This next issue of THOR got back to the business at hand after four months of fill-ins. It kicked off a long, sprawling saga in which writer/editor Roy Thomas attempted to integrate Jack Kirby’s Eternals into the continuity of the Marvel Universe. This is akin to trying to drive a square peg into a round hole as Kirby didn’t consider his series as taking place in the MU at all (despite a couple of editorially-mandated references to SHIELD and the like in its pages) so it wasn’t designed to do what Roy was trying to do. This saga ran all the way up through THOR #300, though with some assorted side-business along the way, and represents an almost interminable period for the title, at least in my opinion. In fact, I stopped buying THOR during this time, but came back a month later on a week when there were few comics I wanted to buy and the spinner rack still had both issues I had missed on it. So right off the bat, this isn’t my favorite era on the series by any stretch.
This storyline had actually kicked off in an earlier THOR ANNUAL, but I was unaware of that fact (despite it having been mentioned in prior issues.) As I’ve said before, my local 7-11 had stopped taking double-sized comic books, which meant that I missed all of this year’s Annuals as well as books like the giant-sized FANTASTIC FOUR #200. This decision would eventually reverse itself, but it was an unknowing plague upon my house at the time. While there were other outlets where I could find comics in those days, none of them were within the area in which I was permitted to roam. So I was at the mercy of any shopping trips my family might take to such outlying area. I took advantage of those every chance I could, but they simply weren’t reliable.
The story opens with an Earthbound action sequence just to keep the story grounded and to provide the requisite amount of Marvel-mandated fighting. For some reason, Thor is in Mexico City, and he waylays a group of criminals right out of central casting in the middle of a heist. But they’re Mexican criminals, as you can tell due to the fact that they speak Spanish. Having concluded this extraneous interlude, the Thunder God hies himself to a nearby mountaintop, where he intends to commune with his father Odin, who is off in Asgard. Previously, upset at the All-Father’s inscrutability, Thor turned his back in Asgard and exiled himself to Earth. But he’s still got a bunch of questions to which seemingly only Odin can provide the answers.
Odin’s kind of pissed that his son has called him up only to rail at him, but it’s clear that he’s hiding things as well. Thor makes it a point here to state that Odin has never told him who his mother is, a new bit of information that would become crucial to the story to come. The Thunder God is bothered by the recent sacrifices asked of both Balder and the mortal Red Norvell, who had perished in the guise of Thor so as to stave off Ragnarok. What’s more, Thor’s memory of an earlier adventure (which took place in that aforementioned Annual) had been returned to him by Mimir, and so he asks Odin for information concerning the Eternals and the Celestials, especially as regards their fifty-year judgment of the Earth. This isn’t a topic that Odin chooses to get into, so after some brief verbal sparring, he hangs up on his son.
With that, Thor redoubles his vow to disown his sire and resolves to get to the bottom of these mysteries himself. So he heads towards the Andes Mountains, where his earlier Annual adventure told him that the Celestials reside. And indeed, he locates the domed domicile of the Sky-Gods in the area, shrouded by concealing clouds of smoke. But even employing all his might and that of his hammer, the Thunder God can’t penetrate the city’s concealing dome and gain entrance for himself.
Meanwhile, a passenger jet that Thor passed earlier while on his way to the Andes winds up stumbling across one of the Celestials, Gammenon the Gatherer. Driven by curiosity, the Celestial reaches out and snatches the plane out of the sky, causing panic and terror among the passengers. Thor becomes aware of this situation, and this provides the pretext for another battle sequence, as he attempts to rescue the plane from Gammenon’s crushing grip.
But things do not go the Thunderer’s way, and he finds himself effortlessly brushed aside by the silent Space-God, who thereafter strides to the base of the Celestial’s domicile and enters it wordlessly, carrying the plane and all of its passengers with him. And that’s where this outing is To Be Continued. A big chunk of its midsection was devoted to recapping other, earlier stories, which left relatively little room for new material, sadly. Still, artist John Buscema did his usual excellent job, and even the typically-chunky inkwork of Chic Stone seemed to align better with Buscema’s approach here than it often did. So this was a perfectly fine start to the adventure, if not one that was incredibly compelling.
