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Posts: 16415
Apr 21 09 6:52 PM
Golden Age
"There must always be those with the fire of rebellion in their blood! There must always be those who will dare to fight an unbeatable enemy! Only thus can the race of man remain strong and fearless!...It is good that the legends will say a day there was when Odin himself retreated!" - Odin Well, we're done with Thor Masterworks V2. It was better than V1, but it still wasn't very memorable. I think I'll be more and more entertained by all these mags the further we get into the runs.
JiM 110 didn't do a whole lot for me, but I thought this Tale of Asgard was the best yet, due to Odin's sentiment quoted above. Great little story from Stan and Jack. As for "Every Hand Against Him!", it featured the same formula as many previous Thor stories, and maybe that's why it seems stale. Loki manipulates the easily-duped Odin into screwing with Thor and Jane. (There isn't much humor to be found in the monthly Thor strip either.) At sixteen pages, it's halfway between a full-length story and a ten-page anthology backup. At the end of JiM 108, Odin prematurely ended the battle between Loki and Thor by having Loki apprehended and brought to Asgard. But here he is again on the loose in Asgard only two issues later, and with the ear of Odin to boot. There was absolutely no explanation as to why Odin didn't punish or imprison Loki or why he still takes his advice. In light of this, that plot device should no longer be employed. Stan should stop using Odin as a resolution at the end of Loki stories unless he's going to follow through and show Loki punished or imprisoned and show Odin as retaining his knowledge of Loki's manipulative nature. As it stands now, all I can assume is that Odin has a blind spot when it comes to his son and is in denial about him - he repeatedly forces himself to literally forget that Loki is evil and not to be trusted. I'll stop ragging on Odin and instead present the illustrations which justify his inclusion in the story. Does Stan make use of teenaged boys' arguments with their own fathers as a way to get them to relate to the main character of this magazine? Maybe such real-life conflict lent some immediacy to these stories. This illo features an arresting visual perspective. Odin has the power to transport Thor galaxies away in "a fraction of a micro-second", and "all the forces of Nature itself are subject to Odin's will". Odin thus ranks alongside the most powerful characters at this point in the SA Marvel Universe, such as Dormammu, the Watcher, and Reed Richards. I think we have to assume that the only reason Loki doesn't expose Don Blake to the world (or indeed kill Jane Foster outright) is because Odin has commanded him not to. But why should Loki care what Odin says? Odin hasn't inflicted any consequences on Loki since the early days of the feature. And come to that, why would Odin care about Jane or Blake? Is he protecting Jane from Loki? If that were the case, he would understand Thor's explanation on page 7 that he had to let Cobra and Hyde escape because they had Jane hostage. But Odin doesn't condone that decision. So if he's not protecting Jane from Loki, maybe he's humoring his son's desire to lead two lives? Or maybe Blake somehow really is Thor, and Odin views Don as his son. I've come to the realization that the exact nature of the Thor/Blake relationship is the central mystery of Journey into Mystery. Of course it could be that Loki has his own reasons for allowing Thor to continue to live a mortal life as Blake. Perhaps he sees this as Thor's only weakness and so tacitly encourages the cultivation of a Don/Jane romance. It would be cool if we were to learn that Loki or Odin also have mortal surrogates with the same strange relationship which Blake enjoys with Thor. Speaking of Loki, here are some good illos of him. If Thor senses Loki's presence on pages 1-2, can Loki also sense Thor? I really like the instantaneous change in between these two panels. The illusory facade vanishes in the wink of an eye. Hyde kind of looks like the Mad Thinker in that illo. (And with his gas mask on, he looks like the Porcupine at bottom of page 14.) Not every illustration in the issue is so well done. I think Kirby sabotaged himself on page ten, where the page is split into two equal panels which would have been put to better use if we weren't looking at Thor's back in both illos. Turning our attention to the human side of things, Don and Jane are getting pretty cozy these days. Here's Don getting "touchy-feely" in last month's story. You could've covered this pimple with some makeup. And this month, Jane reciprocates with some facial stroking of her own. I'll let you fill in your own dialogue for this one. As if we didn't know what was really on their minds, we have the benefit of some visual symbolism: Does Jane wonder how Thor learned about her predicament so quickly? He's on the scene within seconds. This is not the most flattering illustration I've ever seen of Jane Foster. I did like the story's ending, with Thor creating a time warp to keep Jane alive while he battles his foes in limbo. (We also saw the hammer create a time warp at the end of Avengers 7.) But if "there is no time", why is it that the villians' words follow sequentially one after another? This is one of the more dramatic Thor faces we've seen in many many months. And these next two panels make up for the hideous Jane illo I showed above.
Thor cries out in supplication Asgard and Odin. So we have the spectacle of a god virtually praying to a higher god. Odin offers no answer or assistance - this may as well be the Book of Job. Thor is forced to rely on himself, and makes time for one last cuddle to help gird himself for the coming struggle. It's interesting that Thor Masterworks Vol. 2 ends with a continued story. I have high expectations for Vols. 3-8.
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