Saturday Splash Page #99

 

"Arbor Day Surprise," in Tales to Astonish #13, by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber (writers), Jack Kirby (penciler), Dick Ayers (inker), Stan Goldberg (colorist), Ray Holloway (letterer)

Tales to Astonish would be Hank Pym's book for a time. First as Ant-Man, then Giant-Man, with the Wasp as his partner for much of it. Eventually, Pym would share the book with the Hulk, until being pushed out in favor of Namor as Marvel decided to gear a book towards fans of shirtless guys.

But before all that it was a book for short sci-fi/horror/suspense stories, the kind of stuff that would get reprinted in Fear. Minus two stories reprinted in that issue of Fear I linked, the only story I've got is the first appearance of Groot.

Or, a Groot, at least. It's your "monster of the week" fare, as Groot lands on Earth near an out-of-the-way town, and soon reveals himself, declaring his intent to take the town and its inhabitants back to Planet X for study. Which he's going to do by making the trees encircle the town and grow their roots underneath it and then carry the whole thing into space.

Where all the people will die from exposure to the vacuum. I guess Groot's people will learn at least one thing about humanity.

So this Groot is rocking some powers the Abnett/Lanning version didn't demonstrate, including the ability to draw strength from trees around him. This makes him too tough to burn, and the townspeoples' bullets can't penetrate deep enough to hit organs. But without guns and fire, what does humanity have? Why, science of course! The local scientist, who everyone (including his girlfriend) has derided as a milquetoast weakling for not picking up a gun at the first sign of trouble, saves the day with the power of termites he's been breeding in his lab.

The termites, high off alien lumber, went on a rampage, defoliating the entire valley and the local economy, heavily reliant on logging, tanked. Everyone left, except the scientist, who turned to making meth.

Sunday Splash Page #281

 

"Marquee Battle," in Journey Into Mystery #85, by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber (writers), Jack Kirby (penciler), Dick Ayers (inker), Stan Goldberg (colorist?), Jon D'Agostino (letterer)

Saturday Splash Page may be done with Thor, but Sunday Splash Page demands its turn at the God of Thunder! The digests of Thor The Mighty Avenger also included his first four appearances in Journey Into Mystery. The book started as a horror title, then shifted to a sci-fi monster of the week theme before Thor premiered in issue #83. Eventually, it was Thor's name atop the cover.

In a lot of ways, it feels like one of the sci-fi monster of the week stories. Race of alien rock-men from Saturn show up with the intent to conquer. All humanity's conventional weapons are powerless. Except instead of their defeat coming at the hands of a scientist or plucky teenager, it comes at the hands of a doctor who finds a walking stick in a cave and gains the power of the Norse God of Thunder.

The next three issues are Thor contending with a brutal Communist general, Loki escaping imprisonment in a tree via liberal interpretation of the terms of his curse and making a beeline for Earth, and Zarrko the Tomorrow Man stealing an experimental cesium bomb to take back to his time and cow everyone in the year 2262 into making him their ruler.

The faux-Shakespearean dialogue and dramatics haven't developed at this point. Thor's speech is still more formal than an average person - Stan Lee's not trying to be hip yet - but it's not the distinctive voice it will be later. In some ways, Thor/Don Blake pull from the Superman/Clark Kent playbook, as Blake tends to be very milquetoast, telling Jane Foster he doesn't read newspapers because they upset him, or claiming he was absent when Thor saved them from jet fighters because he got nervous and fell overboard. At the same time, Blake and Jane don't hesitate to go on a humanitarian mission to San Diablo despite the risk of the "Executioner".

Jane Foster is, well, she's a woman written by Stan Lee in the '60s. She swoons over Thor, she wishes Dr. Blake could be more like Thor (while Blake chortles to himself about what she'd think if she knew the truth). When Loki makes the scene, Jane's first thought is that it's a lovely name, and he seems so dashing and romantic. But, whatever she might think of her boss, Jane went on that humanitarian mission, too, so there's something tough in there.

With almost every page a 7-panel layout, Kirby doesn't really have the room to show off the scale and grandeur he would later. Asgard's barely in these issues, so we get only a glimpse of what he'll eventually make of it. But there are panels where he has enough room, or makes enough room, to really show off Thor's power, or go with a more dynamic layout. Thor leaping into the air, being pulled by Mjolnir right at the reader. Things like that.

Saturday Splash Page #78

 

"Got the Grip," in Thor #156, by Stan Lee (writer), Jack Kirby (penciler), Vince Colletta (inker), Sam Rosen (letterer), colorist uncredited

While my dad's comic collection, or what survived of it to the point when I could find it in my grandmother's basement, leaned more towards DC, there are the scattered Marvel comics among it, including three issues of Thor. Two from the Lee/Kirby era, and one by Lee and John Buscema.