The Hammer Strikes letters page this month included a long letter from Dennis Mallonee, who in later years would become himself a comic book writer and editor, putting out his assorted wares such as FLARE and CHAMPIONS under the Heroic banner. Here, Dennis argues against the very story that Roy has set out upon, integrating ETERNALS into the larger Marvel Universe. But clearly, Roy had already made that choice, so no such missive was likely to dissuade him from it.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
The difference between “Eternals Celestials and Deviants are the basis for our legends, our bogeyman, our myths and religion” and “The Eternals look a lot like the Greek gods but it’s just an amusing coincidence” is not easy to bridge. And they didn’t pull it off.
Also if you’re going to set Eternals in the MU, questioning the Celestials’ genocidal intentions (something some letters criticized in the original run) would seem the right choice. Instead Gruenwald wound up deciding they were so awesome that while we don’t want them destroying Earth, it would be okay if they did because they know best.
That said, as a teenager I was initially intrigued to see them interacting with the regular MU but Roy’s diversion into the Ring of the Nibelungs killed the last of my interest.
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Funny you mentioned that your local 7-11 didn’t carry the Annuals. Similar thing happened to me. I was an avid Avengers fan in 1976 at 9 years old, but somehow I missed Avengers Annual # 6 which was the continuation of the Attuma-Dr Doom storyline. My local 7-11 didn’t carry it and I just never saw it around anywhere. I finally got it as a back issue some time later. It was frustrating to say the least.
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Possibly the only compete series I have (it was hard because of the patchy distribution in the Uk) was the original Eternals plus the Annual. I don’t remember the SHIELD reference but towards the end of that run #14, Kirby introduced the Hulk, except with some meta crossover blurring it wasn’t actually the Hulk , instead a “cosmic powered” recreated version. Was Kirby trying to include it due to outside editorial pressure to somehow supposedly increase the title’s appeal , but with reservations, removing the character from any outside continuity?
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I never understood why we needed faux Greek Gods in the MU when you already have the real ones running around.
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Tom wrote: “Dennis Mallonee, who in later years would become himself a comic book writer and editor, putting out his assorted wares such as FLARE and CHAMPIONS under the AC banner. “
Actually it was under the Hero Comics and Heroic Publishing banner. Which would also publish “Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt,” written by Roy Thomas.
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I enjoy seeing vintage John Buscema pages. His Thor is one of the definitive versions. His poses conjure up classical art styles. Inherent power and nobility in the faces and figures. At this time at Marvel, I don’t think there was any other artist to draw Thor better than (or as good as) John Buscema.
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There were parts of this storyline I enjoyed, and some of the attempts at weaving the various mythologies together were clever — for instance, the truce between the gods and the Celestials explaining why the former had (mostly) withdrawn from directly interfering with human affairs. And Thor’s mother being you-know-who explaining why he was exempt from that restriction. But ultimately, yeah, there’s no getting around the fact that Kirby’s space-gods make no sense in a universe where the mythological gods are real.
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( marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Celestials )–whoever wrote Avengers Vol.8 #5 clearly never bothered to pick up any Official Handbook otherwise he never would have come up this this REDUNDANT explanation for Earth’s Superhumans ( “one Celestial came to Earth 4 billion years before the other Celestials and died. Its body fluids spilled into the planet, changing it forevermore ( According to Loki, it is because of this “giant cosmic accident” that Earth is so unique ( Unless you could that unnamed planet of mutants the original X-Factor ended up on –X-Factor#43-50 ) among all the planets in the universe for being such a hotbed for super-powered madness ) — before all this is written on the site it mentions something in the Official Handbook ( that the Celestials after creating the Eternals & Deviants then inserted a LATENT GENE into baseline humanity that CAUSES MUTATIONS ( MY examples – Like the Fantastic Four ( mutates ) & X-Men ( mutants ) ). Plus the Eternals should have been revealed to be the Roman Gods.
