Essential Thor, Vol. 3 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects 30 issues of Thor from Issue 137-166. It's a massive volume given that these are Silver Age issues with back up "Tales of Asgard" including the first few issues and full 20 page stories in the last few issues.

Thor takes a few steps forward and a few steps back. In the first half of the book, the war against the Trolls is okay, but then Thor is depowered by Odin so he's only got his strength for---reasons. The stated reason eventually is Thor's lack of humility but he really hadn't shown a lack of humility. Unlike Odin's earlier reactions to Thor's desire for Jane Foster, Odin's actions in this book are entirely arbitrary and capricious. While that might reflect general view of God or any gods, in the context of Thor, it really betrays the character.

The depowered Thor meets up with the Crime Circus, a perfectly okay foe for the early days of Daredevil and Spider-man, but not really a worthy foe for Thor in the late Silver age.

In addition, the Tales of Asgard began to wear thinner. There was less to say and it was with good reason, Thor stopped carrying these back up stories.

Then the book got very good in its seconds half as Thor had to deal with the potential coming of Ragnorak. It was an epic multi-issue story bringing together so many together and so much action, it was just tremendous.

Then the book featured Thor, Galactus, and Ego the Living Planet in conflict. Here, the superb nature of Jack Kirby's art work shines through as we're given some epic threads and moments.

Finally, we get a chapter in the Adam Warlock saga, though at this time, the character was simply known as "Him."

This is also very good stuff. The other big positive of the book is that with Jane Foster out of the picture, Sif is Thor's love interest and she's a more interesting character and also can contribute to the action. She makes even the lesser stories better.

Overall, this isn't quite as good as Volume 2, but when the book is good, it makes up for the weaker stories in the first part of the volume.



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