BHOC: THOR #279

Boy, it’s hard to believe that the scantily-clad woman strung up on the center of this THOR cover will one day wield the hammer herself and become the title character. But such are the ways of time and comic books. And female imperilment was a leaned-upon trope in the 1970s when it came to selling comic books to young readers, so this image didn’t bat an eye. Today, we might think twice. Still, it’s a nice enough piece by Dave Cockrum and Joe Sinnott, with Sinnott giving the work a slick finish that typically eluded this series.

After getting the ship righted over the course of the past couple of issues, editor Roy Thomas seems to hit a bit of a rough patch here, leading to a succession of fill-in issues and dogleg storylines, losing any driving momentum the series had built up. This was likely due to Roy having relocated to the West Coast from the East–an operation that took him some time. Some of the stories in this run were fun, or at least amusing, but it can’t really be said that anybody was especially giving the book their best. This issue was written by Don Glut, a science fiction author who’d been picking up a lot of work at that moment as Roy’s fill-in guy. And the artwork was by Alan Kupperberg, who seemed to be turning up just about everywhere in a fill-in capacity, his rubbery, squishy figures and unconvincing action sequences doing none of those titles any big favors. Still, a new issue made it to the stands, and it wasn’t an unannounced reprint, so there’s that.

The entire story is an extended flashback to an unrevealed episode from Thor’s past. As it opens, Thor sees a pair of pedestrians who resemble his old mortal love Jane Foster and her replacement beau Don Blake lookalike Keith Kincaid. This was likely intended to actually be Jane and Keith when this story was first plotted, but by this point Jane’s essence had been merged with that of Sif, so Glut needs to hand-wave away these streetwalkers being them. Still, this gets Thor to reminiscing to himself about a situation that happened in his past. Both he and Jane Foster found themselves drawn to a wooded area on the outskirts of Manhattan, where the ground opened up and swallowed up Jane. The Thunder God smashed his way in pursuit of the fallen mortal woman.

Digging his way into the Earth, Thor finds himself not in the Subterranean kingdom of the Mole Man but rather in Hades, the underworld ruled by his old foe, the Olympian God Pluto. The Stygian Pluto seeks revenge for Thor having cast him back down into Hades, and with the assistance of the seemingly ever-present Loki, Pluto’s intent on getting his revenge on. Not only has he chained jane up above a lava pit, but he’s also brought Ulik, the champion of the trolls, into his domain with the intent of vanquishing the Son of Odin.

This is easier planned than done, but it does provide a pretext for a battle that’ll carry the story through the remainder of the issue. Not entirely sure where he is or why he’s been brought here, Ulik is certain of one thing: he does not like the Thunder God, and rushes to the attack. Pluto, for his part, says that he’ll hand over Jane to whichever of them proves triumphant–not that either combatant really needed that additional spur to battle. So fight, fight, fight they do.

The fight goes on for a while, with neither side gaiing the upper hand, until Pluto begins to grow frustrated with the entire process. he muses out loud that perhaps he should have chosen a more powerful cat’s paw than Ulik. Oops–Pluto didn’t think about how the murderous troll might react to being called a pawn, and so unsurprisingly, Pluto becomes the target of Ulik’s rage in that instant. Thor uses the distraction to snatch Jane down from the ceiling, but he also reasons that, should Pluto perish at Ulik’s hand, they’ll have no easy way to get back to Earth.

Consequently, Thor zaps Ulik with a shot from his hammer, one that teleports the raging troll to the chambers of Loki, the other malfeasant in this plot. Which raises the question: if Thor can transport Ulik to Asgard, shouldn’t he be able to do the same for himself and Jane? Ah, well, why trifle with such details, the story is almost over, as the beaten Pluto restores Thor and Jane to their rightful place on Midgard, and the two part on friendly terms. Back in the present at the end of the framing sequence, Thor muses to himself essentially that that sure was an adventure he had, and the issue wraps up, without any particular point but with 35 cents solidly earned.

The Hammer Strikes letters page this time out features a missive from Cat Yronwode, who would go on to be a prime editorial voice at Eclipse as well as an authority on the works of Will Eisner. It also includes a more formal statement from Roy Thomas about the recent problems with letters pages being missing from issues and swearing that this problem has now been rectified–so readers shoudl keep on writing in.