Silver Age Outtakes: The Origin of THOR!

From Journey Into Mystery #83 (1962),
featuring the Origin of Thor!

Comments

[cinephile]

And the other side of the hammer says, "...Power only truly effective when character written and/or drawn by Jack Kirby or Walt Simonson." (:

[Mark Engblom]

Too true....though I have to say there have been some good runs by other writers/art teams. Some that come to mind are the Roy Thomas and Keith Pollard run (approx. #270 through #300) and the Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz/Joe Sinnott run from the high 300's through the #430's or so. One could argue the latter was nothing more than a pastiche of the Lee & Kirby years....but whatever it was, it was certainly entertaining.

[McRingtail]

I grew up with the DeFalco/Frenze Thor. A great run, though when Thor's alter-ego, Eric Masterson(?), became "Thor" full-time, the series lost me. Visually, along with Simonson and Frenz, I think John Romita, Jr.'s Thor was great.

[Dan Lietha]

To borrow from another ad campain ... PRICELESS!

Good stuff Mark!

[Mark Engblom]

Thanks, Dan! I suspect the gag's been done somewhere else...but it was an idea that amused me...so there you go.

[Mark Engblom]

McRingtail-

Yeah, the Eric Masterson alter ego was an interesting attempt to tie Thor down once again to a human identity....but the domestic drama that went along with it (a divorce/child custody thing) was admittedly not where a high adventure title like Thor should be spending much of its time. Still...the pitch-perfect pastiche of the Kirby art was, in many respects, better than Kirby's original Thor run, since most of those issues were inked by the sub-par Vince Colletta. With the DeFalco/Frenz Thor, we at least got some idea of what it might have been like if Joltin' Joe Sinnott had been Kirby's primary Thor inker.