Journey into Mystery #83

Thor Meets the Stone Men of Saturn

By Stan Lee with Larry Leiber, Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott

Villains: The Stone Men of Saturn

Guest Appearances: none

So, What Happens?

Frail American Doctor Don Blake is on holiday in Norway. A local fisherman claims to have seen an alien spaceship landing and despite his compatriots failing to believe him Blake decides to investigate his story.

He finds the aliens, giant stone monsters, planning to kill anyone who discovers them. They notice Blake and send him fleeing. He falls into a cave at the bottom of a ravine and seems trapped until he strikes the stone wall with a stick he found in the cave.

Blake instantly transforms into the powerful figure of Thor, Norse God of Thunder while the stick becomes Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.

With his new found strength he soon gets out of the cave and is soon familiarising himself with the magical abilities of his hammer.

As Thor he flies after the alien invaders and manages to defeat their fleet of ships and their battle robot and then sends them packing back into space.

As NATO troops come to clear up the damage Thor strikes his hammer on the ground and is lame Don Blake once more.

So is it any good?:

Not really, the Kirby/Sinnott art isn’t bad and Joe Sinnott would actually be associated with the title’s art chores for a lot of the early period before Kirby and Colletta settled down as the regular art team. I also quite liked the design of the aliens, their looming rocky forms being well suited to Kirby’s style particularly in black and white, in fact Kirby had used similar designs many times in monster comics.

The one thing that isn’t classic blocky Kirby is Thor himself who is a lot younger and slender than he would become in later years and has something of the polished Joe Sinnott look about him rather than the heavy solidity of Kirby.

Aside from the art it doesn’t really rise above the average. That said it does strike me as being more of a classical super hero story than we have seen so far.

In Don Blake we have an unassuming secret identity and he has control over when he can become Thor and that transformation is unquestionably positive and welcomed. So far we haven’t really seen a Marvel book on those lines, while the Fantastic Four do of course have powers they are far closer in feel to the teams of adventurers who featured in books like the Challengers of the Unknown or even Rip Hunter Time Master (which even featured the lead characters best friend and girlfriend, and her kid brother) at DC.

The Hulk of course had a secret identity but he hardly welcomed changing into the dangerous Hulk and the Hulk himself hadn’t really acted in any way heroically in his first two appearances. Don Blake on the other hand tries to remember half forgotten stories about Thor to discover what he can do and then willingly goes into battle against the aliens.

Even as Blake he had been willing to investigate the aliens, simply unable to tackle them despite his bravery. It’s a much less complex relationship (at least at first) than Banner’s with the Hulk and, in the way it outlines immediately what happens when Thor drops his hammer or taps it on the floor, a lot more like the classic DC or Fawcett heroes who are pure of heart but have set weaknesses that provided the drama in their stories. There is a lot of Captain Marvel in the transformation but also a lot of Superman in the secret identity and powers.

It would be a very long time before the run found its feet and dealt with an eternal immortal with his Asgardian supporting cast. Right now it is very much a crippled human doctor being empowered by the hammer to enable him to deal with threats and then returning unassuming humanity at the stories end.

There are a lot of ideas and story hooks inherent in the concept but this is quite an average story.

Are there any goofy moments?

Apparently it takes two taps of Mjolnir to summon a storm, three taps to get rid of it, and one tap to transform from Thor to Don Blake. Is there some sort of time delay on transforming while Mjolnir waits to see if a second tap is coming? In issue 84 Blake does indeed summon storms using the two taps without becoming Thor at any point.

The Stone Men notice that they are far stronger on earth than on their homeworld and one then immediately leaps from a high cliff onto the rocks below to show off their invulnerability. He must have been pretty sure of the limits of that strength boost.

The inscription on the side of Mjolnir promising the power of Thor to whoever can wield it is pretty corny. Especially as it is only visible when Mjolnir is a hammer, which only happens when Thor is wielding it.

Thor is misspelt Thorr in the box detailing the next issue.

Trivia:

The Stone Men of Saturn eventually got named Kronans and revealed to be from a lot further afield than Saturn. Apparently they were from the planet Ria with a base on Saturn. The band of Kronans from this story reappeared in Thor 255 during a space epic and one, Korg, went on years later to become a supporting character in the Incredible Hulk. This wasn’t their first attempt at invading the Earth. Here they had the misfortune of timing their invasion alongside Don Blake becoming Thor. In Captain America Annual 11 they ran into a time travelling Cap in ancient Mesopotamia.

When Don Blake becomes Thor he clearly still has the mind of Don Blake, having to remember what he can from childhood tales of Norse Mythology to work out what Thor can do. It is very much Blake becoming Thor for the length of the incident and not some eternal mythological figure. This would eventually be addressed in Thor 159 that revealed that Don Blake was a creation of Odin, designed to give his son humility.

Is it a landmark?:

Yes, although it is a long way from what most people think of as Thor.

Where can I read it?:

The first Thor Essentials and Masterworks and Omnibus volumes.