Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor - Volume 1 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects the first eighteen Thor stories which appeared in the anthology series Journey Into Mystery Issue 83-100. Overall, these are impressive stories with great art by Jack Kirby. Kirby brings Thor and all these amazing Asgardian characters to life with some of his best work for Marvel in the 1960s.

Having read the first adventures of a variety of Marvel heroes, it seems to me that these early Thor Adventures are the most DC-like creation Stan Lee came up with. Throughout most of these stories, Thor is much more iconic than he is human, a lot more like Superman than Spider-man.

The romantic relationship stuff might have been the only thing that was Marvelesque because the general template of Don Blake's relationship to Jean Foster was the same as Peter Parker to Betty Brant, Matt Murdoch to Karen Page, and Tony Stark to Pepper Potts.

However, the villains really work well and provide some of the books' strongest moments. Loki (and his dupes) are perfect foils for Thor and they're in a lot of stories. This book also sees the first appearance of Mister Hyde and the Radioactive Man. The writers also wrote, "Tales of Asgard" which gave Marvel adaptations of Norse legends which was helpful since Norse mythology was not nearly as well known as the Greek or Roman

Overall, this book was a lot of fun. It doesn't rise to the level of emotional engagement of the best Marvel books and it's not quite as fun as DC's most entertaining books, but it's still a very enjoyable read with great art and a good concept for a character.



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