Marvel's Thor - A brief history: 1 Lee and Kirby

Thor was created in 1962 to headline the anthology "Journey into Mystery", with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby fitting him with a very auspicious beginning. The story in #83 introduced the Norse God into the nascent Marvel universe by casting him in a generic science fiction scenario. The underdeveloped feature had an additional misfortune that both of it's creators couldn't devote much of their creative energies in his first year of stories. Yet, the character continue to headline the anthology and little by little, the broad strokes of the mythology started to fill out.

In a way, Thor was Marvel's reaction to Superman, a very powerful folk hero with a civilian secret identity that was in love with his co-worker. The physician Donald Blake was a handicapped man that transformed into a mythic hero by tapping his stick, but aside from a vague mythology connection, his stories had little to differentiate them from many of his costume compatriots. Early on, the creators settled on his evil half-brother Loki being his chief foil, with their rivalry overseen by the leader of the pantheon, Odin.

Jack Kirby never stops tinkering with the latter's design, with the All-father changing appearance in every issue. Much more tellingly, the creators slowly step away from Donald Blake as a human host for Thor, and start treating them as one and the same. Much like the murky origin, the character is slow to pick up a gallery of foes, with the creators resorting to uninspired Silver Age cliches (a double, an evil wizard), with an early low point being a retooling of the Fantastic Four's first encounter with the Skrulls. Some of these characters, such as the Radioactive man and Lava man would later work their way into other comics, but by and large the comic was hurting from not receiving Lee and Kirby's full attention.

In these early days, Lee and Kirby are slow to make full use of the Norse mythology that first inspired them and Thor is basically used as simply a powerful Silver Age superhero, frequently foiled by the Mister Hyde and Human Cobra teaming up. Beginning with "Journey into Mystery" #97, the character was additionally featured in a supplement called "Tales of Asgard", that started by retelling original Norse myths in pages consisting of four panels, which really brought Jack Kirby's contributions to the fore.

In the main feature, Thor continued to fight with the likes of Grey Gargoyle, with the subplots basically relegated to the budding romance between his civilian alter ego and nurse Jane Foster, who was unlikely to win Odin's favor. Thor was also a founding Avengers, with the team-up title serving to introduce him to the company's wider readership. Following the obligatory crossovers with the X-Men and the Hulk, the title finally gets around to introducing an iconic Silver Age villain in the Absorbing man, made into a credible foil thanks to his ability to transform into the materials he touched.

After finally deciding to dig into Thor and make the title work, Lee and Kirby launch into a longer saga pitting Loki against Thor, in the process introducing the Destroyer armor. Sporting a strong Kirby design, the Destroyer was to remain a staple of Thor mythos, but Loki was proving much more problematic. Despite receiving constant attention, Thor's evil sibling seemed slow to develop into an interesting foil, and was basically relegated to a role of laughing maniac, a petty wizard who enjoyed being evil and dreaming of seizing his father's throne.

The back-up "Tales of Asgard" continued to reintroduce the heroes of Norse mythology, such as Balder the Brave and Heimdall, the guardian of Asgard's rainbow bridge. These characters were slow to reappear in the main Thor stories, which were still benefiting from the increased focus. In Lee and Kirby's hands, Hercules, the Greco-Roman demigod served as a perfect foil for their protagonist, with the hedonist champion standing in stark contrast to the dignified Thor. The heroes were quick to establish a friendly rivalry, with Thor's loyalty to his opposite number in the different pantheon a driving force behind the character's another memorable early adventure.

With #126, the feature took over the anthology, with "the Mighty Thor" finding his place on the racks among other more popular Marvel characters. Gone were the days of small panels filled with familiar comic book imagery, the Jack Kirby of mid 1960s was an artist increasingly sure in himself, with his pages bursting with energy as the larger then life characters fought out their conflicts on a scale they truly deserved.

In every way that matters, Lee and Kirby were finally hitting their stride, which meant further changes for Thor. Specifically, the creators continued to step away from his civilian life, with doctor Donald Blake's practice getting increasingly sidelined for the epic adventures. As the creators were opening up the outer space to add another dimension to their hero's adventures, Jane's continued to act as Thor's human anchor, with the hero that once labored over revealing his human identity to her now considering whether their marriage would gain his father's approval.