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OTHER HOTBED OF ALIEN SUPERPOWERED MADNESS: Unlike the Kryptonians/Daxamites the Dakkamites ( Wundarr’s people ) gain different secondary powers along with their massive strength ( once exposed and mutated by Earth’s sun ) — Dakkamite Elect [ Quasar#14 ( September 1990 ) Hyperion said it was a long time since he got to cut loose while fighting the Elect ] & the Axi-Tun ( Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ( Death, Famine, Pestilence & War ) [ Giant-Size Fantastic Four#3 ( November 1974 ) ] & Star-Gods ( Loga, Brunnhilde, Donar & Froh ) [ Invaders#1-2 ( August-October 1975 ) ] ). Probably could have included Arcturan ( Starhawk ‘s people ) mutants had they not been made lame and not like Earth mutants like the ones in X-Factor were. Let’s not forget the Skrull mutants.
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I haaaaated the whole idea of bringing the Eternals into the Marvel Universe, and pretty much still do. But I have to admit, one of my all-time favorite Eternals-connected moments is in this arc — a couple of issues later, when the Reject complains that his human-guise clothes don’t fit, and Thena tells him that they’re a mental projection, so if they don’t fit, he’s doing it to himself. A great bit with my favorite of the Eternals cast.
This issue, however, also has a moments that annoyed me way back when: Thor tells the Mexican bank robbers that he doesn’t speak their language, but he can figure out their intent pretty well. And it had been only fairly recently, in a THOR Annual, that Roy had established that the gods understood all Earthly tongues. Oops!
kdb
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Don’t forget Thor understands alien languages too, unless they were all using Universal Translators.
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“I haaaaated the whole idea of bringing the Eternals into the Marvel Universe, and pretty much still do.”
As much as I admire Kirby for reimagining Circe/Sersi as a heroine rather than a spiteful witch, she’s simply too powerful a character to accommodate easily in the MU. What’s to stop her from simply turning Ultron into stone, Doctor Doom’s armour into cardboard, and every other villain into a pig? Thomas at least tried to get around that by saying she’s actually casting super-convincing illusions in the manner of Mastermind and Princess Projectra.
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Oh my god but I loathed this ‘epic’. Sadly, I hadn’t licked my completism yet so I was stuck reading it all. The one thing I did like was Ereshkigal, her design and characterization. That’s it. Eternals did not belong in the MU nor stories based on Wagnerian opera. How much good will built from years as Marvel’s #2 man did Thomas flush down the toilet with this? I was a middling fan of the man (I started reading comics around the time the Defenders were formed so I hadn’t read his classic stuff) but this started me being choosier reading his stuff. I do kind of wish the Defenders writers of the time had played up Val’s connection with Thor. It could have propelled her from C or D level hero to B if done right.
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I routinely bought Kirby books when he returned to Marvel in the 70’s, and even his Captain America seemed disconnected from regular Marvel continuity. When other books like Thor started integrating Kirby’s later work into the MU (with some effort) I recall at the time thinking it was due to Kirby’s work being odd and old-fashioned that it was not “in tune” with the regular MU from the get-go… as opposed to being his singular creative vision where he wanted to build from scratch again.
John B does a great Thor… but this would have probably worked better if Kirby plotted and drew it. Though I guess that misses the point.
I was buying Thor off and on during this period. I generally preferred him on Earth and with the Avengers.
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I didn’t read Thor back then- I picked up #300, had NO idea what was going on, and didn’t pick up Thor regularly until years later.
“Interminable” is the perfect adjective for these books. I read the run later, and still can’t figure out why Roy decided to write the stories he wrote. I think he thought he was making great comics by using the Ring of the Nibelung material, but these are some of the most lifeless Marvel comics I’ve ever read.
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Double size issues and annuals were missing from the UK until around 1982. One or two would slip through. So annoying.
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