Thor was in a gigantic creative rut that wouldn't be cured until Walt Simonson took over in the 1980s.
But *these* issues -- oh, my! -- the issues collected in this volume of Marvel Masterworks... These glorious episodes from "The Mighty Thor" #131-140, these are the Jack Kirby-Marvel motherlode. Here, Thor went sci-fi in a big, big way, and Kirby never came up with anything as mindblowingly grand, or fabulous, or far-out as these issues. Great concepts and crazy characters such as Tana Nile, the Colonizers and -- WOW! -- Ego, The Living Planet(!) were perhaps the best-realized and best-illustrated sci-fi concepts of his career. This stuff is even better than most of the peak-era "Fantastic Four," and certainly better than the sloppy-looking stuff he did in the 'Seventies ("Forever People," etc.) Overall, "Thor" was a pretty lame book, but these issues were really amazing. If you want Jack Kirby at his best, this is where to look. Too bad they couldn't have kept it at this level forever. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)
5 stars with one caveat this volume contains some of the best stories of the whole LEE and KIRBY run on THOR. included are; THOR'S trip to RIGEL, EGO the living planet, JANE FOSTER in ASGARD, the LADY SIF, ULIK and the ROCK TROLL invasion of ASGARD. this should be a 10 star volume. what's the caveat then? it's the color reconstruction. it doesn't look quite right. some of the subtlety of KIRBY'S magnificent artwork is missing. this is also true of volumes 3 and 4 of this series. when compared to the black and white softcover THOR ESSENTIAL series this same artwork looks somewhat crude and garish. i suppose we're lucky to even have a hardcover version of these great stories. they are some of the very best of the whole silver age of MARVEL COMICS. unfortunately due to the color reconstruction i think they look better in the ESSENTIAL'S black and white than the MASTERWORK'S color. ps. for information about art reconstruction in comic book reprints check out watcher's review (and comments) of "marvel masterworks: the mighty thor vol. 6". it's very enlightening and it explains why some of the artwork in the marvel masterworks series doesn't look right.
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