WC: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #123

This was the final issue of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, and it was a story that I’d read before, when it was published years earlier in SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION. Nevertheless, i was still happy to get the original printing, which my circle of comic book readers all considered more valuable and “real” than a reprint title. This issue came out during the period in which Marvel’s quality level began to skyrocket, after Jack Kirby had been given a small raise that allowed him to make his monthly needs by focusing more on fewer overall titles. This was also around the time that the experiment that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had tried in the Hulk strip in TALES TO ASTONISH, turning it into a long-running serial, was applied throughout the line. Now, Kirby’s imagination could run wild and he didn’t have to wrap up adventures in just one or two installments. They could go on indefinitely–and did.

This issue is a good example of that process in action, because on the one hand it’s the wrap-up to a conflict that’s been the backbone of several recent issues. At the same time, it sets up the next big opponent the Thunder God will be facing next time out, while also keeping some plates spinning on some other subplot activity that will come to the fore issues later. While these are still action-oriented stories, they felt like they had a lot of levels to them, a greater amount of depth and sophistication than anything that had come before. Every strip became an ongoing soap opera, and readers came back as much to see what was going to happen in the characters’ lives as to read about whatever monster or super villain they happened to be trading blows with this month.

The story opens with Thor fulfilling his promise to reporter Harris Hobbs, who has bedeviled him in recent issues, to show him the glory of eternal Asgard. But the real reason that Thor is journeying there is in pursuit of his enemy the Absorbing Man, who is even now accosting All-Father Odin within his throne room. You would think the big guy would have no trouble polishing off the convict from Earth, but Crusher Creel’s power to take on the properties of anything he makes contact with makes him a formidable opponent indeed. As in the page above, Vince Colletta’s inking on this issue seems thin-lined and rushed to me, and loses some of the power of Kirby’s original drawing.

As this conflict plays itself out, we cut away to a jungle in an unnamed country where Communist troops who have subjugated a local tribe are attempting to bring the tribe’s elusive Witch Doctor to heel. Unfortunately for them, the Witch Doctor happens upon the last enchanted Norn Stone that was dropped during an earlier conflict between Thor and Loki, and the object grants the Witch Doctor incredible power to topple his foes. He’s become an unearthly Demon. Back in Asgard, the Absorbing Man has taken on the properties of Odin’s own power and threatens to absorb all of Asgard. To safeguard the Realm, Odin relents, and at this moment Loki steps forward and reveals that he has been the true power behind the Absorbing Man all along. Odin surrenders his Scepter of Power to Loki, who immediately has to wrestle the Absorbing Man for possession of it.

Quick pause for a pretty cool house ad, one that spotlights both the first appearance of Black Bolt of the Inhumans in FANTASTIC FOUR and also the inaugural issue of MARVEL COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS, which will reprint the earliest Marvel stories for readers who came to the company later on and missed them the first time. This was all part of creating the impression that each Marvel release was just one piece of a larger tapestry that played out across the entire line; the story of the Marvel Universe, where events in one old story might become important in a later one in another book entirely. This caused devoted fans both to start picking up more and more new titles and to seek out back issues so that they could get up to speed with the ever-expanding Marvel mythos.

But this is all a sham, Odin’s power resides within himself, not the staff, and he causes both enemies to adhere to the rod before casting them away into orbit around the cosmos, an exile from which they’ll never return–until Lee and Kirby need an opponent for Thor again! In the aftermath, Odin is pretty riled up that Thor has brought a mortal to Asgard and orders the Thunder God to remove Harris Hobbs back to Earth. Hobbs hasn’t gotten any photographs or recordings of what he’s seen, so the whole trip has been a bust for him. Meanwhile, on Earth, having driven the Communist army away, the enraged Witch Doctor also exercises his power on his fellow tribesmen to make them fall in line. He’s becoming a bit drunk on power. And the story ends with Thor and Hobbs arriving back on Earth–with a collision with the Demon promised in the immediate future.

In between the lead and back-up features we get the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, which has now evolved into its almost final form as a place to plug upcoming Marvel releases and anecdotes about the people who create them. It’s where the Mighty Marvel Checklist will live going forward, creating more space for actual fan mail on the letters pages. And it continues to list 25 members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club each and every issue.

The back-up TALES OF ASGARD feature devotes two pages of its five-page running space to cut away from Thor and Loki and their fellow imperiled Argonauts to instead focus in on Odin back at home base. The All-Father witnesses dire portents of impending Ragnarok play out in the clouds before him, images that have something to do with the quest he has sent his two sons on. While it was a key component of the actual Norse myths, this was I believe the first time Ragnarok was talked about within the THOR series proper, and it was quickly established as a doomsday that must ever be avoided, in which all the Gods and also mankind will surely perish.

Meanwhile, the Pillars of Utgard that the Argonauts are sailing into turn out to be the twin limbs of a colossal stone dragon, which Balder’s furious horn-blowing has awakened from its slumber. The crew is in a state of wild panic, their fate seems sealed as their vessel sails directly into the beast’s jaws. But then, Balder toots his horn once more, and the sonic waves shatter the stone dragon, thus saving the ship. This all happens pretty abruptly (and in another page that feels as though Vinnie inked it with a single pen line in short order) as too much space in this outing has been spent on building up Ragnarok.

And the issue closes with the usual single-page The Hammer Strikes letters page, which includes a blurb about the next issue that is largely devoid of any details. This makes one wonder whether, at the time when Lee wrote this blurb, he didn’t have any idea what Kirby was going to do next. Either way, he was expert in making even that nothing seem pretty electrifying and an event to look forward to.