Thor's outer space adventure introduced the memorable characters of Rigellian Recorder, Ego the Living Planet and the High Evolutionary, once again proving how far the creative team's come from the title's meager beginnings. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were really hitting their stride with "Thor", featuring memorable characters and settings each issue, that have remained the staples of the characters ever since. Yet even then, the duo had to slow down for an issue, to resolve the question of Jane Foster. Thus, #136 pitted Jane against Odin's scorn for his son's mortal paramour, at the same time introducing Lady Sif as the character's new love interest (a different version of Sif was introduced as Balder's sister in an early "Tales of Asgard" back issue).

Lee and Kirby were not at all subtle in giving Thor a female companion that could carry her own in battle, making her a much more natural part of the title. Another multipart story introduced Ulik the Troll, before settling down for a series of more pedestrian issues. Thus, our hero faces the Avengers' arch-foe Kang and his android, with another robot to follow in the very next issue's episode. There is a momentum that propels all of these stories, even when they are as inessential as a fight with Fantastic Four's Superskrull.

A fight against the Enchanters (no relation to Enchantress, introduced in an early Lee/Kirby issue) quickly turns deadly and raises the stakes for the title's increasingly grandiose stories. Thor's Asgardian allies finally start playing a larger role in the main plot, even as the back-up that introduced them was discontinued with #145. The complicated relationship between Odin and Thor begats an oddball story of a powerless Thor working for the Circus of Crime, but at this point there is such a rhythm and energy to the title that the reader is liable to find charm in the creative duo's indulging their whims.

Having made Loki into Thor's arch-villain, Lee and Kirby naturally return to the character, who serves to introduce another of Marvel's perennial Silver age supervillains - the Wrecker. His debut signals the beginning of another multipart epic, benefiting from having a workable cast of characters. Hela, the Norse goddess of death makes a memorable early appearance as Thor battles life and death to help his friends. At this point, the title is making the most of its potential as a vehicle of retelling heroic legends by using Marvel's Silver Age superhero formula, and the reader is delighted to be along for the ride.

It's interesting to ponder Thor's companion Balder the brave's place in Lee and Kirby's work. Whereas Thor as depicted in these pages still seems torn between Earth and Asgard, his Asgardian friend is continually depicted as extremely competent and fiercely loyal. After envying Thor for having Sif at his side, the creators provide the supporting character with his own paramour, in the guise of beautiful Karnilla. By making her into a witch queen, the creators make for an interesting contrast and add more drama and flavor to their ever expanding cast.

With the same care applied to the main plot, Thor once again encounters Ulik, with the Troll reawakening the ancient evil that is Mangog. Despite the unfortunate design, the villain's appearance signals probably the strongest Thor story to date. With the monster powered by the anger of an entire race seemingly wronged by Odin, the powerhouse makes its way across Asgard to the Odin's throne, intent on unleashing Ragnarok against the Nordic pantheon.

Thor's "Tales of Asgard" companions make their first real appearance in the main title and are dully dispatched by the unstoppable evil of Mangog, in his attempt to raise the Odinsword against all that our hero holds dear. Following what is without a doubt the creative peak of the Lee and Kirby run, the duo stops to provide a recap for their previous work with the character, in the process making another set of revisions to his meager origins. Namely, #159 tackles the question of Donald Blake's relationship to the Norse deity that he inhibits, in effect providing a new origin for the popular character.

Once again, the creators were forced to reconsider their early work and find a way to proceed further with a stronger foundation. Interestingly, when they were finished with the controversial move, they repositioned the title as something approaching a "Fantastic Four" spin-off. For almost a full year Galactus remains a presence in the pages of "Thor", which is where his origin gets told. This is followed by another story featuring the rebirth of Adam Warlock (then known as Him), once again a solid Lee/Kirby effort that makes use of the existing Thor mythos, but in a way that builds upon the pair's work in their more popular title.

At this point, it's unavoidable to discuss the impending split between Lee and Kirby, as the period corresponds to the time the artist has been said to have saved his new characters and concepts to be used by his work outside of Marvel. Perhaps this explains the amount of space given to the concepts the pair have already established in their previous work, but it also speaks to a larger question, that of the authorship of the stories themselves.

