THOR AND HERCULES, SIDE BY SIDE

This weekend’s light-hearted and escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the Marvel Comics run in which Hercules and Thor fought side by side against assorted menaces.

Previously I examined the first encounter between Thor and Hercules as well as Hercules’ first period as a member of the Avengers.

THOR Vol 1 #221 (March 1974)

Title: Hercules Enraged

Villains: Ares and Pluto/ Hades

Synopsis: In Asgard, the Valkyrie named Hildegarde tells Thor that via Odin’s magic implements she saw her missing sister Krista trapped in the Greek pantheon’s Netherworld being used as a slave by Pluto and Hercules.

The furious Thor travels to Mt. Olympus to demand answers. He encounters his former ally Hercules and when Herc says he doesn’t know anything about Krista, Thor attacks him in a berserker rage.

The lengthy battle between Hercules and Thor ends when Zeus abruptly appears. Zeus tells them that Pluto is indeed holding Krista captive in the Netherworld, but his ally was really Ares disguised as Hercules to incriminate the demigod in the eyes of Asgard.

THOR Vol 1 #222 (April 1974)

Title: Before the Gates of Hell

Villains: Pluto and Ares

Synopsis: Zeus sends both Hercules and Thor to Hades together to try saving Krista. They must first fight their way past Pluto’s hordes of monstrous creatures.

At last they defeat them all and come face to face with Ares. The villain reveals that his alliance with Pluto is about getting revenge on Thor and Herc over the heroes defeating them in previous encounters, including when Ares conquered Mt. Olympus and led its legions in a bid to take over Earth and Asgard in Avengers #100 (June 1972).

Hercules and Thor defeat Ares then face Pluto himself. 

THOR Vol 1 #223 (May 1974)

Title: Hellfire Across the World

Villain: Pluto

Synopsis: Pluto sics legions of bat-monsters and snake-women on Thor and Hercules while he flees with Krista. Eventually, our heroes have laid low all of the creatures.

Next, Odin lets them know that Pluto has fled to New York City with Krista as his hostage. Herc and Thor pursue him there to try to free Krista from his clutches.

Pluto is defeated and driven back to the Netherworld, but Krista, from the strain of her ordeal, collapses.

THOR Vol 1 #224 (June 1974)

Title: No One Can Stop the Destroyer

Villain: The Destroyer

Synopsis: Thor and Hercules get Krista to the closest hospital. Her condition is so serious that she needs the expert medical skills of Dr. Donald Blake. Thor reveals to Hercules that Blake is his secret identity, then turns into the good doctor to save Krista’s life.

In the days ahead, Dr. Blake restores Krista to health. Meanwhile, Professor Clement Holmes has brought the dormant body of the Asgardian creation called the Destroyer to a New York City museum from the Peruvian archeological site where it was found after its most recent defeat at Thor’s hands.

Holmes made the mistake of getting too close to the Destroyer, which act transferred Holmes’ spirit into itself to regain its ability to move. The Destroyer goes on a rampage around the city, but Hercules arrives to fight it.

With Krista recovering just fine now, Donald Blake turns back into Thor and flies off to help Hercules, since he has seen news coverage of Herc’s ongoing battle with the Destroyer.

Thor tells Hercules to go find the body of its animating soul – Professor Holmes – while he fights the Destroyer. At length, the Asgardian creation manages to seize Thor’s hammer Mjolnir from him. Back then, being without his hammer for sixty seconds would cause Thor to turn back into his weak mortal body of Donald Blake. When that happens the Destroyer can kill him easily.

THOR Vol 1 #225 (July 1974)

Title: The Coming of Firelord

Villain: Firelord

Synopsis: Naturally, Thor gets his hammer back in time to prevent turning back into Dr. Blake. He then resumes fighting the Destroyer until Hercules arrives with Professor Clement Holmes’ body.

The professor’s spirit abandons the Destroyer armor and reenters Holmes’ body, rendering it motionless again.

As time moves on, Krista continues to recover while Thor/ Dr. Blake and Hercules check up on her daily. Meanwhile, a being called Firelord arrives on Earth and enters Krista’s hospital. People attack Firelord, who injures them, prompting Hercules to fight him.

Amid the resulting chaos, Dr. Blake gets separated from his walking cane that he needs in order to change back into Thor. He manages to find it and slams it into the ground, transforming him into Thor and the cane into Mjolnir.

Thor joins Hercules in fighting Firelord, who eventually reveals that he is the latest herald of Galactus. He has summoned that devourer of worlds to come to Earth.

THOR Vol 1 #226 (August 1974)

Title: Who Stands with Galactus?

Villains: Galactus, Firelord and Planet Ego

Synopsis: Having completed summoning Galactus, Firelord refuses to answer any questions and flies off. A nearby reporter has overheard Firelord, Thor and Hercules discussing the fact that Galactus is on his way.

That reporter runs with the story in the Daily Bugle, unleashing a panic, since the public assumes that this time it’s possible Galactus will succeed in feeding on the Earth, killing all life on it. When Galactus arrives, the world is surprised to see that he lands near where Thor and Hercules have been waiting for him.

The Big G. explains that he instructed Firelord to summon him when he had made contact with Thor – getting Hercules, too, was just a bonus. Galactus tells Herc and Thor that the living planet Ego has broken free of the Black Galaxy, where Thor and Galactus had trapped Ego.

Galactus had tried feeding on Planet Ego once again but Ego, clearly insane now, overcame Galactus and took to feeding on planets himself. The Big G. convinces Thor and Hercules to join him and Firelord in trying to destroy Ego, who, now that he is free of the Black Galaxy, may eventually add Earth to the list of planets he has fed upon.   

