Four & Thor 10

Note:  Of my three webcomix, two of them, "SDF" and "Truth or Consequences" are on break until after the New Year.  That means that the only new strip will be "Pulp Horrorshow" on Wednesday (and actually, that one's about to wrap up, too).  In the meantime, I may start adding new artwork to the Tumblr just to have something to do.  We'll see.  Oh, and I'm gonna take a slight break from Four & Thor after #11, since I will be wrapping up my coverage of "Essential Fantastic Four" #1.

Fantastic Four #19
Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers/Stan Lee

The Story:  Reed finds some ancient hieroglyphics that depict a blind pharaoh who was cured by Radioactive Herbs.  Obviously, this could help out poor, blind Alicia, so the FF hop on Dr. Doom's abandoned Time Platform, and with Alicia working the controls (she memorized the operation through touch), the FF zap back to the days of Ancient Egypt.  Unfortunately, warriors that don't look like Egyptian warriors attack our heroes.  The FF easily deal with the enemy until, mysteriously, something drains the FF of their strength and renders them feeble.  The FF are brought before Pharaoh Rama Tut, who reveals he lived in the Far Future, but was bored.  Rama found an old time machine left behind by his ancestor (hmmm...wonder who we know who has a time machine...) and used it to create a Time Machine that looks like the Sphinx of Ancient Egypt (why not?).  Rama bounced around time stealing stuff, and eventually crash landed in Ancient Egypt.  The crash blinded him, but the natives healed him with Radioactive Herbs (the herbs being irradiated by the crashing of Rama's own ship...huh?).  Anyway, long story short Rama Tut has a Ray Gun that drains the FF of their wills, and they become slaves.  Reed, Ben, and Johny are put to work, while Sue is outfitted to be Tut's Queen.  Fortunately, the Thing reverts to Ben Grimm (who is unaffected by the Ray, of course), and escapes.  Ben steals the Pharaoh's Gun and zaps Sue, freeing her, before reverting back to the Thing.  Sue zaps Johny, who attacks Tut, who flees.  Sue zaps Ben, and then the Torch finds Reed and zaps him.  With our crew reunited, the Four pursue the Pharaoh, and, as usual, have to overcome a bunch of traps.  Tut eventually escapes using a Time Travel Pod, leaving the Sphinx behind and destroying the guts of the statue to erase his presence in that era.  The Four find the Optic Nerve Restorative (clearly marked on the vial) just in time for the Time Platform to return them to the present.  Unfortunately, Radioactive Items can't travel through Time on Doom's Machine.  So, Alicia has to stay blind.  D'oh!

Notes:  Not much to say.  Crazy time travel fun.

The Art:  Kirby's cover to this issue is one of those Truly Iconic Silver Age Covers.  The heroes in a strange land/time enslaved by a mysterious menace.  This theme was more common of DC (this kinda crap always happened to Superman and/or the JLA), but this is an instance of it happening to Marvel characters.  Other than that, we get a progressively rockier Thing, and Reed turning himself into a Big Wheel and racing through the desert.

Whatta I Think:  This is a very Silver Age Comic.  Crazy, moderately pointless Time Travel.  Gadgets and Traps.  An ending that's kinda "We're back to square one".  Pure Silver Age.  Which is nice.

Fantastic Four #20
Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers/Stan Lee

Story:  Reed's got a meteorite.  Ben rips open the meteorite to reveal an odd organic thing inside.  This has nothing to do with the plot.  Meanwhile, there's an odd glowing ball outside.  Our heroes investigate, but nothing they can do affects the Ball.  Eventually everyone get's pulled inside the Glowy Ball to discover that it's a Gateway to the Watcher's current Hideout.  The Watcher (who isn't supposed to interfere, in case we forgot) warns the FF of the danger of the Molecule Man, a lowly nobody who after an Atomic Accident (damn Atomic stuff) gains the power to manipulate matter at an Atomic Level using his Wand (why does he need a Wand...anyone?).  The FF return to New York to discover that the Molecule Man has taken their home, the Baxter Building, and is levitating it around Manhattan.  MM declares himself ruler of the world.  The FF attack MM, but his ability to manipulate matter allows him to counteract everything our heroes throw at him.  The FF are forced to retreat.  MM puts a giant glass dome around all of Manhattan and declares that no one leaves until the Four are brought to him.  Thus, the FF become fugitives, but receive unexpected aid from the Yancy Street Gang (huh).  The FF hide out at Alicia's place, and Reed formulates a plan.  Reed summons the Molecule Man to Alicia's apartment.  The Four aren't there, but there's some cool FF statues.  MM decides to animate the statues just for the hell of it, but instead he gets zapped with Feedback.  Turns out, the statues were really just the real Fantastic Four hiding under a thin layer of plaster, and that the Molecule Man can only affect inorganic matter.  Trying to use his powers on Organic Matter hurts him.  Before MM can recover, the Watcher's Glowing Ball shows up and sucks the Molecule Man away into... who knows?  The Watcher shows up, declares that he's undone all of the damage MM did, that he's keeping the Molecule Man somewhere safe, and then praises our heroes.  Huh?

