Tag Archives: Thor

March 23, 2024 · 12:03 am

THOR AND HERCULES, SIDE BY SIDE

thor and herculesThis 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.

th 221THOR 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. Continue reading →

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August 22, 2020 · 2:31 am

THE FIRST TWENTY THOR STORIES FROM THE 1960s

The world cannot get enough superhero articles. Readers demanded another one so here is a look at the first 20 stories of the Marvel Comics version of Thor.

Thor 1JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY Vol 1 #83 (August 1962)

Title: Thor The Mighty and the Stone Men

Villains: Kronans (Stone Men)

Synopsis: Brilliant and famous doctor and surgeon, Donald Blake MD, has traveled to Norway on vacation. While he is there an alien race of Stone Men called the Kronans, using Saturn as a staging post, invade the Earth.

The lame (as in limping with a cane) Doctor Blake hides in a nearby cave where he finds a hidden chamber containing an alternate walking stick. An inscription on the cavern wall indicates that the stick can bestow the power of the Norse thunder god Thor.

When Blake fails to move rocks which have fallen across the cave entrance by using the walking stick as a lever, he lashes out in frustration, striking the bottom of the stick against the rocks. This triggers his transformation into Thor while the enchanted walking stick becomes Thor’s legendary hammer Mjolnir.

NOTE: As Thor’s adventures went along, Marvel Comics ultimately decided that Donald Blake really WAS the ancient Norse god Thor, but that his father Odin had wiped his memory and forced him to live as the lame Donald Blake to teach the cocky god humility. The lesson apparently learned, we’re told Odin made Blake take this Norway vacation so he could find the cane/ Mjolnir and return to being Thor in order to save Earth from the Stone Men. 

Back to the story, as Thor, our hero easily removed all the rocks blocking the cave entrance and watched as Earth fighter jets were driven off by the Kronan spaceships, whose force fields protected them from all the Earthlings’ missiles and bombs. Continue reading →

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March 24, 2012 · 4:34 pm

BALLADEER’S BLOG INTERVIEWS PHILIP LEE MCCALL II, AUTHOR OF ING THE VIKING

 Balladeer’s Blog recently got to interview Philip Lee McCall II, best-selling author, reviewer, publisher and imaginist about his latest book, Ing The Viking. McCall’s previous works include The Imaginist and Poisonous Prose: A Limited Collection of Dark Rhymes (2  volumes). 

All of those books are available at Amazon.com, plus McCall has The Imaginist II coming out in just over two months. The time seemed right to try to ride Mr McCall’s coattails to some more blog hits for myself (I’m kidding!) so I sent my private jet to pick him up and fly him to my spacious villa overlooking Japan’s Inland Sea. 

We passed the time trying to spot one of the thousand dragons of the Shinto god Kotohira swimming in the waters below while “PLMII” as he’s called, graciously answered my interview questions. 

Balladeer’s Blog: For the uninitiated could you provide an overview of Ing the Viking’s setting and raison d’etre? 

PLMII: Ing the Viking is an anthology which collects the stories of a fabled Viking’s adventures. I worked with a group of fantasy artists to render art for each tale. I was honored to have the great Larry Elmore not only excited about the project but also provide two images for the book.  This book was definitely a labor of love and homage to both Norse mythology and the Pulp fiction era. There are Continue reading →

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