The Mighty Thor

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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.

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.

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, w

Classic stories starring one of my favorite Marvel heroes. The artwork is lush, the stories are cosmic in scope, and the scripts have that whiz-bang quality that's sadly lacking from Marvel's current output. Awesome book---buy it already!