Of the two by Lee and Kirby, you have the penultimate chapter of Thor's first run-in with Mangog, who somehow possesses the strength of his entire race - a billion billion beings - and is hellbent on taking revenge on Odin for wiping them out. Odin's asleep as usual, so it falls to Thor to take his best swing at things.

The other one, sadly is not the next issue, but is probably more important to the lore of Marvel's version of Thor. It's the issue where he brings Jane Foster to Asgard and she freaks out at the weird shit she sees, to the point Odin erases it from her mind and sends her back to Earth. Jane would, of course, get those memories back at some point, and then become Thor herself, and then a Valkyrie, which I think remains her current status.

It's also significant for the fact that when a heartbroken Thor is sent to defeat some multi-limbed monster Odin originally unleashed to test Jane Foster, he gets bailed out by a mysterious warrior. Who turns out to be Sif. When your All-Father chucks one girlfriend out the door, he opens the window for another.

The comics are what I figure most people thought of as "Thor" for a long time. He makes big speeches about never surrendering and fighting on, and shoots lightning at Mangog until the ground beneath his feet heats up enough to become an active volcano (???) Then Mangog just grabs some lava and throws it at Thor and the Warriors Three (with Volstagg in full Cowardly Lion mode and Fandral jumping headlong into things.)

Kirby's going big, and there are some good full-page splashes in the Mangog issue (the colors seem messier on the early Jane Foster issue), but I assume Colletta's erasing backgrounds in a lot of the smaller panels, where it's just a solid block of color behind the characters.

The third one, issue 192, maybe showing the wear in the formula. Thor's stuck fighting "Durok the Demolisher", who is your typical mindless, unstoppable force. A more human-looking Destroyer armor, but less visually interesting than the Juggernaut, and without any capacity for speech. Loki is somehow running Asgard because he's got the "Odin-ring", and Sif is reduced to offering her hand in marriage to keep Loki from killing the Warriors Three when Hogun tries to smash the ring with his mace? Knock it off Loki's finger somehow? I dunno. The issue ends with Balder having Karnilla bring him to Earth so he can summon the Silver Surfer to give Thor a hand. Yeah, it's not great.

It'll Take The Serpent Awhile To Eat All Those Characters

Reading the Justice League portion of Batman Beyond Unlimited #3, I thought it was kind of interesting that during Waller's description of how Kobra plans to use the serpent, as she mentions using the Mother Box to send it to other realities and eventually New Genesis, all the worlds we see were Jack Kirby creations.

It starts with Kamandi and the Serpent coiling its way around what's left of the Statue of Liberty, then Atlas being encircled by it, then OMAC watching it rise from the sea before him, and finally with the Forever People being chased by it.

The Forever People make sense, as that's the panel when Waller mentions the Serpent destroying New Genesis to restart the creation**. Still, it's probably not a coincidence all the others are Kirby creations as well. I mean, it's not as though DC is hurting for other timelines or realities to use. Earth-2, Gotham by Gaslight, Red Son, Kingdom Come, etc.

Waller says the serpent is the Ouroboros, which as you may know, eats its own tail. DC (and Marvel) have a track record of relying on the same old characters without managing to successfully push new ones. And Kirby's characters and ideas are some of the ones that get used the most often, sometimes in ways which don't really do credit to them (Countdown and Death of the New Gods spring to mind as less than spectacular endeavors with the characters). So they get chewed up and spit out in slightly different ways, over and over, and it gets you nowhere. Although that suggests all those characters need to be destroyed, because otherwise no one will ever make anything new.

Or it could be a comment on creators' right. DC (and Marvel) don't have a great track record there, either. Their practices give them the majority of the control (and profits) related to characters, but also create an atmosphere that discourages people from adding their best ideas to the DCU or Marvel Universe. Which is how you wind up with everyone just dragging out the same old characters over and over again, while saving their own for some time or publisher where they can get what they feel is their fair share of the pie for what is their work. Maybe that's more "cutting off the nose to spite the face" than "eating your own tail".

* Side note: I like that in each panel we're the Serpent is closer to us, which lets us see less of it until the last panel, where we see its fangs and gaping maw chasing the Forever People. The bit of its body we see actually lines up perfectly with a section of it that's twisting out of the ocean in front of OMAC in the prior panel.

** Which makes sense considering the 4th World emerged from the ashes of the 3rd, so naturally the 4th would have to go if you want to bring about the 5th, right?