Jack Kirby, unsatisfied with the compensation for his work that won the hearts and minds of Marvel fans felt that he was contributing much more than the artwork on the company's magazines. The writer/artist felt that he was largely responsible for creating the stories themselves, working from a very loose plots devised with Lee. 1970's Jack Kirby was no longer an inventive artist tasked with helping birth Marvel's Silver Age superhero line - he was a superstar and a major draw for the company that has richly capitalized on his work.

By this point, he was very aware of his strengths as a storyteller, and his last issues on "Thor" are certainly seem like the work of a man who is holding back on unleashing the full brunt of his talent. Seeing Thor fight another robot in Thermal man and watching his rematch with the Wrecker seem inconsequential even compared to the prolonged fight against Galactus that returned the title to outer space and reunited Thor with the Recorder. Ironically, a one-off story featuring Thor trusting to a science fiction procedure to save his former love Jane Foster reads like a classic Jack Kirby tale.

Ulik's reappearance tied to another bout with the Circus of Crime is merely uninspired, while the next issue's encounter with Crypto-Man goes so far to rework an entire earlier issue of "Thor". It is no wonder that Kirby was gone before the end of the next storyline, itself largely a callback to the earlier Mangog conflict. Loki and Surtur make much less of an impression with their plan to attack Asgard, and by the time the reader notices that Jack Kirby is missing, they will be given little reason to continue.

What awaited was a short run with Lee scripting over John Buscema's pencils, mostly notable for introducing the legendary penciler to the title that he'll be working on for years on end. Unfortunately, starting with the story featuring the Stranger, Buscema's work on the title will provide full of stories that can largely be categorized as harmless diversions that kept the character on the newstands, in lieu of producing entertaining work that could compare to the Lee/Kirby original.

Some of Kirby's last "Thor" pages end up providing an introduction to an instantly forgettable story of Loki trading places with Thor. One Silver Age cliche is supplanted by another as Thor fight Doctor Doom, another staple of Fantastic Four franchise that has had such an unexpected impact on the title. Lee sticks around for a mystical adventure pitting Thor against the all encompassing other-dimensional evil of Infinity, that provides a strangely ominous atmosphere and highlights Buscema's strengths as a penciler. Hela once more plays a larger ruler in the story, before Lee returns to Loki.

Thor's evil step brother is the villain of the last regular Stan Lee "Thor" story, with Durok the Demolisher the writer's last addition to the series. The android would show Thor a future ravaged by man's worst faults, in the process coming into conflict with Silver Surfer, a character associated with both Lee and Buscema. Yet, it was Gerry Conway that was slated to wrap up the conflict, in the process becoming the title's new writer.

Lee will return to his co-creation a couple of times, but never in an ongoing commitment. After experiencing the pinnacle of his writer/artist career with the Fourth World books as DC, Jack Kirby eventually returned to Marvel in 1977. His latter day work on "the Eternals" proved surprisingly influential on the Buscema drawn Thor plots, but it was his entire body of work that has inspired and continues to inspire countless writers and artists working in the superhero tradition.

the Deathwish of terrible Stone

A lone police lieutenant, on the verge of retirement decides that he's been stuck on the sidelines of the superhero fights for too long, and in the middle of a savage brawl, threatening to destroy an urban metropolis, decides to make his stand. Barging in amid amazingly powerful figures claiming celestial powers, a single mortal man risks everything to bring in a savage madman, no matter his towering size, or beastly physique. Despite seemingly having no chance of stopping the lunatic bursting with power, the veteran lieutenant prevails by sheer force of will, stopping the invading lunatic amid rooftops toppling all over, in the process helping the superheroes avert a deadly outcome.

At first glance, this amounts to be a summary of what is arguably one of Jack Kirby's highlights in working on the sprawling Fourth World saga, "New Gods #8", that has long been recognized a classic superhero moment. The saga was a logical extension from his work on "Thor", and even hints at taking place in the future after the fall of Old Gods. The implied connection aside, Kirby's work has long been one of the chief artistic influences on creators working in mainstream superhero industry that he helped define in his mountain of prolific work.

