Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life (3)--Theology and the Mighty Thor

I couldn't help myself. I went back to Time Machine on Fri. while I had some time to kill before taking the train to Hudson for the weekend--BTW, we still haven't caught all the woodchucks and there are so many freakin' deer now they cross Route 9 with impunity in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. But back to Time Machine. The owner Roger was getting ready to close up--it was 7PM and he closes at 7:30PM on Fridays. One of his regular customers was standing by the register and asked if I minded if he smoked. I said no and started going through the back issues. Blondie was singing Call Me on the loudspeaker--it was an 80s mix. The Tide Is High is my favorite. The customer was telling Roger about the days when Deborah Harry was a waitress and he was one of her customers. I found several Mighty Thors which were in deplorable shape, but those are usually the only kind of Silver Age mags I buy. There were also some Flashes with exquisite Carmine Infantino covers and a few nice Curt Swan Actions and Supermans.

I also snapped up an fairly good Strange Adventures--No. 181 with the title Man of Two Worlds, also the title of DC editor Julius Schwartz's skimpy autobio which I had just finished--and a Mystery in Space featuring Ultra, the Multi-Alien with a coupon cut out of the last page. It didn't significiantly decrease the value since it did not interfere with the story. Anyway, the Flashes were like $10 each and I was not going to spend more than around $20. The beat-up Mighty Thors came in for $3 each, with the Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, the total was $23. I decided to forgo the Flashes, Action, and Superman as too expensive.

All the Thors were drawn by Jack Kirby, king of the comics, and the artist whose work I collect the most passionately. All were from 1967-68 when I was eight and nine. I didn't have these particular issues in my collection then, but some around the same date. In one storyline, Thor loses his god-like powers, except his super-strength, and joins a circus as a strongman. Little does he suspect the evil ringmaster plans to hypnotize him into stealing a fabulously priceless and heavy golden bull. I guess it was the circus strongman angle that attracted my burgeoning gay sensibilities.

Thor # 150 had a detached, ragged front and back cover, but a beautifully detailed rendering by Kirby of Hella, the Goddess of Death, looking like a creation of Christian from Project: Runway with a fantastic flowing cape and amazing mask and headpiece, shooting out in all directions, in dark green. The original owner of this Thor #147 had taken a pen and made Thor blackish-blue and drawn lines in the title letters. There was a stamp on the cover--Oct. 23, 1967. It made me wonder who bought it on that date and how did it get to this shop on 14th Street?

I haven't read all of them, but interesting questions are raised by Thor's deity-hood and that of his father Odin. Were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby saying the Norse Gods were the real creators of the universe and our Christain theology was a myth (at least within the parallel comic universe where Thor was real). Odin is often called All-Father and his home Asgard is referred to as the realm eternal. Odin is all powerful and in Thor #145, he rails like the Old Testament deity--"Odin is a vengeful liege...Odin is an angry liege...Odin is now and forever, supreme! And woe to him who strays from righteousness." But Hercules also makes frequent appearances as does his father Zeus. Who would win in a fight Zeus or Odin. Kirby takes up the mythos again in his series for Marvel The Eternals, with comparable figures of an all-father and a rebellious super-powered son. This theological discussion was debated in the letter pages of Marvel comics. I will have to do more study on this. Maybe I should go on that NPR show, Speaking of Faith.