Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor, Vol. 1 by Stan LeeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
When Dr. Donald Blake strikes his cane upon the ground, he becomes Thor, God of Thunder!
Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor, Volume 1 contains the Thor stories from Journey into Mystery #83-100. I nabbed this for around $20 after compulsively watching it for a year or so.
I'm not going to sugar coat this one. Jack Kirby's art was the best part of this and it's not Kirby's best work. Not only that, only about a third of the book features Jack Kirby's pencils. The rest are by Joe Sinnott, Don Heck, and Al Hartley. While Sinnott's art is up to the task, the Al Hartley issue has terrible art and Don Heck's issues are lackluster.
The Tales of Asgard segments near the end of the volume hit at future Thor greatness but the stories flounder before then. Other than Loki and Radioactive Man, Thor's enemies seem beneath him. You don't use a shotgun to kill a mosquito, after all. I like a snake-themed villain like Cobra but for Daredevil, not for a demigod. I'm not even going to get into Carbon Copy Man or the Stone Men of Saturn.
I get the feeling Stan Lee said "How about a God for a main character?" and didn't think much beyond that. Aside from the Tales of Asgard segments, these are pretty pedestrian super hero stories for the time period, complete with the unrequited love between Donald Blake and Jane Foster.
I'm giving Marvel Masterworks: Thor volume 1 a 3 but mostly because of the Jack Kirby art. This volume nicely illustrates how the Marvel Universe probably wouldn't have survived the early years without the contributions of The King.
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