World Famous Comics: Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials)
Essential Thor, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials)
By: Stan Lee Publisher: Marvel Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Marvel Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 616 Publication Date: October 18, 2006 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: Trolls, giants, aliens and clowns await in the third thunderous anthology of Thor! The Mighty One faces a god of death, a living planet, Ragnarok itself and... a jail term!? Kang the Conqueror, the Super-Skrull and more! Featuring the first appearance of the scintillating Sif! Plus: the origin of that perennial perilous party crasher, the Wrecker! Guest-starring Adam Warlock and Galactus! Collects Thor #137-166.
Kirby at his best Jack Kirby is called 'The King Of Comics' and for good reason and if these issues don't blow you away nothing will. Kirby goes wild and churns up magical and mystical places that are breathtaking. He is inked mostly by Vince Coletta who butchered Kirby in the Fantastic Four but seems to have learned his lesson and has left well enough alone and inked Kirby without altering it. I still say Joe Sinnott is far superior and it would have been a delight to see his work here but nevertheless, it stills stands out.
Lee's writing is still witty but he seems to have found the flavor of Thor that was lacking in previous issues with King James type English and foes worthy of a Thunder God. This is probably the dynamic duo at their best for in Fantastic Four, Kirby was limited to machinery but here his imagination is allowed to explode on the page and it does with large breathtaking panels and expressive battle scenes that look better than most Hollywood action films.
I miss Jack Kirby greatly for there has never been an artist since that has captured the panel like Kirby. He gets complaints over his facial renditions (they all look the same) and his altering of costumes and looks at his whim but let's face it -- nobody worked harder than Jack Kirby -- nobody and there will never be an artist like him again.
To Slightly Paraphrase Ron Burgundy: Buy the Hammer of Thor! This collection of Asgard's mightiest is well up to standards of the Marvel Essentials series!
The best of the Thor Essential volumes released so far Volume 3 is the best of the Thor Essentials released so far. The Stan Lee writing/Jack Kirby artwork for Thor had matured and was at its peak by volume 3. The villains were more entertaining too. Thor companions Balder and Sif have a much larger role in these stories.
The B&W reproductions of the pages is generally very good, with a few exceptions.
I'm hoping for a Thor volume 4, but so far none appears to be available.
Lorenzo, Milan Italy It is always wonderful to see Thor in action... so many memories!
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby create the glory days for the Mighty Thor Volume 3 of "The Essential Thor" provides the stories of the Thunder God that appeared in issues #137-66 of "The Mighty Thor," which includes the five-page "Tales of Asgard" stories appearing in the back of the comic through issue #145. The filler with the Inhumans that replaced "Tales of Asgard" is reprinted in this volume, but they only ran through #152, making #153 the first issue of the comic book with a 20-page story about the title character. At this point writer Stan Lee and penciler Jack Kirby are joined by inker Vince Colletta, who does all of the issues except for #143, which is actually inked by Bill Everett, with Joe Sinnot lending a hand on seven issues according to the index, even though Sinnott's name does not appear on the title pages of those comics. I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to inking the King, I like what Colletta did on "Thor" and what Sinnott did on "The Fantastic Four."
The issues collected here are part of the second stage in the history of Thor as a Marvel character. The defining point for the shift to the second stage is fairly simple, coming when Jane Foster is written out of the series and the Lady Sif emerges as the new love interest for the Thunder God. This was a long time in coming and the idea that once Odin agrees to give Jane a chance the Earth woman freaks at the splendor of Asgard, even after being turned into a goddess, was a bit forced. But the shift to Sif represented what had been the most important development during the first stage with Lee and Kirby, which was the decision to start working in the characters and stories of Norse mythology. That meant not only having Loki running around as the Thunder God's chief nemesis, but Balder emerging as Thor's best friend, and Fandral, Hogun the Grim, and Volstagg as the comic relief (in the Shakespearean sense to be sure, but comic relief none the less). True, you have to wonder why the all-seeing and all-knowing Odin does not take care of Loki once and for all, but that is only because we do not see the big picture like the big guy.
The major story-arc in this volume takes place almost entirely in Asgard (#154-57), when Ulik, the mightiest of the Trolls that Thor defeated at the start of the book (#137-39), finds the long-lost Odin-Cave and releases the Mangog, the last remaining member of a mysterious alien race that almost succeeded in destroying Asgard itself. The problem is that in Asgard's greatest hour of peril, the realm's ruler is sleeping the Odin-sleep, which is what gives him renewed life. While Odin sleeps and Thor is leading the fight against the Mangog with his power of a billion billion beings, Loki jumps on the throne and claims to be in charge. Mangog's goal is to draw the Odinsword and let Ragnarok fall (the end of the world as the Norse know it). In between Odin strips Thor of his powers (#145), and this time when Loki tries to take advantage of the situation the god of mischief loses his powers as well, which leads to a big battle with the Wrecker (#148-50), a thug with an enchanted crowbar who surprisingly turns out to be one of the better Thor villains, which leads right to another major opponent, the Destroyer (#150-52), and then Loki's attempt to take care of Thor by killing Don Blake.
There are fights against non-Asgardian villains with the Growing Man (#140), Replicus (#141), the Super-Skull (#142), and the Enchanters (#143-44). As the cover indicates, there is also a showdown between Thor and Galactus (#160-62), which is not quite as interesting as you would think (why did Odin not notice Galactus when he first showed up to consume the Earth?), followed by a conflict with the Greek god of the underworld, Pluto (#163-64), and then the strange being known as Him (#165), who would eventually become Adam Warlock (but that is another story, not yet reprinted in the Essentials series). In #158 the first appearance of Thor, when Don Blake finds the enchanted Uru Hammer in "Journey into Mystery" #83 is reprinted in part, and then in #159 we find out at last who is the real Don Blake in a much needed reconceptualization of the character's Marvel origin. Meanwhile, "Tales of Asgard" has the search for Mogul of the Mystic Mountain with Thor leading Fandral, Hogun and mighty Volstagg on their quest. The storyline is okay, but once "Tales" got away from Norse mythology to telling original stories it was no longer sufficiently different from the main storyline to justify Lee and Kirby continue doing it.
In reading these stories again I would have to say that in "The Essential Thor, Volume 3" is where you find Lee and Kirby at their best with this character. When you are the Norse god of thunder it is hard to come up with villains that will give the guy a run for his money. But in these 29 issues once we get beyond his arch-nemesis Loki we have Ulik, the Super-Skrull, Mangog, the Destroyer, the Wrecker, Galactus, Pluto, and Him. With the exception of the Super-Skrull, Lee and Kirby come up with multi-issue story lines to take advantage of these strong foes. Granted, these are not in color, which is why they are the most economical way to read these from 1967-69, and it would be nice to have those Inhuman stories just to have the complete comics as they were originally published, but for the Mighty Thor this is as good as it gets. Just look at how many times Kirby indulges in a full-page shot of Thor, Odin, Balder or some other character. I did not do the math, but I would think that his average number of panels per page is way closer to four than it is to five, which gives the King ample opportunity to have his characters strike heroic poses (and Kirby certainly loves the armor Odin wears).
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