Thus, seeing creators working on the books he created routinely leads to some amount of homage to "the King", which has always been respected, if not outright encouraged by the fans. When Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz got tasked with continuing "Thor", after Walt Simonson left the title, following a change in the editorial direction, the mandate seems to have been to go back to the title's roots. Bit by bit, the character was restored to a semblance of his original Silver age incarnation, as imagined by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Forgoing Simonson's take, heavily inspired by Norse mythology, DeFalco and Frenz deliberately proceeded in a different direction, first by returning the character's original costume, then by preventing him from returning to Asgard, the home of his fellow Norse Gods, and finally, by restoring Thor's secret identity.

Having recreated Thor as the Silver age Marvel book Lee and Kirby pioneered the concept as, DeFalco was free to construct stories inspired by mythology, and taking place on the streets of New York. In all this, he was aided by collaborator Ron Frenz, a Kirby inspired penciller who excelled equally at superhero fights, as well as the soap opera amid the newly created human supporting cast, centered around Thor's new human host. Inked by veteran artist Joe Sinnott, Frenz' adoration of Kirby extended past figurework, and extended to include layouts, and even panel shapes.

It's clear that DeFalco and Frenz, following their collaboration on "Amazing Spider-Man", envisioned their "Thor" to be a callback to Kirby, but even then, #414 is guaranteed to surprise the reader cognizant of the King's DC work. Simply put, a major subplot in the issue doubles Kirby's "New Gods #8" almost scene by scene, and there can be no doubt that this is intentional. Using the introductory paragraph of this review as the deliberately generic approximation of the actions of a supporting character in a superhero comic, fits both Metropolis' lieutenant Dan "Terrible" Turpin and his opposite number Marc Stone from NYPD.

For a start, creating in 1990, DeFalco and Frenz could routinely make their supporting character African American without feeling the need to stress it out. Working two whole decades previously, Kirby's two major Fourth World minority characters were named Vykin the black and Black racer, which is understandable considering the comicbook standards of the time. In fact, despite a minor Jimmy Olsen character being a stereotypical African American sidekick, Kirby's Silver age work was still forward thinking enough to produce the first major African superhero in Black Panther, and it's clear that the King at least tried to be respectful when in comes to the racial issues in his later work.

Considering that Dan Turpin has since been recognized as a stand in for Jack Kirby in "Superman the animated series", the race issue is largely irrelevant when making the comparison. Marvel's lieutenant Stone has gone on to become a long standing Thor character (continuing into Frenz' run spin-off "Thunderstrike"), while Turpin's popularity still stems from New Gods #8, and the defining moment Kirby crafted for him in the soon to be cancelled title. It is no mistake that many have recognized parallels to the King's own past in the tough as nails police lieutenant, raised on the suburbs of the urban metropolis, and determined to make his voice heard. This same scrappy and individualistic streak can be seen in Fantastic Four's Thing, another fictional stand in for Kirby, at least as some of his fanbase is concerned.


In both cases, the writers wheel out a traditional cop fiction trope of a police officer determined to make a stand when faced with a chance of an early retirement. When it comes to comics, perhaps this is epitomized in Frank Miller's "That Yellow bastard", which can be said to be completely devoted to a Terrible Turpin's fighting back against forces beyond his control in Sin City, albeit stylized in such a way that pays equal tribute to creator's past in superhero publishing and the crime fiction that inspired him. It goes without saying that Kirby's passionate portrayal and a career high point overshadows DeFalco and Frenz's effort that is even advertized as nothing more than another fight between Thor and Ulik.

Perhaps the most direct comparison lies in the choice of villain in Thor #414, as the rock troll is look virtually identical to how Kalibak was depicted in "New Gods". It goes without saying that Ulik is another Kirby creation, but even then both are portrayed as hideous giants sporting wild manes and full beard, spending most of their fight against respectively lt. Stone and Turpin with most of their costume in shreds, or non existent. The effect is primal, designed to pit an ordinary man against a savage giant, and have him somehow manage to survive overwhelming odds stacked against him.