THOR Vol 1 #227 (September 1974)

Title: In Search of Ego

Villain: Ego the Living Planet

Synopsis: Thor and Hercules join Firelord and Galactus in the Big G.’s spaceship and head out into space looking for Ego. After an unknown amount of time, they find the entity, who attacks them as they draw near.

Hercules, Thor and Firelord descend to the surface of Planet Ego to do battle with all of the elements, animated nature and humanoid rock-creatures he can throw at them. Meanwhile, as planned, Galactus fights his own way down to the surface at one of Ego’s poles to carry out his own form of attack.   

Thor, Herc and Firelord fight their way through caverns leading deep inside Ego, battling his creations as they go. Thor winds up further ahead than his two allies and comes upon the core of Ego, the Living Planet.

In Ego’s case, the planetary core is an enormous brain-like organ. Thor hurls his hammer at it and energy bursts forth from the brain, knocking out the thunder god.

THOR Vol 1 #228 (October 1974)

Title: Ego: Beginning and End

Villain: Ego, the Living Planet

Synopsis: Thor’s hammer strike accomplished nothing more than unleashing a thought-storm from Ego’s consciousness. That wave of thoughts was powerful enough to render our hero unconscious, while causing him to dream certain of Ego’s memories.

Those thoughts at last reveal Ego’s origin. Long ago, it was a scientist named Egros on a planet which orbited an ancient star. The Stranger, one of the Elders of the Universe, arrived in the distant past and began conducting his latest bizarre experiments on the star.   

NOTE: The Elders of the Universe were the surviving members of the very first intelligent species to have evolved after the Big Bang. (As opposed to Galactus, who is the sole survivor of the pre-Big Bang universe in Marvel cosmology.) Other Elders include the Collector and the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum in the Marvel movies).

Back to the story, the Stranger’s experiments caused that star to go nova. Egros had been working on ways of saving his planet and his people from being destroyed in that nova. He alone failed to reach the interior bunkers he had built and, as a side-effect of the Stranger’s experiments on the star, the energies unleashed managed to merge Egros with every living thing on the planet and even the planet itself, making him Ego, the Living Planet.

Years earlier in the Thor series, Asgardians had removed a chunk of matter from Ego and that segment grew into the being known as Ego Prime (Kurt Russell in the Marvel movies.) Though not even Odin realized it, removing that chunk eventually caused Ego to go mad and begin his destructive rampage.

Thor comes to, and Hercules & Firelord let him know that they have won. While the three of them fought Ego, Galactus used his massive power and his technology to transform part of Ego into virtual thrusters, sending the living planet back into exile.   

Galactus flies Thor and Hercules back to Earth with him and Firelord in the Big G.’s spaceship. By the time they arrive back on Earth, Herc and Thor have gotten to know Firelord pretty well and realize he longs to be free of his servitude to Galactus.

The devourer of worlds refuses unless a suitable replacement can be found. Thor talks Galactus into using a tiny fraction of his energies to revive and animate the Destroyer armor and use it as his new herald.

Galactus agrees, setting Firelord free and taking the Destroyer with him as his new herald, thus preventing the Destroyer from ever threatening the Earth again. (For several years, anyway.)

THOR Vol 1 #229 (November 1974)

Title: Where Darkness Dwells, Dwell I

Villain: The Dweller in Darkness

Synopsis: We pick up an unknown amount of time after Hercules and Thor returned to Earth after their battle with Ego. Thor is back to his usual routine of balancing his superheroics with his life as Dr. Donald Blake.

Hercules has been up to his usual shenanigans around New York City. One night he saves an old man from a mugger only to see the old man kill himself. Herc and Thor check in with the police, who inform them that the old man was just the latest in a growing epidemic of people killing themselves while blaming “the darkness.” 

Thor feels they have no leads, and the brash, reckless Hercules goes off on his own, returning to the old man’s neighborhood. While there he winds up in a fight with a coal-black humanoid figure who is as strong as he is and who can turn intangible at will.

When Thor reunites with Herc later that night, Herc is wild-eyed and lapses into unconsciousness right after whispering “Where darkness dwells, dwell I.”

THOR Vol 1 #230 (December 1974)

Title: The Sky Above, the Pit Below

Villain: The Dweller in Darkness

Synopsis: Thor carries the unconscious Hercules to Avengers Mansion since he, like Thor, has served as a member of the team. Iron Man is on monitor duty that night, so Thor explains the situation.

Iron Man tries the mansion’s Memory Inducer to try to get images of what attacked Hercules, but the demigod awakens, reeling from the images and destroys the machine. Instead, he tells Thor and Iron Man that all he remembers is his battle with the coal-black humanoid called the Dweller in Darkness and being dragged down through the sewers to a realm below.

The sights that Herc saw down there caused him to fight free and flee to the surface on instinct alone. While Iron Man resumes his monitor duties, Thor and Hercules return to the site of the battle with the Dweller in Darkness.

After they descend deep beneath the Earth, both of them are attacked by the Dweller and its subordinate despair entities. Just when it looks like both Herc and Thor will be defeated, Hercules gets the inspiration to push up on the miles of ground, rock, concrete and subways between him and the surface.

Though causing a huge mess in downtown New York, the man-sized hole that Hercules created lets sunlight reach all the way down to where he and Thor are fighting the Dweller and his forces. This defeats the entities, who had started their spree of induced suicides after the public panic over Galactus’ return gave them a foothold in the minds of humanity.

FOR MY LOOK AT THOR AND HERCULES’ EARLIEST ADVENTURES TOGETHER CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT HERCULES’ SUBSEQUENT MEMBERSHIP IN THE AVENGERS CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE FIRST TWENTY THOR STORIES IN THE 1960s CLICK HERE.