Notes:  Okay.  Seriously.  Every time the Watcher shows up, he claims that he CANNOT interfere in the lives of others, but EVERY TIME he shows up he does nothing but Interfere in the lives of others.  In this issue alone he 1) Warns the FF of a dangerous threat,  2)  Fixes all of the damage brought on by said threat, and 3) Essentially becomes Prison Warden for the now defeated threat.  Y'know, I'm starting to think the Watcher is full of Crap.  Other than that, this issue marks the debut of 4th String FF Villain, the Molecule Man, who I'm pretty sure eventually escapes his imprisoning and returns to harass our heroes later on down the road.

The Art:  The Molecule Man himself is somewhat uninspired, but there's some neat stuff in here.  Floating Buildings.  Buildings turned into giant fans.  Floating Magnets stretching Reed to his limit.  A road being manipulated like it's paper (that's a good one).  Sewer Pipes writhing like Snakes.  And Newspaper forming a straight jack around the Invisible Woman.  It's Kirby having fun with Comic Art.  What's not to like?

Whatta I Think:  On the one hand, it's cool to see Jack Kirby having fun with the Molecule Man's god-like powers.  On the other hand, the Molecule Man is kind of a lame villain and the Watcher continues to be the Biggest Liar in Comics History.  So, um, so-so issue.

Journey into Mystery featuring Thor and Tales of Asgard #101
Jack Kirby/George Bell/Stan Lee (same credits on both stories)

Main Story-  Thor is pissed.  The Avengers try to calm him down, but Thor just wants to be left alone.  The Avengers let little baby Thor alone so he can sulk.  Odin gets pissed that Thor's acting like a Bitch and decides to punish him by halving his power, removing his ability to create storms, and barring him from Asgard.  Thor tries to return to Asgard, but Hiemdall says "Sorry, dude".  Thor fights Hiemdall, but with his power diminished, loses.  Loki sees an opportunity, and uses the Well of Time to locate Zarrko the Tomorrow Man.  Loki fixes Zarrko's memory, and Zarrko immediately steals a Giant Mining Robot and goes back in time to the "present".  The Robot wrecks up New York.  Thor tries to stop it, but he's been pussyified and can't.  Zarrko demands that Thor becomes his slave and travel with him to conquer the future, in exchange for sparing the present.  Thor submits.

Tales of Asgard Story-  The forces of Evil are invading.  Young Thor wants to fight, but Hiemdall says "Go away, kid.  This is man's work."  Young Loki shows Thor a hole in the Asgardian defenses (which Loki himself created, of course), and leaves Thor alone to defend it.  Big Surprise, that's where the forces of evil show up.  Thor fights valiantly alone, but is overwhelmed and nearly turned into a tree.  Luckily, Odin and the rest of the gang show up and save Thor's bacon.  Thor feels bad that he was almost defeated, but Odin is proud that his boy was able to hold the line.  In the end, we see Thor continuing to try to lift Mjlnor. 

Notes:  This issue is the First of Many, Many Times where Odin punishes Thor by taking away a portion of his powers.  And, just like every time, a terrible menace shows up that Thor can't defeat without his full powers.  Other than that, there's a bunch of villains that pop up in Tales of Asgard, but I didn't write them down in my notes.  Oops.

The Art:  Kirby's back full time, but I'm not thrilled with George Bell's inks.  In the main story we get a giant robot ripping up buildings.  That's kinda cool.  The back up story not only features a bunch of cool monsters, but a really swinging Kirby style melee.

Whatta I Think:  Well, it's nice to have Kirby on both stories, but Zarrko the Tomorrow Man sucks.  Lame villain, and a weak story, honestly.  On the other hand, Tales of Asgard continues to steal the show.  So that's nice.

JIM feat. Thor & TOA #102-
Jack Kirby/Chic Stone (Thor Inks)/Paul Reinman (ToA Inks)/Stan Lee

Main Story-  With Thor's power, Zarrko conquers the future.  But he needs to conquer the Master Machine.  Thor and Zarrko go to the Master Machine and beat a bunch of traps.  Having got Zarrko to the Machine, Thor decides he's served the terms of his Oath, and attacks Zarrko.  Zarrko tries to fight back, but c'mon.  Thor beats Zarrko.  Moving on.

TOA Story:  Thor is now 18 (and looks like regular Thor) and seeks out the 3 Fates to see if he'll ever win the Hammer.  They say he must Face Death to get it.  Thor goes home and tries in vain to lift the hammer.  An injured Balder shows up and says his sister Sif has been captured by Storm Giants.  An enraged Thor lifts the Hammer over his head and set out to rescue Sif.  Thor smashes some Storm Giants and fights his way to the court of an Evil King who wants to be a god.  The King confesses that he gave Sif to Hela, Mistress of the Dead, in exchange for godhood.  Thor goes to Hela and offers himself to her in exchange for Sif.  Hela is floored by Thor's nobility and let's Thor and Sif go free.

Notes:  Nothing worth noting on the main story, but Tales of Asgard features the debuts of Balder, Sif, and Hela.  Honestly, I couldn't remember whether Kirby introduced Hela to Marvel Continuity or not.  Apparently he did.  Other than that, Balder and Sif both look and act completely differently in this story than they will later.  This is not unusual for this time period.  Note the difference between Hiemdall in his first appearance and how he will look later. 

The Art:  I'm running out of time (gotta get to work), so I don't have time to ramble about Chic Stone's Inks.  I'll have plenty of Kirby/Stone comics to discuss later though, so we'll cover that stuff then.

Whatta I Think:  Same as before.  Lame main story.  Killer back up.