In fact, considering Kirby's inspirations when it comes to creating the Fourth World, it should come as no surprise even if the original scene was inspired by the biblical battle of David and Goliath. DeFalco and Frenz certainly harbor no such ambitions, and it can be seen that by reappropriating the original Turpin/Kalibak fight, the creators merely wished to extend their run, or even Thor's mythology, to include such an iconic moment, executed in the rival company's books. In fact, considering the nebulous state Kirby's original Fourth World books assumed in DC's continuity following the reboot of the Superman continuity they were ostensibly linked to, perhaps a deeper goal can be inferred in their New Gods homage.

They can be said to have brought back to Thor ideas that Kirby has reportedly saved away from future non-Marvel use, when he was finishing his first run with the company. And even though DC has continued to use New Gods since, the status of Kirby's original stories is still nebulous, due to successive creators sporadically and non consistently reintroducing parts of the King's Fourth World lore to the Superman family of titles.

In this aspect, by introducing the Turpin/Kalibak fight to the burgeoning Stone/Ulik feud, DeFalco and Frenz have made it a part of their story, and as such, it even works as a parallel of the Thor's secret identity dynamic. Marc Stone is presented as a man who has to choose between family and his vow to protect the innocents, which is the traditional inspiration for the superhero's troubles with keeping a private life separate from the constant barrage of villain of the month threats.

Yet, how DeFalco and Frenz continue their "Thor" run has little to do with the original point of comparison. By the time they started on the character, it was quite clear what were the limitations on working on company owned properties, and even the amount of influence a new take can have on the generation of creators that follow in their steps. If anything, by following Walt Simonson's run on Thor, both Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz seemed determined to return the character to his roots as a Kirby creation, and envisaging their own stories around it.

This is where the homage most importantly diverges from the inspiration. Coming to DC in 1970, Jack Kirby was given a guarantee that he will be able to publish three whole books, completely created, written, drawn and edited by himself. The only succession readily apparent was his work on Jimmy Olsen, and even then, he used the book to launch the other Fourth World titles. The King was reportedly working for a much higher fee than DC's standard creative roster, and everything that followed until the books' eventual cancellation was a unique experience at that point in superhero comics. To this day it's unheard of that a single artist can be able to write and draw four bi-monthly books, with three of them at the same time being completely created from his own ideas. Even today, it's pretty unlikely that a company would let a single individual, no matter how talented and influential, basically create his own imprint in the middle of their publishing line, and proceed to do work that his little to do with the other titles of their line.

Of course, the hard lesson behind "Death wish for terrible Turpin" and the plethora of other stories, both teased and realized, was that the work was still company owned, and there quickly came a point where DC decided to let Kirby refocus his efforts in creating new properties that they would have more control over. Thus, the King was forced to unceremoniously cancel the Fourth World titles, and concentrate his efforts on tying in to the "Planet of Apes" popularity by creating a DC comic book approximation in "Kamandi". Even "Demon", the supernatural anti-hero realized as a superhero comic was purposefully divorced from the Fourth World concept.

That DC has continually returned to the New Gods concepts following Kirby's return to Marvel is of little consequence, seeing as how it was overshadowed by the King's fighting for intellectual rights to the characters he created and developed into perennial sellers for the Big Two superhero publishers. Kirby was always adamant that he preferred working on his own characters, and his one advice to the up and coming creators was always to try and develop their own heroes and setting, and not to continue retracing his steps.

In that respect, it's very strange to see lieutenant Stone fight Ulik in exactly the same way Terrible Turpin fought Kalibak, and have it all take place in the pages of Kirby's "Thor". The love and respect DeFalco and Frenz no doubt harbor toward Kirby's work informs every one of their pages, but there is little doubt how their idol would have looked at the work they created. Even if it was only to amuse themselves and play at the times they were already creating in "Thor", DeFalco would recently publicly complain that he was being type cast into writing a certain kind of company comic.

This was in context of his and Frenz's run on "Spider-Girl", but it nevertheless speaks to certain underlying truths of North American Direct Market publishing. Mainstream creators are encouraged to nurture their own sensibilities, but the financial reward is certain only when working on decades old company owned characters, whose stories have been told and retold countless times from their original creation. Arguably, it can be said that a Kirby fan reading "Thor" comics looks for precisely the kind of New Gods recreation DeFalco and Frenz exhibited in Thor #414, but is there any surprise then that a potential new audience keeps resisting these decades old characters and storytelling techniques?